 On our first day, we first wandered around the Central district on Hong Kong Island, inadvertently stumbling into a series of alleyway markets that sell everything from dried shark fins (which environmental officials have urged the Chinese to stop eating) to textiles to incense to strange fruits we've never seen.
From Central, we took the subway across the channel to Tsim Sha Tsui, on Kowloon (the peninsula of mainland China that Hong Kong island sits across from). We walked along Nathan Road, which is known as a high-end shopping district and stopped in at the famous Peninsula Hotel (though we did not have traditional tea time there). For dinner, we ate at a cheesy Cantonese restaurant in the Miramar Mall - it was actually like an American chinese restaurant, though we were the only westerners in there.
Walking back towards the tip of the peninsula along Nathan Road, we saw a bit of the laser light show that happens nightly against the skyline of the Hong Kong island cityscape across the water. Then we took the Star Ferry across the channel and cabbed it home.
Our bodies had not (and still have not) adjusted to the time change, so we were up extremely early on Saturday.
 Breakfast at the YWCA (which is included in our hotel fee) is a strange mix of western and Chinese food. Fried eggs, potatoes, meats, green salad, vermicilli noodles, cereal, hard boiled eggs and pork dumplings. Because we were up so early, we were among the first on the Peak Tram - the old cable car that takes people up to the top of Victoria Peak.
The city on Hong Kong island is built on the steep north face of Victoria Peak, with streets cutting the mountain into a series of steps (our hotel is in "mid-levels" - ie. the middle of the slope). The tram takes you all the way up to the top of the peak, which is less a peak and more an east-west ridge. From the top, you can look north over the top of the Hong Kong island skyline over to the Kowloon skyline. You can also look south towards the South China sea and the outerlying islands (more on the islands in a second).
 At the top of Victoria Peak (view pictured at right) is a high-end mall, and a high-end neighborhood which, by the judge of those up there, is populated with Western ex-pats. Also, there is a labyrinth of bike/walkways through a wooded area, not unlike Central Park (only at the top of a huge mountain). We walked a 2 mile loop path that took us around the peak.
After the cable car ride back down (which felt like the train would run out of control because it was so steep), we cabbed over to Aberdeen, a built up fishing "village" on the south end of Hong Kong island. I put "village" in quotes, because it was surrounded by huge (and aging) apartment buildings, and a virtual floating city in the harbor.
We were immediately overcharged for a sampan boat tour of the "junks" (ie. house boats) in the overcrowded harbor. We passed on the Jumbo restaurant, which is billed as the largest floating seafood restaurant in the world, but the tour was worth it, as we got to see up close how people live on these fishing boats.
Another cab ride later, we were at Stanley Market - a flea-market kind of place (lots of these here), connected to a resturant/bar-dotted oceanside promenade. We saw a sign that said it was 34 degrees celcius, and with the humidity it really felt like it was over 110 degrees if I had to guess, but we pushed through and walked the promenade, visited a temple, and hit a restaurant in an alley called Lucy that our guidebook recommended (very good Mediterranean food!).
From Stanley, we took a double-decker bus back to Central Hong Kong. We had been confused about the bus system - the posted fares on the side of these behemoth yellow monstrosities suggest the fares are 50 hong kong dollars per a person, but they ended up actually being about 10 hong kong dollars per person (ie. about $1.25 american). We finally figured this out in Stanley, luckily saving ourselves what would have been a 20-American-dollar cab ride fare back.
Of course, when you take the bus to the outer countryside, it feels like you are risking your life, because the streets cut into the side of the hills are very windy, and the buses are extremely tall - and not slow. Nonetheless, we sat at the very front seat on the top deck so I could film this video clip:
From Central, we took a subway to Cheng Sha Wah Road - a working class neighborhood on Kowloon. We then worked our way back along the subway's red line, hitting the big tropical fish market (they have a fetish for Arawanas and Parrot Fish...strange), the flower market (incredible purple orchids), yet another street market, and finally to the Yue Hwa Chinese Products Emporium - a 6-story department store-like place, but with each "department" owned by a separate peddler.
 This is a place where in one visit you could make your home into a kitschy Chinese restaurant - everything from foodstuffs, to mahogany statues of fat bald buddas. The top floor was devoted entirely to tea - and we did two tastings (and bought a few teas to bring home).
Finally, after 12 hours out, we came home, shwoered, and walked through the botanical garden near our hotel to Lan Kwai Fong, a westernized night club area near Central. We dined at "M at the Fringe" a bistro connected to a hip English theater. We shared a Moroccan dish, though I had lost my appetite.
At this point, let me use this break at my nausea reference to make a few macro points to give you a sense of what it is like to be here:
- It is the hottest and most uncomfortable climate either of us have ever experienced. It is no exaggeration to say that for most of the midday, you feel kind of like you are suffocating, and - at least for me - always vaguely near the vomit threshold. That's not because of the food - it's because it's 90 degrees, and then with 100 percent humidity, feeling like 110 degrees (estimates, of course). Add into that climate some pungent (and often disgusting) smells of dried lizards, sewage runoff after rain showers, and ever-present B.O., and nausea is a constant state of existence, rather than something momentary.
