Round the world · Chapter 16
Hong Kong, phooey
Astonished by Hong Kong’s breathtaking ugliness.
For those about to blog (continued)
0925 flight to Hong Kong meant checking in at 0645, 0700. :-( So I got up early to pack up, go downstairs and checkout, and get me a cab. Safely ensconced in the lounge I fixed myself up some breakfast and a couple of diet cokes, then went to explore the terminal. Stared at the electronics for a while but didn’t buy anything, did end up with a shirt though. The flight itself was fairly empty in business class, and I had no-one sitting next to me. A much nicer plane than my previous 3 Qantas affairs, this was equipped with their Skybeds which are hoofing great things with all manner of seat controls including a massage button, which makes the back of the seat undulate and stuff. I pressed that a lot throughout the flight, it was great fun.
Audio/Video on demand meant I got to choose what I wanted to watch, but I’d had to use the headphones from the seat next to me because mine only worked in one ear. I watched Lucky Number Slevin (liked that a lot), some of V For Vendetta (got bored very quickly), all of The Castle (supposedly the funniest Australian film ever, I pity Aussie audiences if that’s the case), and most of Memento (because we started our descent during it and I had to stop, I was getting bored of it anyway). Guy Pearce does a passable impression of looking like Brad Pitt, I thought. It also reminded me a bit of me on this holiday, taking notes to remember things and stuff. Of course I’m not trying to hunt down a rapist and killer, but just note down things to write here, but still.
Skybed controls
PER-HKG menu
Some odd thing in Australia
A bit of Australia
Planes
No-one waiting for me at Hong Kong airport to take me to the hotel even though I’d booked it and the confirmation mail I got 2 days before arriving had mentioned it, and had the correct flight listed. Found the hotel’s desk and presented myself whereupon they accused me of having changed flights because I wasn’t due yet. Apparently I was arriving on the flight from Sydney in about an hour. Erm, no, I’m here. Mind you they didn’t ask for any ID to prove I was the Mr Foreman they had on their list, so WTF? Anyway they sorted me a car out sharpish and 40 minutes or so later I was in my hotel, astonished by Hong Kong’s breathtaking ugliness.
A foray in 4A
English Darren had told me I’d be mad if I didn’t go out on my first night in Hong Kong, straight down to an electronics shop to buy a camera. Sorry Darren, I guess I’m mad. True to form I’d arrived at the hotel with no local currency nor any means of transport. I knew in advance that buying an Octopus Card was the right thing to do, and previous experience should have told me to get some bloody cash out at the airport ’n all, but I did neither. I didn’t stay in the hotel room all night though, first off I went for a harbourside wander and had my first night time view of that skyline. Like, wow. Also loads of locals practising tai chi, or fishing over the side, some with rods and some with just lines. Took that in for a bit and then went inland, looking for a bank and something to eat. Found both: an HSBC and a 7-Eleven where I bought a sandwich and a diet coke. For about one pound twenty. Bargain. Explored a little bit more, the area is called Whampoa and is on the Hong Kong mainland (ie, Kowloon side). I don’t think I knew until about a month ago that Hong Kong wasn’t purely an island.
Hong Kong at night
Hong Kong at night
Confusing ordering of floors: where's 4?
A few more misconceptions were laid to rest during my time here too come to think of it. For example, not all Chinese people look alike. In fact they range from slightly to massively different, all of ’em. Funny that, eh? Mind you they are short, and they do sound alike. That’s because as well as having a fucking ridiculous form of writing (font manufacturers must hate the Chinese, there’s almost fuck all you can do with it) the Cantonese language seems to have it in for accents. The tone of each word is so important that the meaning changes – not subtly, as in variations on a single meaning, but the entire bloody word. So you could get a book with pronunciations in it, rubbishy Romanised versions of the words, but if you were a typical westerner who automatically attached the intonations you’d use in your first language, you’d probably end up talking total bollocks. Meanwhile the locals all sound the same because they have to use the same intonation as one another.
