Week 20 Hong Kong

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I have gone slightly mad in Hong Kong and not only blown the budget on a luxury hotel, but compounded this crazy spending spree by upgrading to the business club floor. I think its a reaction to the last month of hard beds, lumpy pillows and extortionate wifi charges. In order to make the most of the “free” breakfasts, all day tea/coffee/water, afternoon tea, 2 hours of evening cocktails and unlimited internet access I am stuffing my face whilst uploading and sorting all my thousands of photographs onto Flickr. I have almost convinced myself its a bargain.

Sadly the weather in Hong Kong is grey, overcast, foggy, smoggy and occasionally wet. Its not too cold but the stunning views I should be enjoying from my 33rd floor room overlooking Victoria Harbour across to Hong Kong Island are very hazy. Its like looking through a steamed up lens that’s out of focus. It does seem to clear slightly in the evenings and I have enjoyed reasonable views of the nightly 8pm Symphony of Light, which is a combination of laser and neon light shows from some 80 highrise buildings around the harbour, plus sound which I cant hear through my triple glazed windows.

My hotel does seem to command one of the best views in Kowloon and actually looks down on our more expensive 5-star neighbours such as the Shangri-La and Renaissance. Despite the haze I spent hours watching life on the water in the vast harbour, with all types and sizes of boats from tiny fishing sampans to huge cruise liners. There were plenty of helicopters, speedboats, tugs pulling enormous ships and barges and of course the Star ferries nipping between the Island and Kowloon stops.

In addition I watched people on the land in the narrow streets, the roof-gardens, parks and along the wide waterfront plazas. I could see people working (ha ha) and at play from my two huge picture windows that faced in two different directions. I am not sure I would want to live in a highrise building, but for a few days it was well worth the steep price and self-indulgence. The bed was wonderful and I drifted off each night watching the nightscape of twinkling man-made lights.

I badly needed a haircut so walked down the famous shopping street of Nathan Road and found a salon where I got several inches chopped off and lots of layers cut-in and came out with a fairly short but more manageable style. I also bought a simple DVD external drive to plug into my netbook, as I had bought a pile of cheap DVD’s in Cambodia - and yes they do play OK.

Despite the weather I needed to get out and see some of the sights this vibrant city has to offer, so I went on a full day tour where the first stop was the Man Mo Temple on HK Island. The 19th century temple is dedicated to the gods Man (literature) and Mo (martial arts) and was thick with the smoke from thousands of incense sticks and hundreds of the huge incense coils that hung smouldering from the ceiling. Patrons buy these coils which can burn for upto 3 weeks, hanging their messages to the gods on red tags. It was an impressive, if choking sight.

We went up the highest point of Victoria Peak that overlooks HK Island and the harbour from 438 meters, where normally you get the best vantage points and stunning views. We could make out a few of the important buildings through the fog and smog but it was disappointing not to be able to see the famous skyline. However the trip to the Peak on the funicular railway was fun.

Next we took a 25 minute trip on a traditional sampan boat around the fishing village in Aberdeen harbour. This experience will probably only be possible for a couple more years, as the nearby waterpark is expanding to reclaim the harbour and build a series of hotels and the fishing village inhabitants are moving out. The trip ended at the Jumbo Floating Restaurant where we had a filling dim sum lunch, with a good selection of the dumplings plus noodle and rice dishes. You could easily forget that you were on a floating building as the stairs were marble and there was no movement at all. The decoration was way over the top with gaudy mosaics, gold and red paint everywhere and lots of bling.

Talking of bling, we were forced to stop at a high-end jewellery factory where we all wondered around admiring the highly priced and beautiful merchandise, but it was a bit of a waste of everyone’s time. We passed Deep Water Bay that must be a lovely place to visit in the sunshine but looked very sad in overcast skies and grey light. Our final stop was at Stanley Market, where there were loads of shops and stalls selling typical tourist tat but was fun to wonder around for an hour or so. My only purchase was an icecream. The drive back through central HK and the city was interesting too and the whole trip lasted just over 7 hours. We were thankful to bring an end to the constant chatter of the (very camp) tour guide who never shut up through the whole day, with only 25% of his commentary being useful or interesting.

Although I had bought the DVD, I decided that Avatar was a film that needed to be viewed on the big screen and in 3D, so I found an IMAX cinema just 10 minutes walk from my hotel that had only been open for a couple of months. Unfortunately the IMAX screenings were sold out (for several days) so I saw it in one of the normal screens. I thoroughly enjoyed it and believe this heralds many more 3D films. The seat was probably the most comfortable I have been in, which was a good thing as its a long film.

I also tried out several forms of transport and took the Star ferry over to HK Island and mooched around the Central shopping area. In this expensive city, one of the best bargains is a tram ride costing just HK$2. Its a lovely slow way to see the main city and I rode a couple of the routes. Finally I got the MTR train back over to Kowloon. The transport services in HK are easy to use and pretty good - for anyone staying a few days its worth buying an Octopus card and if you get it on arrival you can buy a package that includes a free Airport Express ticket and unlimited travel for 3 days.

There is a real buzz around this city and a great sense of anticipation, as this year February 14th provides a dual celebration of Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year. There is a huge amount of advertising about all things connected with good luck, romance and good fortune and all of the shops are involved in the massive build up. I think there may well be a bumper year for engagements, marriages and mini baby boom in November in this part if the world.

I think I saw a naked man doing either Tai Chi or Kung Fu type exercises. I don’t know if he was wearing flesh coloured pants or if he was letting it all hang out, as it was just a bit too far away to tell. He was in the window of one of the highrise buildings we could see from the 39th floor business centre in our hotel. I pointed him out to a fellow guest and she couldn’t tell either. It was a bit like one of those comedy sketches as more and more people in our room started to watch and debate whether this chap was going commando or not. Never did find out and it only lasted 10 minutes, but it was an amusing digression and got us all chatting. I met up with a couple of the guys from the “nude or not” debate later in the evening at the bar where they suggested we all meet up the following day to see if the guy repeated his performance. He didn’t.

At last we had one day where it was sunny but still smoggy, so I have included some photos taken from my hotel window showing the marvellous view I had of the harbour and HK Island skyline. I have also included one shot looking far right that includes a hazy image of the tallest building in Hong Kong (behind the Canon sign). Two International Finance Centre or 2IFC is known locally as the “Big Shaver” due to its uncanny resemblance to an electric razor, particularly its top section - you will need to google a good image as you cant see this on my hazy shot.

On my last evening in the hotel the sky was the clearest it had been all week. There were quite a few of us gathered in the business lounge enjoying the 2 hours free drinks until 7pm and by mutual decision we all lingered to catch the sound and light show in the harbour. The staff co-operated and left the bar open until it ended at 8.15pm and piped in a recording of the sound track, so we had a fun time watching from one of the best vantage points in HK, listening to the music for the first time and supping free booze. Nice end to my luxury break.

I am uploading this just before catching the shuttle bus to the airport for my 11 hour Cathay Pacific flight to Auckland in the Land of the Long White Cloud - New Zealand.

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Comments

[louise Clarke]

Great memoirs of Honkers
Lainey Great pics of Honkers. As you know i spent a LOT of time there, brings back so many memories for me.... mainly the flight every 2 weeks for 48 hours of seeing someone! Ahhhhhh, the good old days L x