Hong Kong
Hong Kong was one of the places
I’d always wanted to visit, and I was finally there. It was a beautiful area to fly over, I had no
idea there were so many islands. I was very impressed with the public transport
system, everything was fast, efficient, and very clean. In a city with that
many people, I guess it would have to be.
My hotel was right in the middle of a huge market area on Hong Kong
island. The reviews did talk about being next to some fish stalls and the smell,
but I was on the 20th floor so that wasn’t a problem. But just
walking down my street, I did see some interesting meat for sale; half a pig's head,
snouts, ears, testicles and penises. Walking home one day, I saw an eyeball on
the ground. Most of the stalls have animals hanging, not just cut up steaks
like we normally see. This was an eyeball from some large animal, but it almost
looked human. I sure hope it wasn't.
Right around the corner from my hotel I found a really nice little Vietnamese restaurant. I admit I was pretty sick of Thai food by this point, but not Vietnamese, which was my favorite. I went in and ordered my usual bun noodles with beef but when my food came, I had no utensils. They pointed under the table. I couldn't imagine what they were pointing at until the men next to me said chopsticks and pulled out a hidden drawer. What a clever idea. In this drawer they had spoons, chopsticks, napkins, toothpicks; everything you would need for your dining pleasure. I could feel the people around me (all Asian) watching as I attempted to eat my dinner with chopsticks. Bun normally comes with a fish sauce that you pour over the rice noodles, so they aren’t dry and sticky. I discovered that without the sauce, it was just one big glop of noodles and impossible to eat. I thought it must be at the bottom of my bowl and kept stirring till the server came over and showed me a jar on the table. I had no idea they had been watching me that closely. When I looked around, I swear, everyone in the place was looking at me. I guess I wasn’t in a tourist area and as a tall white girl with red hair, I sure stood out. I think they were waiting to see if I could actually eat with chopsticks. Ha I showed them, I'm actually really good at it.
There were a lot of tiny eating places near my hotel, most serving food I couldn’t identify. I didn’t want to just eat at McDonalds, but I was tempted as the food looked very unappetizing. It seemed to be a lot of soup or noodles, but I couldn’t tell what was in it. Some things I could identify? Duck, chicken, and turkey feet, bills, and tongue. I admit I found plenty of American chain restaurants and couldn’t have been happier. Remember in a previous post, I haven’t been back to the US for several years and I miss American food. The best dinner was California Pizza Kitchen. I would have probably eaten there more if not so far away. Even the one time I ate at McDonalds was interesting. Every single person who got fries would roll up the bag so there was a big pocket of air. They would then vigorously shake the bag and slap the sides. This went on for 2 or 3 minutes. It was really loud when everyone around you is doing it. I never figured out why; the fry cook salted and mixed the fries before putting them in the bag, so they weren’t mixing the salt.
Hong Kong is a huge city of course, so I took the hop on hop off bus to get a feel for where everything was. There were several places I wanted to see, and the bus was a great way to reach the areas not right in the city. I will often take the hop on hop off bus and this was by far one of the better tours because it went to so many of the top spots. To catch the tour, I took the ferry to the mainland and arrived at the first stop. I had bought my ticket online, so I had to show my e-ticket for a paper one. When I showed this to the agent, she told me to go back to the main office on the island. I said absolutely not, I’ve taken dozens of these tours and any agent can issue the ticket, that’s why they’re at the main stops. I was quite angry as it was a good 30 to 45 minutes back. We argued back and forth, before she said she had to take a picture of the voucher and the bus was coming. The bus was in fact coming, but in the time she took arguing with me, she could easily have done what was needed. Finally, she told me just get on the bus and redeem your voucher later. Bonus for me, because I didn't redeem it till almost 1 o'clock. That meant I got an extra day, which I took full advantage of. The tickets are good for 24 hours.
As I walked around the city, I passed
many beautiful parks. I saw quite a few
people napping, and not just older folks or the homeless, but businessmen in
suits or well-dressed ladies having a little afternoon snooze under the
trees. Hong Kong has such a reputation
as being overcrowded and very busy. It
wasn’t nearly as hectic as I expected, in fact everyone seemed pretty relaxed. When people walked, even in the business
areas, they seemed to be taking their time and enjoying the outdoors. While there were certainly more high-rise
buildings than any place I had ever seen, there were many trees, parks and
gardens as well. The apartment buildings
were massive complexes, often 4 or 5 buildings together and maybe 25 stories or
more. The architecture was really interesting,
each set of buildings had its own distinctive style and color. The buildings in
the business district were amazing and quite recognizable from pictures I had
seen of Hong Kong.
