For the first time in my life, I understand why they have those big resort holiday places where there's nothing to do but sit around sip on some crazy cocktail. One of those resorts sounds pretty great right about now. I'm exhausted but learning lots of 'obvious' lessons along the way, the main one being to stay hydrated. The second, to learn that it's normal to be a stupid tourist.
My day started at about 9am when I hit the streets and walked over to Victoria Harbour, on the Kowloon side. This area gives you a fantastic view of the entire southern island, stretching east past North point, south at Wan Chi, and east at Central. It's simply the most incredible thing I've seen. Unfortunately, there's no wind in Hong Kong this weekend so the smog is hanging in the air and visibility is quite low. While I took plenty of photos of Wan Chi (more of a commercial area than where I'm at, Tsim Sha Tsui, which is nothig but shops), but I'm not sure if they turned out alright since you can hardly see the other side of the harbour due to the haze.
I walked along the harbour till the south western most point and jumped on the Star Ferry, which cost roughly HK$2.50 but I'm not sure since I just held out a hand of coins and the conductor took what he thought was fair. I made a point after that to learn the coins, having only focused on notes to that point. At any rate, $2.50 in Hong Kong is about 40c back home. Cheapest transport I've ever bought.
On the other side of the harbour I walked from Wan Chi to Central. This was quite an amazing experience for me. When you step off the ferry ino the harbour side of Wan Chi, you're basically standing at the fringe of a mega city. Few buildings would be under the 30 story mark, and it's all business, business, business. Walk four blocks into the island and this mega city transforms instantly to that old china feeling. Tight streets, markets everywhere, and a serious of interesting odors. The further into the island I walked, the less westerners I could see (there really aren't that many. In fact, only 5% of the 'white people' I've seen so far were actually speaking English), so I decided to stick to that path, rather than the more traditional tourists path.
Eventually after two hours of walking I arrived at my morning goal, the Peak Tram station. There was a huge line going around the corner, but it only took about 30 minutes before I was on the tram going up the mountain at a 50 or 60 degree incline. It's actually a bit painful since your back is forced into a wooden chair. 12 minutes later I was once again redefining "the most amazing thing I've ever seen". I've been to 'lookouts' before, many in fact, but this was in a class of its own. It seems the tallest point in HK just wasn't tall enough for the locals, so they proceeded to build a 7 story mall on top of the mountain. You go up escalator after escalator until you finally arrive at an observation post. The view is incredibly, and not really as scary as I thought it would be (this is about 500m up, I'm guessing). No HK building comes within reach of this point, but sure as hell there are many that try.
Should you ever visit HK, do everything you can to make it to The Peak Tower. To miss it would be like missing your own wedding.
I decided to stop for lunch here, and found (not that it was hard) chinese restaurant. This place was fancy, and I expected to be hurting afterwards, but I decided I couldn't miss the experience. While HK residents speak generally good English, this restaurant seemed to have a lack of English speakers. After a few minutes of hand gestures and slowly spoken English, my waiter and I decided we could not understand each other and I blindly pointed to a Dim Sum Platter. It was a bit pricey, I thought, but that's what I expected....
The 3 steamed dumplings were about as wide and tall as a 50c piece so I figured I'd have to pay for that and stop at a hungry jacks or something back down at street level. When I was about to skull my beer and make treds my waiter brought out another course, this time it was some sort of soup. I have no idea what this soup was, but it was incredibly thick and had something in it. I swallowed hard, and ate. It was delicious! I was about to leave when another meal came out. It was a vegetable thing, I ate it, and it too was delicious. But, I started to worry that they were just bringing me food until I stopped, and charge me a fortune for it all. I prompted my waiter and we resumed our conversation through hand gestures. He showed me the menu, and carefully explained that I had ordered a set course menu, and had three courses left. It was at this point I took note of the price for
the set, which was HK$148. I finished the final three equally delicious courses and proceeded to leave. As I waked to the tram stop I did the math (I'm getting really good at dividing by seven). This delicious six course meal, served at the highest restaurant in HK (seriously), cost me all of AU$30, including beer!!!
