Round the world · Chapter 22
Pier and loathing in Hong Kong
I’m leaving Singapore today
Singapore New Dells
Nope, not bought a laptop, just wanted to use that title really. I’m leaving Singapore today and right now I’m not sure I have enough time to write up my last day in Hong Kong, let alone any of the days spent here, but hopefully I’ll be able to from the Cathay lounge this afternoon.
The nachos pronunciation saga extends as I receive this response from my bro, who has started blogging ‘cos he’s not got anything better to do with his days at the moment. Get a job, hippy. And tell me, what do you eat when you visit Taco Bell?
This hotel has a pool. I’m off to use it. Then I need to buy a bag because I’ve bought enough stuff on this trip that my main one is finally overflowing (not that I’m the best packer in the world). But that’s only one reason: I’ve also found out that Cathay Pacific will check my luggage through from Singapore all the way to Tokyo, ie check it in for tomorrow morning’s flight even though it’s a stopover and separate ticket rather than me being in transit. So I need a smaller bag in which to put a change of clothes, and now I can avoid carting the main one all the way to the hotel and back in Hong Kong.
put 18.65 singapore dollars in a currency converter
Got up last Friday morning and wasn’t hungover. This was quite surprising really. In most places I expected to feel rough in the morning through dehydration anyway, either because the aircon had been on all night and dried me out, or the aircon had been off all night and I’d been boiling. But no, I felt fine, bonus.
A cab was booked to take me back to the airport at 1pm but I was up pretty early, about 8am, so I went for a swim for the 3rd morning running. Another 20 lengths. I must be mental. Back in the room I slacked for a bit then packed up and checked out, leaving my bags with the concierge so I could go out and explore. Not that I wanted to venture far, since I didn’t have masses of time nor the desire to leave the safety of air-conditioning. I just went into the Bugis mall, connected to the hotel and full of shops and places to eat. Good job too, ‘cos I was hungry. I looked around the shops, thought about buying a wallet, asked the Sony shop if they had any 1GB m2 memory sticks (they didn’t; in fact not a single shop I’ve been in on my entire trip so far has had any, and it’s the only bit of electronics I’ve wanted) and then ate.
First on the menu was some octopus balls, with mayonnaise. Fucking hell octopus is nice. I asked my bro if they’re endangered so I could work out whether it was a guilty pleasure, apparently they’re not though. Yet. Finished those and went to a different place for some ice cream on toast.
You heard.
The place I got this from only sold toast-based meals. Big on bread, the Singaporeans. Bloody nice it was, but that might be in the main because I’m a big fan of ice-cream and a big fan of toast. Anyway after finishing that I still had an hour to kill and a few Singapore dollars in me pocket, so I figured I’d have a pint. Bought it in the bar attached to the hotel. It wasn’t cheap.
Put 18.65 Singapore dollars in a currency converter
Hotel entrance
The ride to the airport was annoying. The driver rabbited on non-stop about how poor he was, how little money he made from driving for the hotel, how I must be rich to stay there, how regular cabbies made more than his limo-driving-for-Intercontinental job, how he’d been driving for years and years and was never going to have enough money to visit a foreign country, etc etc. It may have been all true, but the way he said it, the way he looked at me in the mirror, I just didn’t believe or trust him at all. It felt like a total scam. Tipping is frowned upon in Singapore, even banned in some places, yet he’d explicitly said how the only thing that makes his job worthwhile is the occasional tip he gets from western visitors. Sorry mate, fuck that, my money’s going to Unicef.
Mind you I should write to Unicef. Change For Good is all well and, err, good, but I want to expand the slogan and start Climate Change For Good. The sooner bits of the world become a sensible temperature rather than ridiculously hot the better. Now we can manufacture an ice-age, or go Total Recall-style, entire world being airconned, either way is good for me, but certain places just need to stop being so fucking hot. Then maybe I’ll go back and visit Singapore.
Actually I don’t think I will anyway. If you’re interested in having a low crime rate I think they’ve got the right idea. Massive sentences for drug use (eg, death) and other supposedly outrageous sentences for minor infractions (chewing gum, not flushing a public toilet, etc) seem to be a good way to stop people doing those things. I’ve never really thought harsh penalties are that effective a deterrent for yer major crimes like murder, fraud, etc, because the people committing those tend to either meticulously plan it and honestly/arrogantly believe they’ll not get caught (which makes the sentence irrelevant), or do it in the heat of the moment (where the consequences are far from their thoughts). But for other stuff people will just go, OK, not worth the risk of having a joint if they’re going to kill me, and hey presto, no drug use. Not flush the toilet and be fined $150? OK, I’ll flush. But possibly related to all of this is that I found Singapore too sterile, too clean, too nice. No edginess to the place, no shady neighbourhoods, no … soul? I dunno. Also I found most of the people I met (bar staff, cab drivers, shop assistants) to be miserable fucks. Perhaps that’s because alcohol costs so much. Either way, I won’t be back in a hurry.
Don’t mind changing planes there though, or waiting for one. I went to the Cathay Pacific lounge after checking in and got them to reprint my boarding passes – Cathay really don’t like shoving my BA number in my bookings, sigh – and then sat there for a bit eating and drinking. After a while I thought, hold up, this place is shit. Because it is. The Skyview lounge is tiny and shared by about 15 airlines (as well as Priority Pass, a pay-for-lounge-access card you can get) and was getting crowded. Thankfully both ticket and BA membership meant I could go use the far bigger and better shared Qantas/BA lounge, and because there were no imminent flights for either airline it was fucking empty.