Day 2 of my bus tour rained all day. It was just a drizzle, but enough to make it unpleasant to be on the top of the bus. Not a good day for pictures either. I basically just rolled around on Hong Kong island. It's amazing to me that the tour company, Big Bus Tours, couldn’t come up with more interesting commentary for their audio. In a short hour-long trip on one line, they repeated the same story at least 5 times. They also repeated information word-for-word, that I heard on some of the other lines. Seriously, in the whole history of Hong Kong, you can't come up with a unique story or anecdote? Not to mention all the time where it's just annoying music and no commentary whatsoever.
I got off at the Aberdeen stop,
and went on a boat ride of what they called a floating village. It wasn’t a
floating village like we saw in Vietnam or Thailand, it was more a bunch of working
vessels. Some were tiny row boats, others were bigger working shrimp
boats, all tied together in the middle of the harbor. Next to them were larger
luxury yachts. A backdrop to all of this were high-rise apartments buildings. Ours was a small boat, room for about 10
people. One lady sat on the empty seat
near the pilot, who was a little old man sitting cross legged on a bench. She
sat down and started filming the harbor. The pilot reached over and slapped her
multiple times, all while yelling at her in Chinese. She glared back at him and
said just a minute and kept filming. He continued slapping her and finally
motions to the steering mechanism, apparently, she was in his way. She sure
took being slapped better than I would have.
Another person got up and went to the front of the boat to take a
picture. He immediately started yelling at her as well. Slapping must be the
norm there, I saw market vendors slapping and grabbing people who walked away
or who made them mad. We rode the boat around
the harbor but didn’t see anything too spectacular till we got to Jumbo
Kingdom. It’s
basically a massive floating theme park with dining, shopping, sightseeing and
cultural attractions. I would like to
have gone back, but just didn’t have enough time.
I went to a small temple that had so much incense burning, the whole place was just a haze. It had some really interesting conical shaped incense burners hanging from the ceiling, kind of like mosquito coils, but they were huge and must have burned for hours. The smell was overwhelming, to me at least. I went to a park across the street for some fresh air and saw an elderly lady and her cat. She had the cat in a carrying case and he did not look happy. It was very warm day, and she had him dressed in a heavy sweater. She took him out and put him in her lap. Like most cats when they're wearing a harness or something, he looked paralyzed and quite miserable. She sat and petted him for the longest time, all the while talking to him and hugging him. It was a little endearing and a little sad at the same time.
I took the funicular up to Victoria Peak, which is one of the most famous spots in the city. As advertised, the view of Victoria Harbor and the city of Hong Kong was spectacular. I was fortunate that the weather was clear that day, I’m told it’s often too hazy for a great picture. There were a lot of hiking trails up there that I would love to have explored, but my knee was just getting back to normal and my next stop was Borneo, so I wanted to be as injury free as possible.
I took a ride on the Central-Mid-Levels escalator, the longest covered escalator system in the world. It is 800 meters (2,600 ft) long and over 135 meters (443 ft) from bottom to top. It connects the Central, SoHo and Mid-Levels districts on Hong Kong Island. As my bad luck would have it, they were doing construction. Of course, I didn’t see any sign telling me this and I only got halfway up before having to walk back down. The escalator only goes in one direction, depending on foot traffic. It was interesting to see the difference in the neighborhoods it connects. Soho, (SOuth of HOllywood Road) is the more touristy area, with lots of restaurants, bars and art galleries. This is where I found the above mentioned hazy temple. As I walked around, I saw some amazing murals painted on the buildings. Central is the business district and where the recognizable office buildings are, like the Bank of China or HSBC. Mid-levels is the affluent residential area, offering amazing views of the city below, yet close to the business district. It’s also worth noting that these wealthy residents are above the smog line and have much better air quality.
There is an iconic picture of Hong Kong that captures how
densely populated the city is, and how colorful and interesting the architecture
is. I made my way to Montane Mansion, apparently
a top photo spot on Instagram. It’s a group
of apartment buildings close together but painted in bright colors. At least, they used to be bright. Now they look run down, the paint was dull,
and the plaster was cracking.
I really loved Hong Kong; the whole vibe was alive and interesting. There were so many places to see and things to do, I could easily have spent a month there. I had this image of a super packed city, with no room to move around, everyone rushing from place to place, expensive, and all concrete buildings. What I found was plenty of green space, friendly people (except for the slapping), some really interesting architecture, and reasonable prices. Most people spoke English, but when I ran into someone who didn’t, there was a kind stranger nearby to help. Unlike many places in Italy for example, everything was clean, there weren’t overflowing dumpsters, and I don’t think I saw any graffiti. I found this amazing for a city so densely populated. It was one of my favorite places on this trip.
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