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Published: August 15th 2007
Accidentally Ending Up in Hong Kong
Three Austrians kidnapped me. Honest. Three big ones too, I swear one of them was at least half my size! They tricked me into getting into their van with candy and tricksy words. Ok, maybe the van was a bus, and maybe they didn't own it. Ok, alright, the candy was actually a beer which I had asked for, and I suppose the tricksy words were more along the lines of "you should come to Hong Kong, it'll be fun". Nevertheless, I maintain that I went to Hong Kong entirely against my will.
Completely against it.
At least mostly so.
I don't actually know their reasons, I guess they thought I was fun. I simply went along for the ride because I was bored, I was having fun, and technically I was on holiday from travelling so I could do whatever I wanted. In the end I found myself dragging three helpless guys around Hong Kong for a week between Apple shops (Lo really wanted to buy a macbook with Joseph's money), camera shops (Lo really wanted to buy camera gear), doughnut shops (Lo really had a doughnut addiction, can you
see a pattern here), bars (my friend ABC liked taking us to them and Philipp loved dancing in them) and for the most part no tourist sights.
To start my second Hong Kong experience for this trip on the right foot we headed for the most budget accommodation known to us: Chungking mansions. This complex of towers is better described as Hong Kong's Department of Immigration as it seems to be the haunt of anyone and everyone from across the world who heads to Hong Kong. Unlike it's compatriot across the road, Mirador Mansions, Chungking is not entirely populated by prostitutes, just mostly so, and the general vibe is of a friendly family from around the world all struggling to make ends meet in the expensive world of Hong Kong. The place is so friendly that men happily walk around with their shirts rolled up thus exposing a beer belly, a long knife scar and two bullet wounds. While eating a Lamb Vindaloo in one of the many Indian restaurants on the ground floor, peering across at the Hip Hop clothing store, watching a seven foot tall Gambian man in a traditional dress walk along the path, hearing a
Lo
Deciphering a Dim Sum menu.bollywood movie playing down the corridor, and trying to figure out where the fire escape is, you can sit back and enjoy the place as the safe haven that it is. I really liked Chungking mansions for it's flavour and character as well as it's pricetag.
From the outside it isn't hard to spot Chungking. If I were to write a travel guide the entry would read as follows: "When arriving in southern Kowloon be sure to climb to the highest available viewing platform (tall buildings are good for this) and look across the Tsim Sha Tsui district. When you spot the ugliest, dirtiest, filthiest, least recently painted, probably never washed (writer suspects god refuses to rain on the place), most broken down building around. The building you are looking at is Mirador mansions. Slightly to it's south you will find a building that you hadn't noticed before because it is so utterly filthy and disgusting that your subconscious refused to let it appear as an accommodation option to your unsuspecting mind. That building is Chungking Mansions. A nasally applied clothes peg is recommended."
Finding a room at Chungking is easy, simply stand around for 2.3 seconds and
someone will offer you a room. As a suggestion I would suggest (does that count as alliteration?) you try the Superior rooms as the Deluxe ones (these labels come directly from business cards) have roaches but don't have windows. Out Superior rooms came with the works: lights, air-con, beds, buckets that suspiciously filled with water at unexpected and unpredictable intervals. What's more was that the owners, a pair of friendly Africans, were more than happy to fulfill any reasonable demands. It was like a normal hotel apart from two things. 1: the five minute queues for the elevator because nobody knew where the stairs were. It took us three days to find the stairs which we then gladly used. In the event of a fire it is a widely known fact that Chungking and all those who are within will no longer exist. 2: The view from the internal stairwells, see the photo.
Once settled in our budgetly comfortable and character filled rooms we hit the town with gusto. Shopping, eating and partying were the main attractions, along with wallet filling, ATM-ing and travellers-cheque-cashing. Hong Kong has an incredible variety of entertainments for those with big bellies and big
Hong Kong Island
Looking at the Exhibition Center. pockets, among our highlights were Krispy Kreme (ohh, never before has American junk looked as good as it does after four months in China), Sushi (my first time to eat anything raw, and to boot I actually got my mates to laugh with the dumbest joke in existence after my first bite "arghh, it hasn't been cooked!"), Belgian beer, proper Indian curries in our very own hotel, Guinness and a Vietnamese restaurant which stewed beef in the male toilets.