- The cultural mix in Hong Kong is inspiring - from block to block, you go into different worlds - from the financial district with its buttoned-up westerners to the bustling markets with shirtless men hawking electronics, to Nathan Road's Indian street vendors (selling knock off Rolexes), this is a mix that rivals the famed descriptions of New York City's diversity. And while this is technically China, there seems to be very little police-state feeling. That is, we've seen very few police around, no soldiers, and basically no strong representations of government force (other than that insistent - and almost paranoid - demands everywhere for everyone to be vigilant about public health...signs and public announcements about preventing swine flu are EVERYWHERE...and about 1 out
of every 15 people is wearing a surgical mask...in fact, when we checked into our hotel, the clerk pointed a pistol-like device at both of our foreheads to check our temperature).
- Getting around this city, as said, is incredibly easy - and relatively cheap. To get anywhere from our hotel in the central city, it costs no more than 25 hong kong dollars (about $3.50 american).
- Interesting/sad economic point - we've been on the roads a lot and seen the cars. The city is dominated (in descending order) by Toyotas, Volkswagens and Mercedes - we haven't seen a single American car in the entire time we've been here.
- Our hotel is a YWCA, which sounds like it might be gross, but is actually great. It is a tall cylindrical building, with the elevator going up the middle. To compare it to American hotels, it is at least at a Holiday Inn grade, if not higher - clean and nice.
DAYS 3: Hong Kong's Outer Islands
Again woke up early because our bodies have not adjusted to the time change, and walked all the way down from Mid-levels to the harbor. It was Sunday, and people were picnicking...on the cement of the sidewalks (have no idea why). We took a "fast ferry" to Cheung Chau island - a short-distance (30 minute ferry ride) getaway for locals that is a dumbell-shaped island. It reminded me a bit of what a Hong Kong Coney Island might feel like, sans actual rides. By that I mean it features a big oceanside promenade on the waterfront, lined with dim sum restaurants and tea houses, and a beach.
 The town on Cheung Chau has no cars, and we walked the alleyways, which were lined by houses whose first-floors were shops (the shopkeeping families lived above). We then hit the beach (which sits in the thin handle part of the dumbell) and I put my feet into the South China Sea, though did not swim for fear of A) water quality and B) sharks (not an irrational fear here, btw). We then walked along the shoreline on the "mini Great Wall" - a cobblestone path that takes you up the hill and to a lookout point. Again, it felt like 110 degrees.
Walked back to the beach, took the fast ferry back to Hong Kong and immediately went to the IFC Mall - a huge super-air conditioned mall. It's weird to walk into this mall in the sense that you feel like you are going from developing-world Asia immediately to Cherry Creek mall in Denver.
There is every designer shop imagineable here as well as a "City Super," which is a Hong Kong version of a Whole Foods. We stuffed our faces in the AC, and it was good.
Desperately tired from walking/hiking for two and a half days straight, we called an audible, and decided not to hit museums and instead take the orange line out to its last stop, Tung Chung.
 Tung Chung is on another "outer island" called Lantau - the island that is also the home of the airport. It features a huge outlet mall, and more importantly, a 25-minute cable car over to a small village called Ngong Ping. The town is Epcot-ish, in that it is new and designed for tourists who are visiting the Po Lin Monastery, and more specifically, the monastery's Giant Buddah - an at least 100-foot tall buddah that you can see far in the distance.
We went there, though, not for the buddah, but for the Oriental Massage Center, which was recommended by our guidebook. There we paid about $35 american each for a full reflexology treatment of our feet and an accu-pressure back massage.
During my reflexology treatment, the masseuse hit a very painful spot on my inner arch, which I was told corresponds to weakness in the stomach. And as people who know me know, I really do have a pretty weak stomach.
After the massage, we felt much better. We walked to the foot of the Buddah, then to the Po Lin Monastery itself, then got back on the cable car, then hit the outlet mall's grocery store (and ate three gross pastries, including a really wretch-inducing "sweet potato roll"), then took the subway back and found a chinese noodle shop in the IFC mall where we ate two mountains of fried noodles, then cabbed back to our hotel and passed out at 8:30pm.
Now it is Monday, our fourth day here, and we spent the morning walking in the pouring rain through Hong Kong's "Western district," which is known for its antiques and medicinal shops. We are back at the hotel, packing up and getting ready to head for the airport and for our 4:45pm flight from Hong Kong to meet Mike in Guiyang, - the capital of Guizhou - mainland China's poorest province.
So far, it has been an amazing trip - exciting, exhausting and entirely stimulating (and often, overstimulating). Physically, it has already been challenging both in terms of the time change and in terms of the walking/hiking around this extremely hilly metropolis. But it has been very, very fun. |
DAYS 1 & 2: Gateway to the Mainland