At first I had no idea how this city could survive itself. There is every opportunity to spend money, and people seemed to keep doing it. Yesterday, I couldn't believe how anybody could afford to stay alive in a place like this. But now I finally realise how cheap it all is. I picked up a knock off CK watch at one of the many markets I passed through today, and it cost me all of HK$25 (AU$3.50). Maybe it's just me, but even for a knock off, that's still really cheap!
After leaving the tram stop I walked down to Central and the harbour again. This is when I learnt fast that I need to keep myself hydrated. Hong Kong isn't hot at this time of year (avg temp is about 23 degrees), but it is humid. I started to see spots at this point, and instantly felt better after downing about a litre of Evian. For the next couple of hours I just kept walking around aimlessly. There was some sort of Filipino Immigrant Workers Union protest going on. I dunno how hard they work, but they certainly protest in the laziest fashion. Basically for about a square kilometre in Central there were a few thousand filipino migrants just sitting on the streets and footpaths, playing cards and cooking food. This was the first point that I stopped feeling transparent, and on a few occasions I saw filipino people pointing me out to their friends. It was really weird, cause nobody had paid me any attention until this point. Maybe white people are interesting to Filipino people, but not Chinese people. Or maybe, I forgot to do my fly up after that litre of Evian worked its way through.
Feel rather exhausted, I arrived back at my hotel at 5pm and laid in bed watching TV for about an hour. I read my guide book, and decided to head out for the 'night life' at a Australian themed bar near my hotel, called Ned Kelly's Last Stand. If I'm ever retired and bored, I'm going to open a real Australian themed bar in Hong Kong. They were playing American Jazz music, had photos of 'Australians' on the wall that I'd never heard of, and their feature beer was Carlsberg. I left after one drink, and came back to my hotel, where I sit now writing this blog.
Tomorrow morning I plan to wake up late and head straight to the airport for my flight to Taiwan. I expect Ivy will be taking me drinking tomorrow night so I figure I should rest up while I have the chance.
In a nutshell, Hong Kong has been an incredible experience and I wish I had more time to get to know the place better. I also wish I'd planned to shop here, as everything is so cheap. I'd almost recommend to my friends that they save up a few thousand, fly up here for a weekend, shop till they drop, and then go back home. Even with the cost of flights, the amount you can save on a new warddrobe is incredible. I think the best bits I've learnt here are:
My day started at about 9am when I hit the streets and walked over to Victoria Harbour, on the Kowloon side. This area gives you a fantastic view of the entire southern island, stretching east past North point, south at Wan Chi, and east at Central. It's simply the most incredible thing I've seen. Unfortunately, there's no wind in Hong Kong this weekend so the smog is hanging in the air and visibility is quite low. While I took plenty of photos of Wan Chi (more of a commercial area than where I'm at, Tsim Sha Tsui, which is nothig but shops), but I'm not sure if they turned out alright since you can hardly see the other side of the harbour due to the haze.
I walked along the harbour till the south western most point and jumped on the Star Ferry, which cost roughly HK$2.50 but I'm not sure since I just held out a hand of coins and the conductor took what he thought was fair. I made a point after that to learn the coins, having only focused on notes to that point. At any rate, $2.50 in Hong Kong is about 40c back home. Cheapest transport I've ever bought.
On the other side of the harbour I walked from Wan Chi to Central. This was quite an amazing experience for me. When you step off the ferry ino the harbour side of Wan Chi, you're basically standing at the fringe of a mega city. Few buildings would be under the 30 story mark, and it's all business, business, business. Walk four blocks into the island and this mega city transforms instantly to that old china feeling. Tight streets, markets everywhere, and a serious of interesting odors. The further into the island I walked, the less westerners I could see (there really aren't that many. In fact, only 5% of the 'white people' I've seen so far were actually speaking English), so I decided to stick to that path, rather than the more traditional tourists path.
Eventually after two hours of walking I arrived at my morning goal, the Peak Tram station. There was a huge line going around the corner, but it only took about 30 minutes before I was on the tram going up the mountain at a 50 or 60 degree incline. It's actually a bit painful since your back is forced into a wooden chair. 12 minutes later I was once again redefining "the most amazing thing I've ever seen". I've been to 'lookouts' before, many in fact, but this was in a class of its own. It seems the tallest point in HK just wasn't tall enough for the locals, so they proceeded to build a 7 story mall on top of the mountain. You go up escalator after escalator until you finally arrive at an observation post. The view is incredibly, and not really as scary as I thought it would be (this is about 500m up, I'm guessing). No HK building comes within reach of this point, but sure as hell there are many that try.