Oh for fucks sake. Flickr is really pissing me off these days. If I didn’t already have 2500 photos on it I’d consider moving somewhere else like photobucket, or even reverting back to using gallery. No, wait, I wouldn’t do that. But fucking hell. I’ve finally got a decent upload speed in this ’ere lounge but flickr still kicks me off midway through sending up 150-odd photos and now I’ve got to work out where it stopped, remove all the ones it managed from uploadr, and kick it off again. Gah!
Anyway. Yes. Chinese. Sound alike, short, don’t all look alike. Also, I know some fellas have got a thing about yer Eastern women, in general and not just specific ones, but I’ve gotta say guys, it’s not all Lucy Liu over here y’know. There’s as many heifers as there are fit ones, it is – shock horror! – once again much like back home in terms of proportions.
*cough* That’s enough anthropology to be getting on with, I think.
That was it for Friday night though. A wander around Whampoa and along the harbour front, then back in the hotel.
Hong Kong, phooey
OK, beginning to think I’ve cocked up here. Just went out to explore Hong Kong on my first full day. Put on a loose fitting, light, short sleeved shirt, and after 30 minutes walking I’m drenched in sweat and high-tailing it back to my hotel room for some aircon. Erm. Not really sure what to do now. The heat is oppressive and I’m not even in a built-up (by Hong Kong standards) area, not even on the island. I’ve got at least 3 things to do on my plan for today but before I can do any of them I need to buy an Octopus Card, the nearest outlet of which is about an hour’s walk away, and if I attempt it again I’ll die of dehydration. I think the hotel has a free shuttle bus to somewhere useful but the concierge wasn’t helpful earlier. Not yet 11am and I feel almost imprisoned, Dubai style, by the weather :-( Time to have a sit, a think, and put on a darker shirt I guess. Nice.
A foray in 4A (continued)
Saturday started badly, as previously blogged about. Ridiculous weather, drenched in sweat after a walk, etc etc. So after that tiny hiccup I thought, look, sort it out Foreman. Fucking get out there, get some transport, go fucking sightseeing you arse. And I did. Firstly I got on the free hotel shuttle bus to Tsim Sha Tsui, the region on Kowloon side where there’s a whole lot to do. Shitloads of electronics shops, people on street corners offering tailored suits or fake Rolexes, loads of other shops and bars and restaurants and hotels and museums and stuff. I just walked around taking it all in for a bit, then navigated to the customer service desk in the MTR (tube) station where I finally bought an Octopus Card. It’s just like an Oyster card, except you can use it all over the fucking place, in shops and McDonald’s and stuff.
With that in hand, loaded with HKD100 of travel, I returned to street level and walked to the Star Ferry terminal. You can get across to the island by tube, but where’s the fun in that? The walk goes through a huge complex full of museums and stuff and I got stopped by a fella who wanted me to take his photo with the island side as a backdrop. I obliged but, really, the island side in daytime is fucking ugly.
Got the ferry across and instantly spotted the bus that goes to the Peak Tram. The Peak Tram isn’t a tram, but a funicular railway, the steepest one in the world at that. It does go to the Peak, though. For someone without sea legs and who doesn’t like heights this holiday appears to be a bit of a wrong ‘un, but bear with me. I don’t like boats that lean over or use, nay require, wind to operate, and there are only certain types of heights I don’t like too. For example, going up this non-tram was great – it’s so steep the floors aren’t flat, because people standing would fall over, and the seats all face upwards because you’d fall out the other way – but once at the top I started to go up the escalators to the viewing platform, and it was those that fucked me up. In fact I didn’t get all the way to the top because the ol’ legs were giving out again and I thought I was going to rip the handrail off such was my grip on it, so I just went back to the ground floor and explored the little area at the, err, Peak.
The Peak Tram: not a tram
Waiting for the non-tram
Respiratory problems
Steepness
View from the non-tram
Non-tram tracks
By “explore the little area” I do, of course, mean “find somewhere to buy a diet coke”. That done, I wandered around and took a few photos but really it wasn’t that impressive a place. Just a few normal, western restaurants and shops. I’m sure the view is superb when the weather’s clear and sunny – in fact the tourist advice all says to visit the Peak on a clear day – but I, along with everyone I spoke to on my days here, am convinced that the weather is never clear and sunny. Just smoggy and nasty. Even the local rag reports the air pollution level and uses “high” as the middle rating. Turns out that I went on probably the clearest day of my trip anyway (today it’s raining).
