Hong Kong 28/10/09-2/11/09

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From HK airport we got a taxi to the hostel at the bottom of Nathan Road. Chungking Mansions the place was called. Sounds classy right? wrong! We emerged from the taxi and practically had to push our way through a large gathering of asians trying to sell us accomodation for the night to get to the 5 man room we had actually booked. Consisting of 2 beds (smaller than double) and a matress lying between them on the floor the next few nighthts were going to be very cozy. It was ridiculously smalol for 5 young men but on the plus side i couldnt think of anything nicer than waking up every morning being spooned by a 6ft 4in englishman.
Our first day in Hong Kong. We went for a walk down to the harbour and looked across the bay to Hong Kong Island, an incredible sight. In the afternoon we cought the star ferry accorss the bay and took a bus all the way up to the peak overlooking the whole city. We shared a meal of dim sum, soup, noodles and soup while the sun set. As i think i said in my previous entry the view is even more spectacular at night and James got some pretty sweet pics. We thought then that we better head back to the hostel to welcome Craig to our den. He was just as intimidated as we were when he stepped out his taxi. It was a very wierd building we were staying in. Very hard to describe. The ground floor wher u walk in is like a market with loads of indians selling food and electonics etc. It was a massive open plan design, probably about the size of half a football pitch.
Day2. We set off at 10.30am to Lantau to visit the big Buddah (thanks Elise for all your recomendations, we ticked off a good few of your suggestions). We got a glass bottomed cable car over free covered hills to the top where a huge buddah sat at the top of a hill. Dont know who put it there but fair play to whoever did, it seems like the most inaccessible place in the counrty! Downed some tasty noodles and spicy pork then shared a very wierd moment in the toilet with a cleaner. I was washing my hands when i felf someone playing with my hair. I turned round to a little old man wearing a red hat and holding a brush with his arm outstretched to my head. He pulled at it for a few seconds checking if it was real then he reached down, lifted my t-shirt and inspected the fuzz on my belly! Whats this nutter doing! He then made a cutting scissors movement with his hand and pointed to my belly apparently asking if i cut my body hair, as if he thought my whole body would be covered in a thick blanket of ginger ringlets if i didnt. I tried to answer him as best i could before shaking my hands dry and running for dear life. I might avoid public toilets from now on...or maybe just little old men wearing red hats.
On the way back down on the cable car me and James took great pleasure from jumping up and down and slamming our feet onto the glass floor. Craig wasnt very impressed with this and chose not to join us in favour of sitting with his legs on the seat. Pansy.
An area called Lan Kwai Fong was our evening destination. We had our meal (in a place we later found out is called "rat alley" by the locals) and it the bars with a vengance. Our first stop was a salsa bar where we managed to pay happy hour prices an hour after it had ended before watching some guys girlfriend being hit on by another guy and leaving. Next stop was a place called the Beer Bar. Waaaay! We spent about 2 hours playing foozball and dringing cheap-ish coronas. As we were leaving the 2 barmen challenged 2 of us to a game. Me and Craig stepped up. There were 2 beers and a hell of a lot of pride at stake. We started well taking a 2 goal advantage very qiuckly. The Chenese duo responded well and brought the score back to level. This was just the push we needed and scoded 3 well worked goals to seal the victory. We polished off our winnings, posed for the camera men, did the press conference and left with our heads held high. Being as tight fisted as you can get and wanting to keep a cap on our spendings Dave entered a few bars on the way up the road until we found a reasomably priced drink to buy. We finally settled on a near dead pub serving 7.8% ale for 40HKD. We shuffled our way through what looked like a sea of sawdust and took our seats. A few minutes later a waitress strolled over and lay a basket of unshelled peanuts infront of us. Now the floor made sense. It wasnt sawdust at all but the shells from about 5 billion peanuts. We contributed our fair share to the mess and left for Fevar, a club we were recommended. Like Tokyo the subways only open at stupid o'clock so we had another late night.