My friend from my last visit to Hong Kong, Mr ABC as he is know, was happy to take three youngsters out partying to various nefarious establishments, most of which cannot be described herein, inevitably ending with just two of us out alone at some ridiculous hour trying to impress girls that clearly were not impressed. Even Joseph's Harry Potter trick seemed to fail more often than not in Hong Kong. Something needed to be done.
There is a phrase that involves two stones, a bird and some kind of serious injuries, or maybe I have something confused there. Anyway, we hatched a plan that would both improve Harry's Harry-ness and would also let us all blend in better
Infamous Building
What? No windows? Nooooo! with the crowd at Chungking. To be honest, we were sick of being stared at for being different wherever we went in China, so we changed things. When we arrived at a bar to meet ABC, all of us with significantly blacker hair than usual and Harry with severe head injuries (the dye turned his skin black and all efforts to remove it only resulted in hideous scarring. This however was sadly ironic considering his namesakes' highly identifiable scar), we were greeted with resounding laughs, claps on backs and an overwhelming sense of "oh no, what have we done".
The ploy didn't work. We still got stared at and Joseph didn't meet any nice girls. Also, I now have even sillier hair than I used to.
Hong Kong Does Have Sights, Only You Can't See Them
The weather was bad in Hong Kong. Typhoon bad. Somehow though, the residents and scientists of Hong Kong seem to have confused the two words "typhoon" and "gentle breeze". On one cloudy day which appeared to be only slightly cloudier and rainier than its predecessors we were informed that "the typhoon is coming!" With this death-harbinge-ing (I certainly hope that's
a word) sentence thumping through our minds we headed to the safety of Krispy Kremes while we decided what to do. After noticing that the typhoon (warning number 8 for those playing at home in Hong Kong) was little stronger than the hot air coming from most politicians we decided to just go out and have fun anyway. The next day we heard that winds as high as, wait for it, 63 kilometers per hour had blasted the town causing significant damage to numerous umbrellas; the emergency umbrella inverting ward must have been overflowing.
The downside of the weather was obviously the cloud-cover and rain. Hong Kong has one of the world's best skylines and it was for the most part hidden. Climbing to the peak was completely out and other sights such as the Temple Street Market were closed due to the weather. Not to be deterred though, the four of us set out to see as many bars, doughnuts and restaurants as possible.
One day we decided to visit Lantau island instead of staying in the city. This was my first time out to the island and I was keen to see it's primary sight: the
Lo Is Happy
In a camera store, who wouldn't be? world's largest outdoor, seated, bronze Buddha. When viewed on a list of the most important cultural relics in the Buddhist world, this one sits halfway between the world's largest Buddha and the world's largest indoor, seated, bronze-covered, clay-filled, half-inscribed, faded, broken, headless, once-turned-upside-down-and-left-in-the-mud-for-a-year, Buddha in New York. Honestly, do they really need to describe just how big each Buddha is by labelling it as the world's biggest "insert qualifier here"? Can't they just be religiously important?
Enough rambling, or not enough maybe, but I'm tired of typing.
Two mistakes were made in our venture to Lantau. Or three if you count ones made the previous day. The first would be going out till 4am at a club on Kowloon, the second would be catching a 3pm ferry because we slept in so late, and the third would be doing it all on a day when it was far too cloudy to see anything. The last 300m climb of the bus ride was entirely within a cloud and when we arrived at the top we had to ask where the Buddha actually was. No signs were present because it was assumed that the Buddha was sufficiently massive so as
to be a sufficient sign unto itself. Climbing the steps towards the Buddha himself was like climbing a stairway to heaven only without amazing guitar riffs or a wobble-board, and reaching the top was anticlimactic. Although we could make out the outline of the Buddha we were all far too cold and wet to appreciate his magnitude.
Rest assured we were very happy to return to Hong Kong, dry off and go out to an Australian themed bar for eight pints of Guinness (Lars was very happy that night).
So, after more than a week of craziness with three fantastically crazy and randomly eccentric Austrians, expenditures well in excess of my incomes (laughably small as they might be) and generally a hell of a good time (thanks guys) I left Hong Kong and headed back into the greater China.
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annika
non-member comment
you're insane in a bad way
Hi Matty - I cannot believe you on a half-dozen counts. You travel with a guy who really does looks like Harry Potter (!?), stay in the worst place possible (drug-dealing ChunKing Mansions), and go to Hong Kong a week before I get there? Odd, insane, and very sad, respectively- DO NOT MIX THE ORDER UP.