Hong Kong from the Peak
Hong Kong from the Peak
The Peak
Some other peaks
Hold up. He's not Scottish!
Peak fountains
I came back down from the top just by a regular bus rather than the tram again, saving myself nowhere near as much money as I thought I would, but it proved a good idea because the number 15 takes a proper windy route, heads past Happy Valley racecourse and through Wan Chai and lands me right back at Central station, which is exactly where I wanted to be because the next thing on my list was to ride the Central/Mid-levels escalator.
This is an 800m escalator that links, err, Central and the Mid-levels. It’s not one long continuous thing, but a series of ’em. Nonetheless it’s still fantastic. You can get halfway up into the city without ever going down to street level by using it, and the gaps are at handy points for big roads full of shops, reflexology foot clinics, or bars and restaurants. Take a look at how busy they are on the way up, pick your spot, and walk back down to the one you fancy at the next hop-off point. You have to walk down because the escalator only runs one way, up. Actually that’s not strictly true: it runs down from, I think, 6am to 10am, because it’s also a commuter route(!). Great fun though.
Some temple or other, from the bus, hence the angle
High towers
Claustrophobia in Hong Kong
Hustle. Bustle.
View from the escalator
The Marx brother who went into porn
From the top I walked back down, zigzagging my way through various streets chosen not for any particular reason other than them looking interesting from the intersections. Eventually made my way back to the Star Ferry terminal and got a boat across to Hung Hom, the terminal just round the corner from my hotel. The Star ferries are ace – the rows of seats can be changed to face backwards or forwards just by moving the back. I’ve a photo of it on the way up to flickr at the moment which will make it easier to explain and understand.
Back at the hotel I dropped me stuff off, shoved a different shirt on and went to one of the hotel bars. Goddamn happy hour, from 5pm ’til 8.30pm every drink was 2-for-1 and I got totally wasted, chatting to a welshman whose name I don’t recall. Before his arrival I had been entertained by the pissed Aussie party across from me, who must surely have been drinking all day (probably watching one of the Grand Finals that was on that day) and were in full-on philosophy mode. Religion, war, the universe, the unseeableness of God, how alcohol should be banned, all kinds of stuff was going on over there.
Oddest thing about the bar was getting waiter service. A waiter would ask me what I wanted, and then tell the guy behind the bar. This wouldn’t be odd if I hadn’t actually been perched at the bar.
Bloody hell this language is odd. It seems to me that the speech and writing are so disconnected that things like learning a new place name must be ridiculous. You can’t just tell someone on the phone what it’s called, can you? ‘cos you’d not know the signs for it. Would you? I need to read up on how Cantonese works. It confused me a lot when I saw two estate agents next to each other, one called HONG KONG PROPERTY and one called SUNRISE PROPERTY. I recognised the symbols for HONG KONG in the first one and thought, therefore, I’d be able to deduce the one for PROPERTY and spot that in the second one… but the non-Hong-Kong symbols weren’t present. Sigh.
I have a question for believers. When you die, and go to heaven, are you stuck at the age you died at? Bit naff, that. Like, people who have the misfortune to lose a child when they’re still a proper nipper, they must be looking forward to being reunited in heaven, but what if they’re now a baby in perpetuity? So many nappies. But if they age, then, what, is heaven full of REALLY REALLY old people, just constantly aging? Or do people get to pick an age at which to stop? “I quite like it here, this’ll do ta Lord”?
Hmm. It seems the philosophical nature of the drunk Aussies rubbed off on this drunk Englishman. Right, that’s Saturday done and dusted, and I’m off to the service desk here to find out why my BA card number didn’t make it onto this booking. I want my fucking miles, damn it. And a diet coke too for that matter.
