Exploring the City

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So some thoughts on Hong Kong...

This place is the most developed metropolis I've ever seen. The city itself is an island, but beautifully developed areas stretch far out, all the way to tai wai, near sha tin, where I am with Johnny. The metro is gorgeous, with every station having glass walls covering the tracks like you see in airports. Travel on the metro is cheap (I've been all over the thing and haven't yet spent $10US), with prices depending on both where you enter and exit, and the metro card works like a debit card for buses, taxis, ferries, and shops.

I've often thought Hong Kong reminds me of Mumbai because of the asian tropical environment, though its mostly a lot cleaner than Mumbai. Nobody I've met here speaks English though, except for Johnny's friends from international school, the occasional group of young students, upscale vendors, and white tourists. There is a fair amount of English writing on street signs and advertisements though, along with traditional chinese characters, which makes practicing reading quite easy for me.

Yesterday we had planned to go to Victoria peak, a mountain on the Hong Kong island that is supposed to have a spectacular view of Hong Kong. However, pollution from China, as well as general cloudiness made it almost impossible to see Hong Kong just across the harbor from Kowloon in the morning, and the queue for the ride up was surprisingly long, so instead me and Johnny walked around town, to a bird sanctuary first, then around a park with the most amazing running water displays everywhere, then towards midtown where we saw shops and grocery stores and markets selling fish that were still flopping around in bins.

Johnny's dad treated us both to lunch at a fantastic Japanese sushi place, with a conveyor belt carrying sushi in front of you for selection, and a dazzling menu. There were some very attractive Chinese women having lunch with dates there, and me and Johnny argued over the merits of one particular Chinese girl, who I thought was beautiful but he gave a 5 on 10. We also argued over the gold standard for men, whether that be George Clooney or Brad Pitt (which came up because there was a Brad Pitt roll).

That evening Johnny's dad treated us yet again to dinner at a Szichuan restaurant, an area of China apparently renowned for spicy food, hot women, and pandas, which sounds like asian paradise to me. The dishes we had were huge bowls of red hot and bell peppers from which you had to pick pieces of spicy hot fried chicken and frog, and cashews. That was the first time I had eaten frog, and quite frankly, it tasted like chicken but better. By the end though the spices and strange food were getting to me and I had to force myself to stop eating.

I believe I mentioned before that I bought a BenQ netbook. Well, it isn't booting, and the vendors didn't give me an operating system disk, so my main plan today is to take it back, with the receipt, and get it working, which will allow me to sucessfully skype with everyone and be a little more on the move without carrying around a 17-inch screen. The store was at sham shui po, so perhaps I'll explore there afterwards. It's still cloudy today so I don't think Victoria peak will be worth the trip, and Ocean Park is an amusement park I'd also like to go to, but it requires a full day, so not today.

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