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Published: August 17th 2006
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Nathan Road
Bright Lights and Chaos of Nathan Road My trip got off to a perfect start as I was upgraded to Club Class for the long flight to Hong Kong. I was given one of those seats that’s transforms into a bed and had a nice 3 course meal served on plates with champagne :-) Perfect.. I was therefore in goods spirit when I arrived in Hong Kong around 1.00pm lunch time.
The first thing I noticed was how humid it was and how damn heavy my rucksack was! I think maybe I have brought too much stuff. Oh well. I decided to stay in Causeway Bay on HK Island so got a bus to where I thought the hostel was. I showed the driver my map and he dropped me off about a mile away. After asking loads of HK folk for directions, attempting to follow my map and after sweating out half my body weight and doing my back in, I eventually arrived at my hostel. My room was average in appearance but had air-con so I was happy.
I spent the afternoon doing a spot of sightseeing and took the MTR (underground train) to Central and then the good old Star Ferry over to
Temple Street Night Market
No Perfect Strawberries here i'm afraid Tsim Sha Sui on the mainland. I walked around the promenade to the avenue of stars where famous Chinese people make hand prints in the cement. The only people I had heard of were Jet lee, and Bruce Lee. I then decided to go for a walk along Nathan road; a loud, bustling, crowded street. Lots of neon signs, men selling "copy watches" and tailor made suits. I decided not to invest. A mental street all the same though. At 8.00pm every night the buildings on Hong Kong Island around Central area perform a light show accompanied by some Chinese music. I watched this from the promenade across the bay and the view was pretty amazing. A phycadelic, techni-coloured, skyscraper light show. I guess it was like a giant building disco in the sky except nobody was dancing. Anyway it was pleasing to the eye to say the least. The sky was starting to get cloudy as rainstorms were on there way but it still looked spectacular. Good eye candy. Thank you please. I then went on a walk to some of the night markets... Temple Street and Ladies were the main ones. They were pretty lively and sold just
Star Ferry
The good old Star Ferry at Night about everything apart from perfect strawberries... I didn't really get much though... just some cushioned soles for my trainers and had some beer and noodles on the side of the road. Oh yeah and a crystal jelly with strawberries and mango's. Then back to the hostel via the good old star ferry and MTR.
The next day the sky was looking pretty angry again so I decided to follow the walking tours from my lonely planet book. I started out in Central walked around Sheung Wan, through Soho and then back to Central area. It was pretty mad just watching the Hong Kong people going about there daily lives. One thing that I noticed is that if you want to buy a certain product you go to the particular street for that item. Dried fish street must of had over 100 dried fish shops all next to each other, all selling the same thing. Loads of weird looking dried stuff, some of it kind of resembling fish. Now I usually like the smell of the fish counter at Tesco but this was a bad smell. This smell of dried fish now seems to be on all my clothes, my
Victoria Peak
Watching the Symphony of lights from Victoria Peak skin and everything in my rucksack and I can’t get it to go away! I also visited camera street, antique street, herbal medicine street and stopped off at the Man Mo Temple. ‘Man’ meaning Literature and ‘Mo’ Martial Arts. There was no reading or fighting inside. Just lots of incense sticks burning and people lighting them. I would have thought that this would have got rid of the smell of dried fish street but unfortunately not. Finally I checked out some bars in Soho and went for a ride on the mid level escalator, which is basically a street escalator to save people walking, (supposedly the longest in the world). Finally I used my eyes to look at some of the cool buildings around central area and my feet to take a stroll in Hong Kong Park, quite a surreal place full of weird creations and surrounded by skyscrapers. After a ‘Ras-berry’ Rave smoothy I took the Star Ferry to watch the harbour lights, (again). I have decided that my favourite building is the bank of china tower, (even though it’s a violation of the principles of feng shui). Oh well. Back to Causeway bay for some viewing pleasures… Lots
Big Buddha Head
High Five Buddha of cool shops here… bright lights and futuristic cyber gadgets. Nice!
The next day the heavens seemed to be in a better mood so I took the boat to Lantau Island to see the Big Buddha statue and Po Lin Monastery which is up in the hills. As described the Big Buddha was pretty big. Having climbed the steps to the top a rainstorm kicked in. I headed back down to the monastery in my raincoat to the sound of Buddhists chanting but made the mistake of agreeing to eat there. It was basically mushroom soup, which was more like mushroom tea and then more mushroom tea to drink. I don’t like mushroom tea. Not at all. Some tepid cabbage water would have been great right now but they didn't have any. There was some chicken stuff which was just about edible but it wasn’t going to get the mushroom tea taste out of my mouth. I decided to take a different route back too see a bit of the island so got a bus to Tung Chung where I would take the MTR back to Causeway bay. A little Chinese boy practiced his English on me and showed
me some magic tricks. As far as I know it was real magic and nearly as good as Paul Daniels. He also requested that we had our picture taken together. He said I was cool and also tall. I guess Chinese peeps are generally pretty small. Finally for the grand finale when I got back to HK island I took the Peak tram up to Victoria Peak which overlooks the harbour. The view on the way up and from the top was pretty amazingly supercalifragilisticexpialidocious… or some people might just say perfect. I had a wander around the top but yet again the sky turned on me and the rain came! ("Go away Rain" chanting didn't work"). I headed back to Causeway Bay for some Cantonese food and then a final exploration of the shops and bars… then bed…
The next day I slept in… A mad rush to the airport but I made it in time. Next stop Bangkok. Laterz..
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Dried Fish Street
I stumbled accross your page looking for a picture of Wategoes to show my mate, and got reading. I had to laugh at your recount of dried fish street! Did you ever get rid of the smell? hehe :)