Should you ever visit HK, do everything you can to make it to The Peak Tower. To miss it would be like missing your own wedding.
I decided to stop for lunch here, and found (not that it was hard) chinese restaurant. This place was fancy, and I expected to be hurting afterwards, but I decided I couldn't miss the experience. While HK residents speak generally good English, this restaurant seemed to have a lack of English speakers. After a few minutes of hand gestures and slowly spoken English, my waiter and I decided we could not understand each other and I blindly pointed to a Dim Sum Platter. It was a bit pricey, I thought, but that's what I expected....
The 3 steamed dumplings were about as wide and tall as a 50c piece so I figured I'd have to pay for that and stop at a hungry jacks or something back down at street level. When I was about to skull my beer and make treds my waiter brought out another course, this time it was some sort of soup. I have no idea what this soup was, but it was incredibly thick and had something in it. I swallowed hard, and ate. It was delicious! I was about to leave when another meal came out. It was a vegetable thing, I ate it, and it too was delicious. But, I started to worry that they were just bringing me food until I stopped, and charge me a fortune for it all. I prompted my waiter and we resumed our conversation through hand gestures. He showed me the menu, and carefully explained that I had ordered a set course menu, and had three courses left. It was at this point I took note of the price for
the set, which was HK$148. I finished the final three equally delicious courses and proceeded to leave. As I waked to the tram stop I did the math (I'm getting really good at dividing by seven). This delicious six course meal, served at the highest restaurant in HK (seriously), cost me all of AU$30, including beer!!!At first I had no idea how this city could survive itself. There is every opportunity to spend money, and people seemed to keep doing it. Yesterday, I couldn't believe how anybody could afford to stay alive in a place like this. But now I finally realise how cheap it all is. I picked up a knock off CK watch at one of the many markets I passed through today, and it cost me all of HK$25 (AU$3.50). Maybe it's just me, but even for a knock off, that's still really cheap!
After leaving the tram stop I walked down to Central and the harbour again. This is when I learnt fast that I need to keep myself hydrated. Hong Kong isn't hot at this time of year (avg temp is about 23 degrees), but it is humid. I started to see spots at this point, and instantly felt better after downing about a litre of Evian. For the next couple of hours I just kept walking around aimlessly. There was some sort of Filipino Immigrant Workers Union protest going on. I dunno how hard they work, but they certainly protest in the laziest fashion. Basically for about a square kilometre in Central there were a few thousand filipino migrants just sitting on the streets and footpaths, playing cards and cooking food. This was the first point that I stopped feeling transparent, and on a few occasions I saw filipino people pointing me out to their friends. It was really weird, cause nobody had paid me any attention until this point. Maybe white people are interesting to Filipino people, but not Chinese people. Or maybe, I forgot to do my fly up after that litre of Evian worked its way through.
Feel rather exhausted, I arrived back at my hotel at 5pm and laid in bed watching TV for about an hour. I read my guide book, and decided to head out for the 'night life' at a Australian themed bar near my hotel, called Ned Kelly's Last Stand. If I'm ever retired and bored, I'm going to open a real Australian themed bar in Hong Kong. They were playing American Jazz music, had photos of 'Australians' on the wall that I'd never heard of, and their feature beer was Carlsberg. I left after one drink, and came back to my hotel, where I sit now writing this blog.
Tomorrow morning I plan to wake up late and head straight to the airport for my flight to Taiwan. I expect Ivy will be taking me drinking tomorrow night so I figure I should rest up while I have the chance.
In a nutshell, Hong Kong has been an incredible experience and I wish I had more time to get to know the place better. I also wish I'd planned to shop here, as everything is so cheap. I'd almost recommend to my friends that they save up a few thousand, fly up here for a weekend, shop till they drop, and then go back home. Even with the cost of flights, the amount you can save on a new warddrobe is incredible. I think the best bits I've learnt here are:
- Stay hydrated
- "Shavers Only" in my hotel bathroom is just a recommendation, and I can charge my iPod using my JP travel adaptor
- To completely ignore Indians trying to sell me suits
- That buying new sneakers before I left was a fantastic idea
Take care everyone,
Mike
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