Hong Kong (Apr 9-12)

Hong Kong

This is New York on Steroids. It has the best skyline view in the world (of those that I have seen already). I arrived and took a walk down to the southern tip o f Kowloon. A student came up an asked me about my workout practices either for a business plan or a class project. On the survey it asked which continent you were from. I am sure that day she had filled out at least 5 of the seven continent boxes many times. This place is a true mix across nationalities, cultures and religions. It’s a nexus. Indian stores next to African next to Japanese, all trying to sell stuff cheaper and better than the next.

And selling is what people do here. It’s shopping. Coming back from my first exploration, I met Carry, 20, from Sydney, who was here on a shopping holiday with her parents. She was not going out per se that evening, she was going shopping, to buy more cheap things. Block after endless block of signs, watch stores, silk stores, cheap clothing stores, expensive clothing stores, everything you can imagine crammed together on a pretty damn small island.

Glenn still wasn’t feeling better, so I set off at night to learn the city on my own. The pub street just north of our hotel was pretty quiet at 10 PM, so I took the MTK (their subway) up to supposedly where night shopping was. Nothing much, but I did see a 15 story mall with an immense lobby and the longest escalators I had even seen spanning four or five floors. I met Eugene in the street. A Russian, he complained that Hong Kong was not as cheap as Moscow, where he was from. Coincidentally, he had lived in Kendall, FL for 3 years, 3 years ago. Small world. He thought Florida was hot. I agreed.

I then went down to Lan Kwai Fong, a collection of dozens of bars and restaurants in the Central district. Though not packed, it was quite crowded for a Monday night. The first person I met, Laura, was from Indiana and had lived much of her life in Orlando, before moving away 14 years ago with her husband who was a pilot. She said she was contemplating buying a condo in Florida and we talked about the market a bit.

When Laura left, I met Jeanine, an attractive jeans model from Manila. She was wearing a mini mini skirt and a tank top and doing a bad job of keeping either one on. She was absolutely crazy and we started making out in the bar – not an exceptional feat for the trip, but worth noting because of how absolutely without reservation she was, flashing everything to everybody. Eventually, she freaked me out a bit too much, and I left her (after taking her number, because who knows)

In the next bar, I met a group of early-20’s brits and a beautiful long-dark curly haired girl. They were teachers here in Hong Kong, but soon had to go home to get up for work the next day – leaving me broken hearted….for a minute. I then went to a small, but crowded bar with a great dance floor and I live band performing club dance music, something you don’t often see. They were pretty good. There I met Lafrancine (or that’s how I incorrectly heard her name) from France. She was about my height, and probably had me beat by 5-10 pounds, but wore it all well and was very attractive. We danced and made out until her friend joined, where she then started making out with her female friend (but wouldn’t allow me to join). Ahhh, Hong Kong! At 4:30 AM, I went home.

Day 2:
Woke up late. I slept in and didn’t go to the tour, which Glen said was mediocre, like most of the tours. They stopped by a fishing village, took the peak tram to the top of the mountain (but it was cloudy) and went to one of the surrounding islands. I woke up eventually, and I took the Lonely Planet suggested walking tour of old Hong Kong – which was pretty uninteresting. It took you around the older parts – the dried fish market, some very small, insignificant temples, the first place Britain placed their flag (unmarked). It was unremarkable, but did get me out to see the town.

Afterwards, I went over to the tallest building in the city, the IFC building 1 and went up to the 55 floor (about 2/3rds of the way up) to look around. Good view, but not spectacular and wouldn’t be as good as that from the Peak tram.

