Hong Kong

27/12/07 - 2/1/08

The first thing we really noticed when getting to Hong Kong was the Englishness.Not the airport, this was fine, as you would expect from a major international hub, and getting on the bus to Kowloon was also very easy to figure out.But when I was sitting on the bus driving along the motorway and getting into town, I started to notice it.

First it was probably driving on the left, but then it was watching the cars go past us while we were on the bus. All with English number plates, even to the extent of the white plates on the front and yellow on the back. As we got closer in, the double yellow lines, no entry signs and traffic bollards were all straight from home. Not that either of us are sentimental but it was nice to feel at ease in a place so quickly, even if it was mostly due to the road signs!

As we got into Kowloon the Chinese influence began to be a bit more prevalent. Large neon signs crossing the roads advertising various products that I assume Hong Kongers (yes that's the right thing to say), need to buy or shops they need to go to. They could have been anything really as obviously neither Jemma nor I are fluent in the written Chinese alphabet. By the time we reached our stop it was a complete mix of English and Chinese with most things written in both. Regardless of the language, everything was big, bright and colourful. Welcome to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong was an extra.We didn't have in the original plan to get here, although I know I had always wanted to, and it was only a casual enquiry in a travel agent in Ho Chi Minh City that let to us booking it. It was also somewhere that, because we were going to be there over New Year, we had pre booked our accommodation over the internet.To some this may seem an obvious thing to do, but we had got into the habit of arriving and finding somewhere.Sometimes it means visiting two or three places but generally this had been ok. This time if we didn't like the place there was no moving on. That was our home for the next six days.

It was called the New China Guest House and the address was Chung King Mansions, Nathan Road. Now, Nathan Road was good, we had found that on the map and by the address we were far enough south to be close to the harbour, and anything with Mansions in the address must be good.Unfortunately, this was not the stately home wing I had in my mind, and as we walked into a slightly dirty shopping centre that was more like an Indian market with touts trying to get you to eat at their restaurant or stop at their hotel and a large tower block above it, the pre booking and payment was not looking to be such a good idea. We made it up the (extremely slow) lifts to the ninth floor, after being met by Mr Peter from the guest house outside, and checked into the small basic guesthouse.Basic consisting of a corridor, seven rooms and a desk; and eventually into our equally small basic room. Still it was clean, seemed secure and was certainly cheaper than some of the alternatives.

The next morning we found our way outside and were greeted by bright sunshine, blue skies and a nice 17-18 degrees. The skyscrapers that we hadn't seen the night before were all around us and the place was buzzing. All of a sudden I was in London again and any worries about the guest house were gone. After a trip to the China Ticket services to get the China Visa underway (which seemed impossible to the Sinh Cafe in Hanoi), we had a walk round and immediately found ourselves in an expensive shopping centre. I can handle that, we just needed to get back onto the street before the need to spend overtook. So, another turn and... we end up in another shopping centre. Repeat another couple of times and when eventually standing back outside looking up at Louis Vuitton we realised we are in the Land of Shopping.Not one of my favourite pastimes (being tight and all that), but Jemma didn't seem unduly worried by the display of conspicuous consumerism. I would even go as far as to say she was a bit excited, even if she would never admit it.So, from Indian market to expensive shopping centres in about two minutes. That was Hong Kong.

We reached Victoria Harbour and, after a few minutes looking at the incredible view, walked along the Walk of Stars getting the obligatory shot of our hands in the prints of Jet Li or Jacky Chan - we even had to queue for the photo opportunity - and settled down on a bench to watch the sun go down and the lights come on. What a transformation. The view was stunning by day but it was better at night. We probably stared for about two hours, when the speakers came on and announced we were about to watch the World's Largest Permanent Lightshow... "Symphony of Lights".All the buildings along Victoria Harbour give a display of the lights and lasers all in time to a - best described as elevator music is trying to reach a bigger audience - soundtrack with a helpful voiceover (in Chinese and English obviously), introducing the buildings as they go along.Each building did their own little bit and then they all got into it together. I must say that some seemed to make more of an effort than others (top marks to the Bank of China Tower). I was disappointed with the HSBC tower... I thought after being with them for about 20 years, the money they have made from me alone would pay for a few more light bulbs. It was definitely very touristy and possibly a bit corny, but it was an impressive sight and I am glad we saw it. Incidentally, we didn't realise at that point we would see it seven times in the end from various different locations.After all seven, we decided it was definitely more corny than impressive!

After the lights show we battled through various malls (yes, I know that's American but the name 'shopping centres' doesn't really do it for these), walked up Nathan Road and headed for the Temple Street night market. This was a little taste of South East Asia and especially Vietnam, tucked away down a side street was a street full of market stalls selling fake DVD's, handbags, T-shirts, and all manner of 'Authentic Hong Kong' souvenirs.It was completely at odds with the skyscrapers on the front, all owned by companies like ING or HSBC. Here we were in the middle of a hustle bustle Asian market again. Hong Kong really was the crossing point between East and West.

The prices in Hong Kong surprised us a little. It's not an expensive place, don't think that, but after the rest of South East Asia, where we could get a meal for two for around £2 and have a room for £5, spending £3.50 each for breakfast was a bit of a shock. Meals were anything from up to £15 each, and this was without going to expensive places. We found ways around this which usually meant getting a sandwich from the 7/11 for breakfast and eating where the locals do and not the western places.For one of our 7/11 breakfasts, we took our sandwiches to the harbour front and ate them just looking at the view. I am sure that was possibly the best breakfast view ever - although the Taj Mahal breakfast view and the view of the beach at Sihanoukville were close behind. On the flip side of that, if you went to the high street style shops (not Mr Vuitton's, obviously), the clothes were cheaper than home so it did give us a chance to pick up a few bits that were not 'ethnic' conical hats or scruffy fisherman trousers.