One beer later and it was time to go board me flight. Can’t remember what the entertainment or food was, much the same as the previous flight I suppose. Not sure why I didn’t take any notes but I suspect it’s because I was a bit pissed.
Skyview lounge: tiny and empty
Empty Qantas/BA lounge in Singapore
Comfy seat + English newspaper + free beer = cool
Missing out Singapore for the moment..
Just arrived in Hong Kong for a one night stay before flying to Tokyo in the morning. Some things I forgot to comment on about Hong Kong from first time round, primarily to do with money. First, when waiting for the ferry to central on Monday I was really thirsty but fresh out of cash. Octopus card to the rescue, the vending machines accept it as a form of payment. Diet Coke ahoy. Secondly, Hong Kong ATMs have their 0-9 keypad in a different order to every ATM I’ve ever used in every other country ever. Finally, the money is branded. Notes of the same denomination are all the same size, but different designs and colours depending on the issuing bank. I was very confused to get 4 different HKD20 notes in the change from my first ever HK purchase.
So now I’m here again and I just did the least fatcat bit of the holiday yet. I checked my bag in at Singapore all the way to Tokyo so I’ve just got hand luggage at the moment, just one bag because I didn’t need to buy a new one after all. Because of that, and because when getting off the flight I was a bit drunk, I thought I’d get a regular local public transport (ie, non-hotel-shuttle) bus from the airport to this hotel. It’s just off airport island and easily visible, and I thought the S1 bus went right outside it.
It doesn’t. It goes to Tung Chung subway station. Which is supposedly OK, because I read my hotel (Novotel Citygate) has direct access to that station. Unfortunately when I got there it appeared quite vividly that the hotel was across an uncrossable road and I couldn’t find any signs. But then I did! So I followed it, and the next sign was greyed out. OK, I figured, busted light, I’ll follow it anyway. Then the next one was greyed out too. And the next one. But I persevered and here I am, in my hotel. After public transport and a walk through a shopping centre I checked in and got upgraded to a room on the top floor, one of the business floors, and it is swish. I think the bottle of wine just over there is free, shame I don’t drink the damn stuff. I have a fairly good view, cordless phone + aircon control, the widest range of free toiletries yet, and am just generally a bit… annoyed that the only room upgrade has occurred in a hotel I’ll be staying in for less than 12 hours. 0730 shuttle bus to the airport tomorrow morning, would normally have gone a bit later but (a) I want to go drink some more (b) I’m already checked in – with an upper deck seat, no less – for the flight to Narita.
Pier and loathing in Hong Kong
So here I am at 0825 sat in the Pier, one of Cathay Pacific’s flagship and supposedly wonderful, amazing lounges at Hong Kong. Wasn’t going to blog from here at all as I’d decided to instead sit back and listen to some music, or watch some TV, on the in-lounge entertainment system here called StudioCX. But I’ve tried this 3 times now and it never works. In The Wing (the other amazing lounge) the one at the table where I was sitting didn’t work, constantly saying “touch the screen with your finger to start” but just displaying a “no entry” icon wherever I touched. Now in the Pier I tried one whose screen worked, but only had audio coming out of one ear in the headphones (which made listening to anything aggravating in the extreme), and the second refused to react to my finger and now is displaying an IE “page cannot be displayed” error page. Great.
The annoying thing is that this is a good lounge. Quiet, good lighting, views of the planes, loads of information, helpful staff, decent free for all food and drink… but the problem is I had way too high expectations, I think. People on flyertalk rave about Cathay (in the BA forum!) and frequently express a whole “this is how an airline should be run” thing about their service, on the ground and in the air. But I’ve never had it that good. :( Missing out my BA number so I’ve got to chase them up later for the miles I’m earning, broken stuff in the lounges, no alcohol until 1pm(!) in the Wing, constant attention when I’m trying to squeeze 2 short films into a 3h40m flight, … I think they hate me. Oh well. This is my last flight with them on this section of my holiday (the flight from New York to Vancouver next May is also Cathay though) and at least I’m on the upper deck.
Oh, and I can’t keep an ssh session open for longer than like 5 minutes on their wireless network either. FFHS.
So, hmm, Tokyo here I come. I’ve got no yen and the ATM network there doesn’t work with European cards. Hope there’s somewhere at Narita I can get some currency before going into the centre, or maybe my hotel can sort me out. I tried to get some here but I guess the bad vibes extend beyond Cathay Pacific and to Hong Kong airport as a whole. Went to the Travelex desk and said Hi, I’d like some Japanese Yen please. Certainly Sir, how are you paying? Credit card. OK, with a credit card there will be commission charged. That’s fine. OK, do you know your PIN, Sir? Yes. OK, then I would recommend going to an ATM and drawing out some Hong Kong Dollars then changing those for Yen, it will be cheaper. Yes madam can I help you…
Err. Excuse me. I wanted some fucking yen. I said OK to commission. I don’t care how much over the top it costs me. I’m not going to draw out some money in HKD and then convert that to JPY because coping with one exchange rate at a time is all I’m good for. Sigh. So I came to the lounge to relax… :( I guess the best thing about this morning was getting the free shuttle bus to the airport half an hour earlier than I’d booked for, the feeling of smug superiority as everyone else struggled with their bags while I knew mine was already checked in, and grabbing a whole bunch of free nosh (and diet coke) as soon as I got here.
Oh, yeah, one last bitch and whine and moan: The Wing is by gate 1 and The Pier by gate 64. I’m flying from gate 32. Good one. In fact, shit, I need to go get on that flight come to think of it.