Mal in Hong Kong

Saturday, December 12, 2020

Mal in Hong Kong

I left for Hong Kong on the 26th of this month, The flight to munich was really strange, A combo of engine stalling and vibration pretty much most of the journey, There was definitely a few worried faces.
The flight to hong kong was so smooth and in a way boring because there is usually something memorable about the journey for and bad but for the most it was normal as it gets. I
I arrived in Hong Kong with no clue where to go straight from the bus terminal, I was a little worried by this point until a businessman from ireland luck of the irish sat next to me on the bus and explained Hong Kong and helped with info and directions. Still i left the bus from the stop walking without any idea which direction i was going, The directions on the website were useless, Luckily i found my way asking for directions on causeway bay from a friendly German person who i think was sightseeing but i'm not too sure as he was just standing around in the centre of the crossway.

I found the hostel and from check in i immediately met a new traveler and friend paul from london who was to become my travel pal during my trip.

The first real day in hong kong was spent wandering around HK island, We did a full circle of the island via tram and bus, A lot of places are nice but quite cliche and self indulgent, There are so many shops in HK and malls, After a while they all start to look the same. I don't understand the fascination for designer gear though in HK, it seems to be everywhere!
I've ate pretty goo so far and already so much! I've been trying to mix it up with the new stuff i've never tried but surprisingly its not that easy! my fave so far has been chicken bun from a street stall up in mongkok on nathan rd and also pork balls in tsim tsum tsai or whatever you call it, The food place we've been back to more than once in HK which means it must be good!
The harbour mall in tst is ridiculously big and as pretense as it gets, the amount of watch, diamond and designer shops says it all, still pretty interesting to wonder around and check it out.
We went to stanley but it wasn't anything really to talk about, There was a nice mall and some sweet tiny birds everywhere but nothing really special. Aberdeen was the same, Infact i expected the harbour to be much more impressive, We used it as a point to get the boat to lamma island which was a nice trip away from the city.

The island itself was pretty nice but not a lot too see, We walked for so long too maybe 1 hour 50 mins, Ice cream was pretty nice there. We then rushed our way back to central HK with help from a chinese school girl who was very friendly and funny, I think she just wanted to hang out with us in the end because she did not want to leave but we had to go our seperate ferries and make our way over to victoria harbour for a lightshow.

When we arrived there was a lot of anti chinese posters everywhere, I don't think it went down very well anyway, People were staying clear of that one. The show itself was pretty boring, The view was great though but shrouded in clouds and pollution. The other main thing to do the peak tram was equally as boring, as soon as you get to the top you step out into a shopping mall of fridge magents and angry bird chains, funnily though we spent most of our time in the mall and the toilet as the view was blocked by a thick permanent cloud, i got a funky phone charger though. The highlight for me so far has been the botanical gardens, so relaxing! peaceful and serene with animals and loads of amazing fauna. Strangely the HK people must enjoy the bustle as the park was one of the quieter places. 29th December 2012 ( Macau ) The weather has been pretty terrible so far on this trip, I was expecting sunshine but i've seen nothing but rain since i arrived although still warm and humid enough for a t-shirt.
I was hoping to travel upto sai kung and even do abit of snorkelling and surfing, I came prepared but the weather really didnt put me in the mood to do either so instead we decided to head over to chinse version of vegas, Macau.
The jet board over there was pretty amazing and comfier and just as well equipped as any plane to HK, anyway we arrived in customs and joined the huge lines for about 30 minutes. There was a lil worrying moment when i wandered off to find travel info and return to find paul missing, After about 15 minutes i bumped into him again.
We got the bus into the centre first, The portuguese colonial historical area of macau. The buildings were beautifully detailed and designed but sadly not shown alot of love by the locals but in a way its no surprise with the consumer tourist frenazy of the chinese who were present in thousands even in winter.
We walked around for a it, visited the old fort cannons which were cool and a really nice garden with impressive trees. We also visited macau museum but it was nothing special. There were many old antique and craft shops hidden between the sidestreets of macau, i wish i had more time to do some exploring but i figure i'l try and come back one day.

