To Hong Kong I Go

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Finally time to leave Bangkok, thank God! Two weeks on Khao San Road is enough to drive anyone nuts. I flew with Pakistan International Airways which was a first for me, but bar a slightly late departure they offered a very efficient service. I think I was the only vanilla face on the plane, the majority being Chinese, I could tell this as when we was waiting in the departure lounge their was a bin that they was all choosing to flob in. I'll give them their due though, they put quite a bit of effort into it, it sounds like they are trying to do away with a lung. I've decided that when I hit mainland China I'm going to conduct a little spitting survey to see if it really is as bad as they say.

Another mild pitfall to the plane journey was that I wasn't actually aware that we would be provided with an in flight meal, so before takeoff I blew the rest of my Thai Baht on a luxurious Burger King for one. Felt like a bit of a loafer but half hour into the flight when someone plonks a Chicken Tikka dish in front of you the force with which to resist is minimal. Oh, there was one other thing, for dessert there were mini-donuts, no chance in hell of me letting them bad boys go to waste!

Also when flying does anybody else get really big bogeys? I do ....... erm anyway moving on. One thing I'm never to keen on is being thrown into a big new city, always a little daunting. But not with Hong Kong, very accessible. Everything is in both Chinese and English. The transport connections around the city were very appealing, I was able to pick up a train straight from the airport to Kowloon where my accommodation was situated. By the time I got to my destination it was quite late and I was pretty tired so I opted for one of the first offers of accommodation to be thrown my way. I basically had a night of luxury, potentially the best room that I have stayed in since travelling, apart from JD's and Abbies place in Bangkok of course! It had the lot, air con, fans, shower with lush hot water, a TV which when I flicked on was running an episode of 24, absolutely no faeces stains on the walls, the walls were as white as snow, luxury! But at 15 pounds a night it simply has to be!

31/10/07 Kowloon

From luxury to squalor in a heartbeat, it's back to the dorms for me today. Luckily I only ever sleep, shave, shower and shit in them where as some people seem to hang out there all day like nerds talking about dvd encoding, C++ and Transformers. After trying out some traditional wanton noodle soup in a nice little dingy alley I was off to explore Kowloon to see if it really was anything like it was portrayed to be like in the WAY-COOL video game 'Shenmue'.... now who's the nerd!

It was a mild and drizzly day not far off the conditions I'm used to seeing back home. When I went to see the Hong Kong Harbour skyline my view was mildly disappointing as my view was obscured by the intervening weather, very dreary. I decided that I would return at a later point. As with Singapore Hong Kong is very shop orientated but throughout my brief time here I found that there was plenty more to see and do. And with a population of 6.9 million people there would have to be at least a few things about to keep the people busy.

One of my stops was to the Yoen Po Street Bird Garden which is also featured in the WAY-COOL 'Shenmue'. It's actually more of a mass of tiny little bird shops with birds stuffed in even tinier little incey wincey cages. They seemed to be making a lot of business out of it and many people were flocking there to buy the birds so hopefully when the birds get home they get to stretch their wings a little bit more. Not far from here in a similar vein was a whole street dedicated to fish. Most in bags like goldfish at the fair, then merging into that street a dog and a cat section. This is where I got sad, I came across one lonely little cat in a glass box that looked like the saddest, sorriest cat in the whole wide world. I'm not sure what species it was as I've never seen one like it before, maybe that's why it was so sad! But it looked up at me and it had these really big bulbous sad teary eyes as if it was about to cry. I put my finger next to it from the other side of the glass and it let out the faintest of 'meows' as it put it''s tiny little paw up against my finger tip. I nearly started blubbing like a sissy, it was just so sad. I just really hope that someone amazing scoops up that kitty and ideally not out of a frying pan.

Kowloon was full of dirty dirty high rise apartments just like in the WAY-COOL 'Shenmue' and it's something about this general griminess that makes this whole area so appealing, it just has that unique edge about it. On street level however it is reasonably tidy, not quite so as that of Singapore but there has definitely been an effort put into trying to keep the place tidy. Unlike Bangkok in Hong Kong you are never far from a bin and there are also plenty of no spitting signs about, but this wouldn't effect the results of my flobbing survey as I'm not effectively in China yet.

In the evening I made my way to see the Hong Kong light show back at the harbour. It was quite the spectacle, all the lights on the skyscrapers across on Hong Kong Island act out in sync to the music being played, lasers are also thrown in to add to the 'ooooh' factor. When the rain set back in I had to bail back to my hostel as everyone got there umbrellas out and as nobody seems to watch where they are going at the best of times it was all getting a bit lethal.

1/11/07 Hong Kong Island

Went to the Hong Kong harbour first thing this morning to see if I could catch a clearer glimpse of the skyline. Despite the drizzle it was all fairly visible and still looks quite impressive without the aid of laser beams emitting across the skies. There were also a number of black kites soaring across the harbour as well which made for a nice little treat.

I then took the star ferry across the harbour to Hong Kong Island. Hong Kong Island gives off almost a totally different impression to that of Kowloon, it is the central business district of Hong Kong and is where the majority of the monster skyscrapers roam. I must admit I felt a little out of place in my army coloured shorts, puma jacket and Adidas trainers when everyone else was walking around looking slightly more suave in their business attire.

I worked my way up 800 metres of escalators to the mid-levels which took about 15 minutes, the longest series of escalators in the world they say. From here I stumbled across the Hong Kong Zoological & Botanical Gardens. Saw myself a pair of Orangutans, a bunch of lemurs, all different sorts of monkeys, a MAHOOSIVE Burmese Python, an angry leopard and a shit load of birds. The aviaries there were really good, they had mixed species in huge flights with plenty of space for them in which to do their thang. I didn't go to see the gardens, sounded boring.

My next stop was to the very peak of the island. The weather at the summit was very pissy and windy, although the view across the city was still quite good. I'm sure though that on a smog/rain free day it would like stunning, probably even better at night. But that would have to wait for another time as I'd definitely like to venture back to Hong Kong at some point and see the rest of what it has to offer such as the national parks, the other islands, the beaches, Disneyland, the museums and I'm sure that there's more. It seems that theres a little something for everyone here and I highly recommend it. The only thing keeping me from staying is my overwhelming eagerness to get into China, and there's also the money thing, it's a fairly pricey affair here and if I was to return I'd definitely bring plenty of beer money as it looks like a good place to go out on the piss.

*PS - Check out the Brunei blog, I've added a new photo of when we were trying to rough it in a sports stadium.

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Photos

Yuen Po Street Bird Garden (ii)
CHICKS!