Another thing we noticed about Hong Kong, or Hong Kongers to be specific, is that yes it's busy and crowded as you would expect, but everybody goes at a nice relaxed pace in their busyness.My memories of London (please let me know if you don't agree), are that everyone is busy and rushing.Here people seem busy but without the rush. As a result they do have time to smile and say hello. Something I am sure I don't remember from UK cities... that is unless they are trying to sell you something of course.

The Harbour cruise was good fun. The company Star Ferries have been running the service across the harbour for about 100 years now, and we both felt that this would be a nice way to see the further edges of the waterfront. Also we would get to see the view to Kowloon rather than from it, as we had not managed to get across to Hong Kong Island as yet. The cruise took an hour and was really good fun. There was commentary but we missed most of it by sitting outside in the sun. It was a bit smoggy but the water was a really clear azure colour and looked fantastic against the buildings and boats. There were many boats in the harbour, ranging from giant cruise liners to small two man fishing boats, but no litter or rubbish in the water. This was either testament to Hong Kong's environmental policy or saying something about the HKD$10,000 fine and six months in prison for littering.

We got off the Star cruise after a lap and a bit, and explored the Hong Kong Island side starting with the Central area. The Central area and Hong Kong Island in general have a different feel to Kowloon.Kowloon is the undisputed shopping district.Hong Kong Island is the commercial area and hosts the bulk of the skyscrapers.This also means it has more workers than tourists, so the shops are a lot more UK High street.Apart from major tourist attractions like H & M (Jemma told me it was a must see attraction), we did go on the mid level escalators, the classic trams and into the Man Mo Temple.

The escalators are the world's longest continuous run apparently.They stretch about 800m up the hill of Hong Kong Island. We could only go up, as they only run downwards from 6.30am until 10.00am - for more info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central-Mid-Levels_escalator .After that, once you're up, you're walking back down.Which is what we did...via Soho and a walking tour taken from the good old Lonely Planet.This passed the Man Mo Temple, which was an incense filled traditional temple with a skyscraper on each side, and lead us to the classic tram.Another 100 or so year old institution for Hong Kong are the electric trams (just like Crich Tramway Museum if you've ever been there, only running a service). This was HKD$2 a ride for as far as you like.We took it to the base of the Peak Tram, the final 'Victorian introduction' on what was turning out to be the 'look what the British did' tour.By the time we got there it was about 5.30pm, and this appeared to be the time for getting to the peak to watch the sun go down. Unfortunately the queue was so long it would have been a wait for 2 and a half hours with no view time for us, so after deliberating I begrudgingly agreed that unless we got a cab we would not get up there for hours.I did want to do the tram so we agreed we would catch it back down again.The taxi up was a bit more expensive but ok. By the time we got there it was dark and also absolutely packed. The view was stunning admittedly but getting to the sky terrace was impossible unless you either had infinite patience or a helicopter. By this point we had neither. We found a free view round the back which was good, and only gave up when my fingers turned blue after taking photos in the now biting wind.We headed for the downwards tram - again, wrong move. Unless we were happy to put up a tent and live in the new refugee camp known as 'queue here for tram' we were back to the taxi stand.Disappointed to miss out on the tram, we headed for the ferry port in a taxi, and for a bargain HKD$ 1.7 (10p), we were back in Kowloon and soon back at the mansion (!).Luckily for us we only had to wait for three lifts before it was our turn.

After the exploits the day before and also as it was now New Years Eve we decided to have an easy day.We spent most of it in a place called Pacific Coffee on Nathan Road, and apart from purchasing a couple of bottles of coke and 'something to go in it' for later we didn't do much else. At around 7.30pm we headed off towards the front with drinks and biscuits expecting a long and busy wait for the fireworks later.Well, I was right on the long wait, but not on the busy theory... I remember back to New York when in Times Square if you weren't there by about 3pm you were blocks and blocks back. I just simply used this theory, reduced it a little and thought 7.30pm would be about right. Wrong! We could have arrived about 11.30pm and still got a good spot. Still, we had the 'coke' to keep us warm. One thing that was nice to see was that everybody waiting around us was all very calm and friendly, saying hello, playing cards etc. Again, I imagine scenes across the UK at 10.30-11.00pm on New Year's Eve were very different.

Just before midnight the harbour filled with boats and at about 11.45pm we were treated to another showing of the light show we had seen a few times by now (including one earlier that night at 8pm), and at midnight there was a huge firework display.It was fantastic to be there, and was all finished off by loads of glitter being thrown all over the area from one of the scrapers behind us.

The way home was like a military manoeuvre. All the people making their way back into Kowloon were controlled like traffic at the lights, except far better natured.At one point there was an impromptu ticker-tape shower from a window above which got a big cheer, and when the police turned some people back while taking a short cut over some gardens, it got possibly the biggest cheer of the night.

Our last day in Hong Kong was New Years Day and obviously a late start. After another 7/11 breakfast we collected our visas and the train tickets for China and just had a quiet wander around Hong Kong, trying to take in the atmosphere. The train tickets meant that we would get back there for a couple of days after China and it was nice to know we would be back but we both felt like there was still so much to see. We had a final night market trip and Jemma picked up a couple of bits before heading back to the 'always fun' lift queue.The Train left at 1pm on our last day so apart from packing up and getting to the station (which was more like an airport than any station I had been to), there wasn't a lot doing.We were on our way to China!