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Published: November 5th 2008
"Get up - it's quarter to nine!"
My room mate's voices edged its may into my dull mind, stimulating the food part of my brain warning me that, unless I got up quickly, I'd miss breakfast! I'd slept well and leapt out of bed, rushed into the bathroom, washed, dressed, packed my camera, locked away the PC, grabbed a bottle of water and was still downstairs, nine floors below, by 09h00!
Breakfast, as usual when in the Far East, was fresh watermelon and fresh pineapple, followed by coffee, bacon, rice and chilli. Feeling refreshed, I headed into the Sip Sip Bar where we were all to meet for the introduction to the next two weeks.
Our tour leader is ex-military and certainly doesn't take kindly to insubordination. This came across in his opening chat when he commented that our meals would be some Chinese, but mainly Italian, Turkish, Indian and Greek. I queried this and was told in no uncertain terms that I'd come on the wrong tour! I that he shouldn't assume that all wanted to come to the Far East and eat Western food! Fortunately, someone else backed me up but my card was now marked
and later in the day, the two of us renegades declined to eat with the others in Starbucks and, instead, headed for a Chinese Hawker Centre and spent £3.00 each on roast duck with rice and a cup of tea!
Anyway, the day started with us paring up with "walking buddies" (to avoid getting lost!) and taking a walk from the hotel down to the local train station where we all queued to buy a travel card. He'd have probably wanted to have checked that we'd all been to the toilet before leaving, washed our hands, got waterproofs and enough money for lunch! $100 poorer and a small plastic card richer, we made our way down to the platforms, where we boarded a very modern train, waiting behind pristine glass doors. Taking just three stops, we found ourselves in the humid yet cloudy environs of Tsim Sha Tsui and our introduction to Kowloon.
Turning out of the station, we walked up Nathan Road, not taking much notice of the shops and wandered into Kowloon Park. Apparently, this is a landscaped Chinese garden with fountains and birds. I say
apparently because it was just the
comfort stop - some
30 minutes after leaving the hotel! Not having seen Kowloon Park nor Kung Fu Corner, we also didn't see the birds nor the fountains, but exited and headed back along Nathan Road, walking right past the Science Museum and Kowloon Mosque, straight into a modern Shopping Centre! Hovering about the pretty shops for a while, two of us left the group at this point and planned our
emergency escape should it be needed over the coming days and made our way onto the Harbour Front.
A small group of us had seen this area the previous evening in all its floodlight glory. I'm sad to say that, on a humid but cloudy day, it was a big disappointment. However, we carried arriving at the site of the old railway station (which no longer exists) to look at the old clock tower (which was covered in tarpaulin) and other exciting vistas. Having not seen a lot of Kowloon and totally bored by this time, we were given an hour's lunch stop and, as mentioned previously, whilst the others went off for their sausage rolls, my new found friend and I braved the delights of a Hawker Centre, bought two tickets
for a dish of roast duck, queued and went and sat down on the public tables with another Chinese lady. She could not have been more helpful and pointed out to us where we could get authentic Chinese food whilst in Kowloon. Fortunately, most of the centres are near our hotel!
Returning to the group, our tour leader dictated to us that we could get the Number 7 bus back to the hotel from this point - conveniently forgetting to tell us that the hotel provided free transport every half hour!
The afternoon stroll took us on Bus No 1 back to Mongkok and Flower Market Street. For those readers who have experienced the delights of the Singel Flower Market in Amsterdam, don't bother wasting your time coming here. Basically, it's just a row of flower shops, as you'd see on any high street in any city in the world. However, at the end was the promised Nirvana of the Bird Market. This is a purpose built garden where the Chinese can display their own birds and also buy Mynahs, Macaws and other song birds. I have to admit, it was delightful strolling through and being stopped by
local elderly gentlemen eager to show us their own song birds.
The final stop of the day was to the Ladies Market. By this time however, I'd grown weary of window shopping and, checking out the location on the map, headed off into the maze of alleyways on my own to see Hong Kong proper. This was fantastic - no more window shopping or tourist tat, just genuine Chinese stalls selling genuine food and vegetables; little old ladies supported by their little bowed legs, selling their wares in brown bags to other little old ladies whilst their husbands, also supported by bowed legs, looked on! Absolutely delightful!
A slow walk back to the hotel followed this highlight of the day!
I'm now looking forwards to the rest of the holiday where we are going on proper walks around the islands and we have to carry our own lunch. However, I'm a little dubious about not being able to get any food on the islands; I suspect our tour leader really means that we can't buy Starbucks sandwiches!
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