Again like Tokyo after being out till 5am we didnt really achieve much the following day except stinking out our box room with foot odour and beer breath. Lay and watched TV till our stomachs nearly imploded with hunger. James, Dave and I headed out in search of cheap grub. This time it was Burger Kings flashing lights that drew us in. It was distinctly average...except for the fat guy sleeping at the table behind us, he was brilliant. Returned to the hostel where i typed up myt last blog entry (took a lot longer than i thought it would) and went to bed.

Haloween day we packed our shorts, towels and suncream and headed to Ocean Park which we assumed was going to be a massive water park filled with flumes and bikini clad women. Ocean Park, however, had neither. Instead we arrived at a big theme park with rollercoasters, animals and shows, all of which were very good. We opted for the rides before lunch. we kicked it off with the log flume (ok there was one water ride). I did very well to stay dry until the last possible moment when the equivalent of half a bucket of water covered my feet, soaking my socks and shoes for the remainder of the day. Next came "Abyss". Scary name i know. You get strapped in, lifted up a tower then plumit about 60m back to the ground. I screamed like a schoolgirl all the way down. It wsa brilliant. Craig was the only one of us who didnt have the guts to do it and instead chose to be in charge of filming the experience from ground level instead. A simple task surely for a tech-head like Craig. However, his 0.5 second masterpiece of grey tarmac and someones shoe would suggest otherwise. Poor show on 2 parts Craig. He did regain some respect after joining us on the "Dragon" rollercoaster. After this we watched a dolphin show and had a look around the animal area. I always find these a bit anticlimactic and this one was no different. As we entered "Giant Panda Land" i had high hopes. We followed the path through its large enclosure looking out for them. Wheres the panda? What amazing thing could it possibly be doing? Where oh where could it be? Oh, there it is, just about in view, lying on a platform sleeping with its bare arse staring at the crowd. Simply magical. The big aquarium was much better, i didnt see a single sleeping fish.
In the evening we walked down to the shorefront again to watch the laser show which happens every night at 8pm. Afer snapping some pics we headed over to the island again to have a very expensive pint and watch the Arsenal game, who unfortunately won 3-0.
For our final day we chose to take it easy and hit Deep Water Bay beach, again on the main island. The sun was blazing and the locals had to shield there eyes as 5 pasty westerners did some keepie-ups down by the water. The water itself was understandably not the clearest in the world and was filled with an orangey algae type stuff, but it was refreshing to dive into and it doesnt seem to have done us any harm...yet anyway. Luke drew a nice sketch of the spectaular landscape while we all attempted to get at least some colour in our skin. Didnt really work, using P20 suncream is like wearing a solar protecting space suit. James didnt seem too impressed with lukes work of art exclaiming "Hey Luke, im gonna smack this ball off u, then im gonna chuck your picture in the water because it would make me feel really good and it would make you feel really bad". Dont worry people, he did neither.
When the sun went down we ate a delicious meal in a beach side restaurant and went home to pack. Our flight to Bangkok was at 9am and this time Craig would be flying with us.

In general Hong Kong was awesome. I would say theres a lot more to do here for tourists than in Tokyo. Its more english friendly too and you see a lot more westerners. Nathan Road where we were staying is pretty nuts. You cant walk 5 metres without someone being in your face shouting "Cheap suits sir" or "You want fake Rolex?". Lots of electronics stores selling cameras, laptops, phones etc. but once you get out the main centre, like down to the harbour or to the beach the atmasphere is very relaxed and u wont get hassled at all. The climate is quite a bit hotter than Tokyo (the day we went to the beach it was 34C), and verry muggy and humid. We were all covered in a coating of sweat whenever we were outside and clean clothes are gone through at a very fast pace. This is something we'll all have go get used to.

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Comments

[Douglas Smith]

To our Asian Correspondent!
Excellent work, Andrew, Tokyo sounded much like what it was when I visited in 1978 burt no doubt va bit more expensive. It is really great to have such detailed reports, ( no doubt suitably amended where necessary before publication!!) Cheers, David's G'dad