I came back, slept and we went out again to “the area”. Glenn and I first went to a great Chinese meal on the street north of our hotel. I had a delicious chicken dish. We then went to Lan Kwai Fong and immediately ran into the Filipino chick, who was with 6 older Caucasian guys. She was hot! I got a picture with her and she was all over me and asked me where I would be later. During the day, Glenn had been told (as I suspected) to watch out for Filipino woman, because they would do anything, even drug you and steal your money. Combined with my inate suspicions, it was all enough for me to walk away from this tempting, but in the end not so tempting, offer. We saw a few woman other places, but wound up at the same club where I had met the Frenchie the night before. Here, Glenn met a crazy local cutie, who he was making out with within 20 seconds of meeting her (Hong Kong!). I met a few girls but nothing special, until I looked to my right and saw a cute girl. We started dancing together, 5 minutes later we were making out. 10 minutes later we left the bar (Hong Kong!) Shannon was a local now, but initially from Nova Scotia. She had come over here for adventure and to get away from NS. Her grandma had always joked as a kid – what are you going to go to Hong Kong? She finally did. She was teaching English and had, in her 7 years, earned a bit of seniority. Her apartment was small, 500 sf 1 bedroom, much like millions of small 500sf 1 bedrooms in Manhattan. The window AC worked when the curtain wasn’t in front of it. Her DVD player was so cheap that it only played certain DVDs. Her Kitchen was built into her wall. She was a great girl, content with her life in Hong Kong.

Day 3 – Peak Tram
Took the tram back to the hotel from Causeway Bay. It was a beautiful day (70 and sunny), and I went up the Peak Tram, which is a train initially built over 100 years ago (but obviously refurbished and updated since then), that runs to the top of the mountain overlooking Hong Kong, from which you can get the best view of the city and all its towering glory. The Mall at the top of the hill is in itself impressive, providing shopping options for almost anything you want. No mere small tourist trap, this is a huge tourist trap. The view was sensational, and though we couldn’t quite educate other tourists to take a good picture of Glenn and I (the idea of cropping is obviously too complicated for them), we did get some great photos and had a good meal.

I got back and went briefly to the science museum, which was unremarkable. I had messed up playing with the camera and erased my pictures of the Hong Kong, so, without really getting upset, but just accepting this loss of some pretty good pictures, I returned to the harbor overlooking Hong Kong Island and reshot better shots than the first. There, I met two guys who were working for Black and Decker. They were in town because Wal-Mart was holding their annual buying sessions in Shenzen, just north of Hong Kong in mainland China, where many of the factories for the products were. They had come down to check out Hong Kong and enjoy a few days of R&R. As I explained my journey, they did the normal “are you married…well, it’s a little different when you are married”. Which is correct. Glad I am not married (yet) then.

I then went back, slept a bit and then, after a dinner, went back to Lan Kwai Fung, but nothing was going on there. I took a walk up about half a mile to the Soho restaurant district which was mostly closed down for the night, but worth experiencing. Dozens of restaurants, snuck into street fronts, some with very high-end buildouts, some with themed décor. All in all, the area had an intimate, real feel, but still had new, international restaurants (stuff you could easily imagine in New York or Miami). I stopped into two places, but they were almost completely empty.

I walked back the long way, down the hill to LKF area and took a taxi home.

Macau

Day 4 – Macau
We woke up early and began the race that would become our day in Macau. We wound up having only 2 hours in Macau itself, and that, it turns out was more than enough. The first thing we saw was the Macau Tower, which resembles all giant satellite towers (Seattle, Sydney, etc.) From the top, you see Macau in all its “glory”. Not much yet. A bunch of older casinos and buildings and some construction. The only high end casino that is finished is the Wynn (It’s a carbon copy of the one in Vegas). The Venetian (also looks to be identical like the one in Vegas) will be finished later this year. Many more are in the works. All Sky Towers are cool, so this was no exception. AJ Hacket has also set up a Bunge jump and sky walk on the top, so you can do that as well. We didn’t have time to do a third bunge jump.

35 minutes into our 2 hour sojourn, we were off to the Wynn hotel. Unremarkable, except for the fact that yes, there was yet another Starbucks in the hotel. We ducked across the street to the Royal Lantau and saw the gaudy, somewhat dated casino there. The new tower for this casino was being built and it, too, looked tasteless and gaudy.

After our quick casino tour, we explored the “old city”, established by the Portuguese in their colonization. 5 minutes before we had to leave for the boat, we hit upon a beautiful and quaint part of town, different than the dirty, ugly parts we had seen. It was a courtyard, with colonial style buildings, hordes of tourists, and, in the sunny day, seemed ideal for a leisurely lunch and stroll….but, no time on the 2 hour tour. We went back to the boat, took the boat to Hong Kong (1 hour), train to hotel, rushed through a 15 minute lunch, bus to airport (after we missed the first one), a long wait in the airport, then the plane to Guilin, arriving after 11.