Hong Kong and Home

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Hong Kong is a sultry kind of place and is like living in a cloud. My hotel is in Wan Chai where old, ugly, colourful buildings stand high above the streets and trams shuttle past busy pavements. My balcony overlooks an apartment block and I can spy on two by one metre squares of the tenants lives. Many people watch television on unfeasibly large screens in tiny rooms. Red and gold daily calenders are on the walls. One man sits alone and stares into space smoking. Another, his kitchen full of pots and pans, chops tomatoes. Washing dries on the barred windows outside - underwear, trousers and t-shirts. Somebodies blue and white striped boxer shorts have fallen onto a window ledge and I wonder if they will ever be retrieved. I also think I should stop spying on my neighbours and go and look around Hong Kong...

Hong Kong is full of markets. I have bought some cheap tops which look great but which exclude me from going within 10kms of any naked flames. There are lots of markets for clothes and knock-off purses, bags and shoes. One market sells huge, beautiful tropical fish sold in suffocating tiny plastic bags. Horrible. Another sells birds in cages ironically surrounded by free birds who feed on the fallen seed from the shopkeepers and (if birds have dreams in their brains) thank their lucky stars that they are free to fly unlike the poor birds all caged up. The most memorable market was Wan Chai, an open air food market. Live fish are cut up on counters - some fish having already leapt into the gutter. Live chickens are in cages and are killed on demand with their heads decapitated by a specially made machine. A butchers market sells a dissected cow - head, tail, stomach, balls - any bit of the animal you may want. I admit that for my four days in HK I went mostly vegetarian. The smell was physical and grim.

I also went on the Star ferry from Kowloon to the island and on the Peak Tram - a hugely steep funicular railway to the highest point of the city. Both are fun and are part of the HK experience. HK is easy to navigate and get around. It is China for beginners. I only had one food fail where I received some odd food - a roll of rice which was like a cross between jelly and pasta, and some undercooked chicken in opaque sticky stuff. It was at this point I decided to go entirely vegetarian in HK. Yuck. Also I had to share my table with an elderly Chinese lady (to be fair to her she had the table first) who kept glowering at me and slurping tea in a threatening manner.

The elderly in HK are proudly fierce. On my first morning I had a breakfast of freshly baked cinnamon rolls in the park and watched dozens of retired people perform Tai Chi. There was also an outdoor gym devoted to the elderly which was in full use - tai chi wheels, weights, cross trainers. All the users were at least in their mid-70's and were accompanied by their Nepalese maids who pushed them in wheelchairs between each exercise machine, avoiding raindrops and palm fronds.

Before I knew it, after having visited great galleries, cafes and shops, it was time to leave HK and head home to London. My trip has been great. On the way home I fly over Siberia and from 10,000 feet I can see how far I first travelled out on the train. We fly hour after hour over the snow covered steppe. My journey has included buses, tubes, ferries, funicular railways, electric railways, steam trains, kayaks, swimming, walking and flying. Travelling so far overland though has somehow made the world seem smaller. Maybe I can now more easily see how everything fits together.*

Anyway, it is lovely to be back home on London. Where I fit together with my family and friends and everything I am familiar with. This morning it was snowing. Lovely. I am looking forward to Christmas and winter, and to eating lots and going to the Panto. And going for a run in the park and sleeping in my bed.

So, that's it. Thanks for reading. I enjoyed writing. Good luck in your own travels wherever they may be. Until next time.

Lots of love,

Kate

* I still reserve the right to be crap at geography related questions in pub quizzes.

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