Macau was a refreshing change from HK, less populated, Less polluted and airy, Macau felt more like a european town. We got lost later in the night trying to make it back to go the macau tower and casino, turns out we had jumped on the wrong bus and gone way too far out to the other side of town, Anyway we made it back and made our way to macau tower.
The tower was pretty expensive but i think worth it for the views alone, There was an opportunity to do sky bungee and skywalks a sort of walk around on the roof of macau tower, wer were both up for it but decided the price was just too much and we headed back down, if i knew the deal with the casino later on we probably could have done it... 29th November 2012 We made our way to the casino, The grand lisboa the ultimate over the top off the hook building i've ever seen and probably anyone will ever see. The hotel inside was just as spectacular with the shiniest biggest decor and artwork i've ever seen and an amazing jade and ebony carving inside the main lobby with unbelievable detail. The outside really is seen to be believed, If you ever had any doubts about chinese power and intentions on the world, grand lisboa is like the grand statement of intent that china are here and big and powerful and will do it better than you.

I was gutted because i lost some of my macau pics because of drunken antics which is unlike me but i learned a lesson from it because i broke my phone and lost all my pictures upto this point later into my trip.

The lisboa casino itself was spectacular and lived upto name, paul made me laugh because the minimum chips were 10k and paul tried to trade 5k which got a histerical response from the cashiers, it was pretty funny , they probably have never seen such little money in that place, it was as grand and rich as you would expect with big spenders everywher you look.

I hit the blackjack table with 10k hk, dollars, lost it all in 5 rounds and about 5 minutes and decided to get the hell out of there as it was a game a couldnt afford to lose with a tight budget. Paul decided to opt out completely and watch me lose, he made a good call but iw as seriously drawn i think the worst cards of my life.

We jumped out and headed to a nice historical area called taipa village after some help from a kind local girl who could speak english. Taipa village was a really nice small village with historical relics, buildings and a lot of charm like a small portuguese village but in china. We wandered around for a bit running out of time to find a place to eat, We had 1 hour to make it back for the ferry terminal to HK. We jumped into a traditional portuguese restaurant which was very traditionally decorated like a portuguese grandmas home. The food was lovely,I just chosen fresh clam which great, I remembered fresh clams from cambodia so it was great to try it out again, i rarely go these places which would the sell the same for 5 x the price back home. I tried a bit of pauls food which was amazing, He got lucky with such a great choice, We were both stuck on what to choose at first.

We rushed back to the ferry terminal to board the last ferry back to, Sleepy and worn from a whole days travel, we nodded on the ferry back and it was abit of effort getting back to causeway bay without the convenience of the metro but we jumped into a taxi and were on our way back. We decided to go for a drink and a night out, Paul was leaving the next day so it was a good way to a finish a great couple of days. The night that followed is one of the reasons i try to cut back on drink as much as possible. We spent most of the night finding somehere as chinesey and as authentic as we could get to eat, We ended up inside a japanese restaurant!! but actually it was a great place, its not so often people recognise the same people twice in such a huge international city like hong kong but the owner would never forget us after we cleared out the sake stock in his restaurant. We must have been great customers for the chefs too as we tried as much variation on the menu as possible. I really had a craving for sake that night so it was a good excuse to drag paul inside the restaurant and try all sorts of unique japanese food including snail which tastes how it sounds and pumpkin chicken soup curry which was very strange! i think probably the most i spent in a restaurant and the entire trip was here which explains the amount of sake we had and how the waiter would soon become my best friend everytime i walked by the restaurant the next couple of days.

The night later was a strangely clear one, We headed over to wan chai which is a popular district for bars, clubs, strip bars and unfortunately seedy expats, Not surprisingly mostly older businessman working in HK and the girls were on patrol for the richest dude in the club. I already knew about this side of Hong Kong before i left and i tried to avoid it for most of the trip but it was inevitable i would find myself here at some point.

