The flight from Jo’berg is flying forward, an early afternoon flight means you are bedding down at around 5-6pm, it never works for me so, twelve hours later we arrived, at just after 6.00am, somewhat bleary eyed. Chinese efficiency has us thru passport control, customs and RTS downtown, checking in less than 90 mins after touchdown. The weather is the mandatory grey, cloudy that greets every trip here. The train in takes you past the container port, so large, by comparison to Cape Town, you realise the significance of Hong Kong as a gateway to over 1 billion consumers!
Our hotel, The Pottinger, comes recommended, it’s in the central retail area, however, check in isn’t for hours and it’s a Bank Holiday, the streets are deserted and every shop’s shutters are down. We walk around looking to establish the location of favourite places, shops before finding our way to the Pantry which AD had found. It’s a modern vegan cafe that typifies this new wave of cuisine. Unlike early veggie, which involved dreadlocks, lion pants and toe rings, it’s all the generations, business and tourist and very good. As we moved around the streets, we were surprised by the number of women, sitting around on cardboard boxes, in their hundreds, eating breakfast, singing... it turns out, it’s a Labour Day tradition as they come in to the city to socialize! We decided to check in, sleep for three hours and hit the streets, after a shower. There were a number of places we knew of and found them in the vicinity, this is our fourth visit and it’s also one of our top five cities in the world. I call it the Vegas of the East, in terms of neon and bright lights, however, it has more in common with New York. It always feels good to be here and we could easily live here for a short period of 3-6 months. One downside is that it’s very hard to find Chinese food that is also vegetarian, a few. It’s the fish sauce which is used as the stock for everything. The hotel recommended a place called “Duddles” and, without fanfare, off we went. When we walked in it was clearly very high end, confirmed by the menu and wine list! The chap opposite had ordered a bottle of Gruaud Laurose ‘82, the finest year for Bordeaux, at £600 a bottle.... to wash down a very spicy Chinese, purleeez!! We ended up eating from the snacks menu and drinking his bottle by osmosis. It turned out it was Michelin starred and we both loved it!
A wonderful night’s sleep and we were on the hunt for an excellent flat white, this involved a taxi ride to the Wang Chai district having found of a place called La Station, modelled on a French platform! Two stunning flat whites were delivered by Flora, the young manager, who was determined to engage us with her excellent English. We talked of a huge LGTG march last week, marchers holding the symbolic umbrellas making it less easy to be identified, quoted at under 10000 by the authorities, over 100000 by the Western media. She identified with the Taiwanese, “like the French rebelling” and voiced a recurring theme, there are too many Chinese!! Coffee was delivered with the brewhead “puck” in an ashtray, to diffuse the smell of smoking, or to be used for dermological reasons, or, to apply to the garden! We walked thru a fascinating area which had lots of great shops, bars, restaurants and coffee/tea shops. It’s sad to see the tea culture replaced by coffee. You do become aware of just how vain Asian girls have become thru social media. Selfie sticks are everywhere as they throw a pose, looking away from the camera, their purchase, or some other validation, somewhere in the shot. It’s staggering to see the utter fixation with phones and it’s possibilities! On the Metro everybody is on their phone, I was surprised by how many were watching videos and gaming, they must have different data packages out east!
We took the ferry across the harbor to Kowloon, thinking to have afternoon tea at The Peninsula, it was a far better idea than in action, it’s just a very priggish grand hotel and not at all comfortable, so we headed off to Ladies Market, renounced for its gazzilion outdoor market of complete tat! Change of transport, the metro under the harbour to emerge in Sheung Wan, another funky area, where we found the ubiquitous turmeric chai latte and a light shared lunch before heading back to the hotel. Hong Kong is very sophisticated these days, yes, the brands are all here and very shiny flagship stores, however, there’s lots of independents, that seem to be doing well. There are re-developments and renovation, making it very exciting and unique. The infrastructure is superb and, given the population density, the traffic notes more freely than most metropolis. It is very much East meets West, probably, too much so for the mainland Chinese authorities, for instance, the American, Tesla electric car is the most popular we see.
After some down time in the hotel, we have a cocktail in a secret bar, people talking into mics on their person before a key is proffered for entrance. Very good it was, too, before going back to the Wang Chai district, a delightful Italian dinner. As an influence, you notice Italy more than any other country, rather than the colonial influence. The excellent Italian restaurant was full of young, aspirant Chinese. It began to rain, while walking, once more, to the Kowloon ferry to watch the music and light show of the HK skyline, that is best viewed on the opposite side of the harbour. Despite the dank, misty evening, it always never ceases to endear itself to me.Angelka’s favourite hotel is the Mandarin Oriental, so she took me for a cocktail at their roof top bar, where she purred like a tractor and we savored the view from its opulence! That’s it! A quick visit to one of our top 5 cities in the world, always a blast and never a disappointment.