Eat and hike and eat and hike and eat and hike and sleep

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3am is never a good time to arrive, least of all at a place you've never been to before. Hong Kong's not that bad in that regard: at least there are no touts vying for my tourist dollar, and it feels pretty safe. I take the fast train from the airport to the Central train station on Hong Kong Island. The hard part is trying to orientate myself once I'm out of the station. A maze of barriers, high curbs and stairs awaits me, which is not fun to undertake with too much luggage. As it's the middle of the night, the escalators don't work. Eventually, I manage to cross the very busy street via a pedestrian bridge and find the right bus stop on the other side. When the bus finally arrives, I try to pay using a banknote (HK$), which the bus driver refuses, so I shrug and get on anyway. I don't know if anybody will check if I have a ticket, but I tried to pay, and it's not my fault if the driver doesn't issue change.

Eventually I make it to my host's place in To Kwa Wan, an area on Kowloon peninsula, and give him a missed call as agreed. Unfortunately the door doesn't open, so I try again and wait. I cautiously knock on the door, trying to wake up someone, but not everyone. Finally an Asian girl wrapped in a towel opens the door and lets me in. "Hi, I'm Agnes. You're lucky, I've just come out of the shower and heard you knock." Turns out she's the flatmate of Stefan, my host, who is fast asleep.

After an uneasy few hours' of sleep on the couch, I meet Stefan from Köln. "Oh, I'm so sorry about last night! I woke up at 4am and saw that you rang, so I ran out, but then I saw you sleeping on the couch. Lucky Agnes was up so late." Stefan lives with his girlfriend Carrie in the flat, which consists of three tiny, box-like rooms, a small living room (where the couch is located), a minuscule kitchen, which you have to cross to get to the microscopic bathroom. Room number three would be considered a closet elsewhere, but seeing that this is Hong Kong, where no space is wasted, it seems, Daniel the Aussie lives in it together with his fiancé Corah the Honky.

It's the weekend, so Carrie and Stefan want to go for a hike. I tag along, as do two Ukrainian friends of theirs. A few train and bus rides later we arrive at Shing Mun Country Park. As we hike deeper into the countryside, the landscape becomes increasingly wild. When we finally arrive at Shing Mun Reservoir, a drawn-out body of water in the centre of the country park, I start wondering whether we're still in Hong Kong. Relatively untouched nature was the last thing I expected when I came here. There are even some monkeys in the trees, huddling together as if shocked by our appearance. It takes us a good 4-5 hours to get back to the park entrance.


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The following morning, I take the ferry over to HK Island and wander around. This feels more like the Hong Kong I've grown to expect: skyscrapers, shopping malls, eateries everywhere, crowds of busy-looking people power-walking around while talking on their mobile phones. I do the only sensible thing and immerse myself. I come across a vegetarian restaurant where I feel completely out of place, a lonely gwai lo amidst scores of local families. The extensive menu overwhelms me, and I wish I had a few friends with me so we could order a shitload of dishes to share. I end up ordering some delicious crispy noodles with stir-fried vegetables and a few slices of fake duck on the side.

I find a place that serves desserts, where I get a fabulous something with sago, coconut milk, mango and pomelo. It might actually be one of the best desserts ever. Slightly reminds me of the gula melaka-desserts in Malaysia. Next door I find a large bookshop, where I spend the next hour or so browsing. I can't help it, I always gravitate towards bookshops. Just like in Taiwan, people are reading books standing up, sitting on chairs or on the floor, immersed in literature. They also sell expensive tea and high-class stationery. Afterwards, I head over to Victoria Park for a little stroll. Around a fountain sit throngs of Filipinas as well as Malay and Indonesian women, conspicuous by their presence, some of them wearing hijabs. I'm guessing they must be maids on their free day.


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The morning after a day in Macau (already covered in another blog), I take the bus to Lantau, one of Hong Kong's outlying islands. I do the Cantonese thing and have zhōu (粥, rice congee) for breakfast, hoping fervently that it hasn't been cooked with chicken or any other dead animal stock. I hop on the cable car to Ngong Ping Plateau, where the famous Tian Tan Buddha, the world's largest seated Buddha statue, is located. Luckily for me, I get a gondola all to myself (they fit 17 people each!) for the 25-minute ride. The 360° view from the gondola is quite spectacular, with lush green forests wherever you turn your head, except for the few skyscrapers of Tung Chung, Lantau's main settlement. Beneath the gondola I spot a hiking trail that meanders its way towards the top. I feel I'd rather be hiking up than using the boring cable car together with all the tourists.