We walked through the maze of strip clubs and expat bars, The tyipcal bars like the queen vic, irish bar and yobs making fools of themselves on street like a saturday night in my hometown. We finally ended up in the best rock bar in town, Amazonia! This is what it said on the wall outside so we thought we would check it out.

The bar lived up to its name, A live band were performing there own versions of covers of classics and the place rocked out, The girl on stage was an amazing singer and didn't miss a note and i'm not just saying this because i was onto my 4th bottle of asahi after a heavy dose of sake, She seriously rocked the place out! Drinking in HK is seriously expensive, More so than back in london in wan chai, i guess though the clientale only go for one thing most times so only a few before there out the door for a happy ending.

The bar itself though was good, We moved onto a new place around the corner, Rocked out a little more before taxi crawling our way back to the hostel, paul was not with it at all, I was completely wasted but just functional to get us back. He was in a weird mess at this point, barely talking but it was pretty funny, i would love to see how he will cope on his next stop, a month in thailand and the full moon party! It brings me to another point, I never want to see the thai embassy in hong kong ever again after the amount of time we spent in and out of that building trying to organise his visa. The next day we were both in a mess, I woke up still drunk and discovered i had been sick all over my pants i left at the side of my bed but worse is that i fell asleep before i attempted to clean them, poor room mates must have hated me the next day, I hated myself for being in this situation, I don't think i will drink like this for a while now, The worst is yet to come, The same day after realising the mess i had made the night before, I made one big mistake which proven to be costly, i had left my mobile phone in my pocket which unfortunately received the full treatment of liquid damage from the night before, The worst scenario was beginning to unfold, my phone was not switching on! I could have been thinking well whatever these things happen but for the duration of the trip up to this point i had been using my phone as my main camera.

I had a mad dash trying to to find a reapir centre, I got pretty lucky and found the things i needed quite easily in Hong kong, but two days later all was in vain and i found out there was nothing i could do to repair the phone without losing all the data, I was pretty down about it because we had such amazing time beforehand and in macau but i had no more pictures to show for it. I still haven't told paul but i can imagine his reaction would be the same as mine, He did get mostly the same photos so unless my phone does a miraculous recovery which i still live and hope, I can get most photos from paul. I also brought my action camcorder which luckily douubles up as a camera which i used for recording footage of trip and continued to use as a camera after the knockout of my phone.

The last day we visited Mai po marshes which was an interesting trip, The marshes are a wildlife marsh reserve in western Hong Kong preserved and run by WWF. The walk itself was interesting and a completely different world away from the concrete jungle hustle and bustle of metropolitan Hong Kong. The reserve is famous for wild birds and extensive marsh wildlife, Even with binoculars it was difficult to spot a wide variety but the ones we found were pretty cool looking, there was this bird bird sitting on a ledge in the water with a fountain around it which looked like it was taking a jakuzzi or had serious wind it was really funny!

We took a wrong turn and ended up walking aruond the wholepark which was pretty quiet and not much to see and do except a great panorama view until the last ten minutes where i spotted possibly the biggest snake i've ever seen in the wild curled up in the grassy buch which paul couldn't see, either way we crept around remainder of the walk eyes peeled from this point! also torwards the end we crashed a tv interview with a policeman which was pretty random in the middle of nowhere on the path, the tv crew found it funny!

We got back to the hostel and paul was now leaving for thailand and it was a bit of a reflective goodbye, We had a great time during my first half of HK and paul was a great companion but the sad reality of travel is we all need to move on eventually and is something i've had to accept over the past few years.

The rest of the day i spent catching up and restoring normality, cleaning my worn beaten clothes and feeling sorry for myself over my phone by eating a load of chinese junk food. Later that night i caught with a few new roommates, Kat, Robert and a manila guy who's name i always forget but i think it was dan, he came over to see a rock concert in HK. We hooked up and went out for a few drinks, Robert was determined to do a repeat of amazonia the night before but nobody was really feeling for it and the scene which i'm glad because i didn't really want to spend any more time in the wan chai district anyway.
Robert was a bit of a strange guy and for the entire duration of the trip before i met him he had done nothing but drink and eat. He was determined to drink all hours of the day and always seemed on edge and neverous but always talking about girls, i just had a strange vibe around him and i didn't really try and click too much with him. Either way he came up to Nan liang garden with me the next day which was a beautiful garden and temple definitely worth the trip. We also checked out Hollywood Plaza one of the biggest malls i've ever seen. There was a christmas show with a santa workshop with all chinese kids dressed up as elfs which was surreal in a shopping mall. The mall was a kids paradise with every toy and entertainment thing imaginable, I was in heaven as a big kig and i would imagine it to be heaven if i was younger. We seen some of the most amazing lazyboy and massage chairs ever with some older dudes taking advantage of the free demonstratation. The next stop was the built in indoor arcade which i couldn't resist and reminded me of japan all over again. I put up a good fight on king of fighters but eventually suffered the same fate as in japan from the locals. The final game i checked out was the best, A kind of dance mat with hands game which was so fun, the best song i've ever heard was this song all about cats meowing to a beat and the video was like a candid cat video with all different pictures of dressed up cats in hyper china style manga! so strange but a great moment! After the game we headed back and i headed to the peak again but time at night for a second clearer viewing of Hong Kong at night. The night was a better night than ever to take a ride up to the peak which is one of the best spots to view the city skyline, The view is incredible and in many ways a celebrations display of humanity as well as a negative image of humanity in one panorama, Still the views were spectacular and one of the highlights of my trip.

I decided to walk down the peak which further down displayed even better uncrowded panoramas of the city skyline. I came to path break and ended up taking the wrong path which lead me down through the millionaire neighborhood of Hong Kong which was unexpected but surprising to see, I did kind of pretend i was just taking a stroll through my neighborhood when really i was completely lost and really trying to find the quickest way back.

I forgot to really say much about kat and dan manila dude. Manila dude was a youngish boy band looking guy who told everyone he was early 20's but i'm not too sure! anyway he was nice and loved his indie music, He was saying he wanted to visit the uk in the near future for the same reasons, he would be in heaven for music, he also reminded me of a shy version of my japanese friend taka who is indie mad. Kathia is an amazing women, from brazil but with a mixed japanese family background, she was a very unique and a special type person i meet only rarely in life. Kat was really friendly and easy going but open minded and aware of the world and herself, when we talked we had some interesting convo but i wish she arrived earlier so we could spend more time travelling around with paul, still i'm glad we met and will hopefully keep in touch. 4th December 2012 My last day in hong kong turned out to be one of the best and it nearly didn't happen at all. I found some info online about a wildlife reserve in the countryside of hong kong which if i hadn't done some last minute planning early in the day i would have probably missed it. I did check it out before i left for HK but i didn't really put it down high on my mind of things to do.

The last day i woke up early, Did some more research and decided to just go early and check it out anyway as either way i had no other plan and my flight was leaving at midnight.

Hong Kong lived up to everything i imagined it to be, After travelling already to culture shock type places i knew exactly this time what to expect and the trials i would face during the trip aswell as acceptance of meeting new people to only be waving goodbye in a few days time. I didn't expect to break my phone again and my debit card to be fraud but i was prepared for the worst. I actually sorted out the debit card problem in a 25 min phone call back to the uk whilst on a junk boat heading out to lamma island from aberdeen harbour which was interesting, Everything worked out fin with the card just it was a pain in the ass and i'm still waiting on my next phone bill for some final hk punishment ( UPDATE, THE BILL WAS NOT THAT BAD! )

So i set off for kadoorie farm my final stop in Hong kong, I remember switching from 3 metro lines and one train and a bus to reach the location, I'm sure some of the locals in the more off beat areas of Hong Kong were surprised to see such a different looking character, My hair was of most interest and a popular topic with the locals who were pretty fascinated. There was a lot of small talk during the trip but i didn't really get an opportunity to speak properly with the locals , well people never stop for too long in hong kong which is a shame because i had many questions about hong kong life i wanted to ask and hear from the locals. One of the more memorable interactions was with a hk schoolgirl who helped us out on our way to hk harbour from aberdeen, we were confused by the bus directions and being the only english speaking person at the bus stop happily jumped in to help us out, she was more intrigued in why we wanted to visit Hong Kong rather than anything, Hong Kong was boring in her point of view, she also watched americas next top model and i was amazed how much she was in touch with western culture. I think she had many more things to ask us as she didn't seem quite ready to go seperate way but obviously we couldn't hang around forever and after a few minutes of chat we were on our way.