Up In Ngong Ping village, the scene resembles a bit of a carnival. I've been pulled into a veritable tourist trap, with souvenir shops next to eateries, and there's even a Starbucks, for those who always must have the exact same shit at any times anywhere they go. Needless to say, you see heaps of hip Westerners sashaying around with their oversized, overpriced take-away coffees. Above all looms the giant Buddha, smiling serenely, better than me at concealing his disapproval.

I climb up the 268 steps for a closer look at the statue. The Tian Tan Buddha is a 34m-tall bronze statue. It weighs 250 tons and was completed in 1993. Unfortunately the weather is bad - it's drizzling and the view from the top is obstructed by thick mist. On a sunny day, the whole hill with the Buddha statue must look majestic. It's still an impressive sight to behold; I especially like the intricate female Buddhist statues making offerings to the Tian Tan Buddha.

Adjacent to the Buddha's hill is Po Lin Monastery, which sports some nice statues as well as a nicely decorated inner courtyard. Even better, it has its own vegetarian restaurant! I order the lunch menu, which consists of rice, a pot of clear soup, a few spring rolls, two types of stir-fried vegetables, and a pot of green tea. It's a simple, but delicious meal, and I wolf it down, hungry from all the fresh air and travelling around.

I've still got the afternoon to while away, so I take the train back to HK Island and hop on a bus to Victoria Peak. By the time I get there, the rain hasn't abated, and you can't see shit-all due to the mist. That doesn't stop me from going on a quick hike. I start with a 3.5km loop that takes me to a viewpoint where in normal conditions you would be able to see the financial district. Despite the rain, I'm thoroughly enjoying the hike, so I decide to go a bit further. I descend on a trail that eventually takes me to another reservoir, not quite as pristine as the one at Shing Mun, but still something for my visual enjoyment. The trail I'm hiking forms part of the 50km Hong Kong Trail, which I should do in total some time. The 10 or so kilometres that I hike bring me through forests, up and down some steep hilly slopes, past several rivulets, and back up to Victoria Peak again.

To wrap up a day full of excitement, I head to famous Temple Street Night Market in Kowloon. The eateries and food stalls there are so ubiquitous that it takes me a long time to choose a place for dinner. In the end, I settle for a Pakistani restaurant, where I eat a delicious vegetable curry with chapathi.


***


The following morning brings me first to the central neighbourhood of Old Wan Chai, where I wander around for a while in search of remnants of the 'old' Hong Kong. A couple of small temples and shrines as well as tiny eateries that seem to not have changed in decades exude that type of atmosphere. I walk past the 'Ghost House', which was used as a brothel by Japanese soldiers during WWII. The two-storey red brick building is in a rather derelict state these days, but one can vaguely discern its former grandeur just looking at the architecture.

I move on to HK's Wholesale District, where traditional herbal-medicine traders are next to dried seafood shops, where you can get any manner of desiccated sea life. I'm not sure what to find more repulsive, the dried seahorses or the dried flying foxes. One of HK's oldest temples, Man Mo temple, is something I simply cannot miss. I must have come on a special day, as the inside is teeming with worshippers lighting joss sticks and praying.

The last thing I must do while in Hong Kong is pay Bruce Lee's statue a visit. It's located on the Avenue of Stars near the waterfront in Tsim Sha Tsui, which is just a short ferry ride away. Hong Kong's version of a Walk of Fame is quite busy this morning. Alas, there's one attraction everybody crowds around, and of course it's Bruce Lee. His grand memorial figure was unveiled in 2005, more than three decades after the martial artist's untimely death. I pay my respects and ask some young Mainlanders to take my picture, which is not that easy, as other people keep pushing in to have their picture taken. I just roll my eyes and pretend to roundhouse kick them away, which greatly amuses the onlookers, for some reason. Hey, I was being serious!

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Photos

Nina Towers
319.8 m

Bank of China Tower (centre)
367.4 m

Anti-Falun Gong propaganda
Strange they don't have that in Taiwan...

Comments

[samuel david]

Good one
Hi- This is a good and well written blog. Enjoyed it.