Anyways back to the last day! The last day 2 hours and 3 metros and a bus later i reach kadoorie farm which is not actually a farm but a conservation park situated on the hills of a mountain valley.
I arrived quite late into the day and only realised the amount of time it would take after circling the lower base which contained many species of HK wildlife which had been rescued and rehabilitated by the park. There were all types of animals, My favourite was the wild cat which is strange seeing a big size domestic like cat in the wild relaxing comfortable in a tree! the cat looked like a hybrid leopard and was pretty cute! The wild birds were also amazing, especially the wild eagles which were huge,i wouldn't want them to peck me! The wild bore was also cute and the parrots were trying to get friendly showing off for the camera. Unfortunately some of the animals did not look so happy but people must understand most animals were rescued from trauma and life threatening sitations so there is a slim chance these animals would survive in the wild without care, hopefully some will be able to return to the wild in the future. We visited the botanical gardens earlier in HK central which also had an amazing variety of animals such as monkeys, lemurs, huge giant tortoises and many birds, The lemurs were so cool and lively!

The flora and fauna of kadoorie was also impressive with some of the wildest and biggest trees and plants i've ever seen! the mist and cloud was drawing in which created a spooly mystic type atmosphere which did creep me out at certain points as there was nobody else around as i walked further up the mountain. I walked for at least 20 minutes without seeing a single person, A big contrast from downtown hk, it was almost a relief to see some conservation workers at the high end of the mountain as i was starting to have concerns in my head on whether eagles like the ones i seen below roam the mountain tops and i was an easy picking! i did hear a few bird calls at the top but i had no problems on my way opto the peak although the mist and cloud at the top was spooky as anything, silent but in a weird way calming, it was a great experience. The peak views were spectacular embraced in cloud i could not see much but on a clear day i could imagine it to be ever more spectacular and a peaceful retreat in a hectic part of the world.

The time was getting pretty late and by this point i was becoming desperately in need of a drink after the long ascent so after taking in the views i decided to head back down to base. The weather took a turn from this point and the rain clouds opened up and showered from the rest of the day, i was in the wrong spot to be caught in a tropical shower, i decided to head back quick which took forever and i almost forgot how far i'd walked to reach the peak, even going down was starting to get tiring but the tropic rainstorm in a rainforest environment was an experience in itself on the way back.

I finally made it back to base and headed back to the bus for my final journey back to causeway bay to spend a few houses wandering and eating before saying my final goodbyes to Hong Kong and going on my way to the airport.

The airport itself was impressive like a giant mall but easily managable unlike the hundreds of malls in hk tightly packed with thousands of tiny shops. The funny thing is i ended up doing more shopping in the airport than the entire trip, a lot of stuff was surprisingly high priced in hk and the things which were cheap were a little sketchy quality and not much cheaper than back home .
So anyway thats it, 16 hours later i'm back in the uk, Bored once again and awaiting the next trip which is only a week away! i managed to save a lot of money and holidays so i booked it all in advance, i feel strange coming back this time around though, I've only been in HK 9 days but its been a world away, I've also finally realised how far behind the uk is compared to the rest of the world when it comes to convenience in life and there is only so much comfort and relative safety which makes it worth it. The fact is the uk may have advantages in living standards but this doesn't make up for the quality of life which is far higher and more rewarding in even developing countries, maybe its time to move on after all, i am feeling more detached than ever from home this time around because i'm starting to think the things i have in common are only by location...

Below is a Picture Diary of my Travels in Hong Kong as featured in the Hong Kong Blog Posts.