The Other Side

Days 197 – 202, Wednesday 3rd –  Monday 9th March 2009 (Al)

It was cool, it was rainy, we were tired. We arrived in Hong Kong lacking the energy to get out and explore it. But having seven days here allowed us to take our time and spread our sightseeing out, and mix it with late night internet sessions instead of sleep, as we are still on Europe/Africa time. Our standard day seemed to be 12pm – 3am…

Hong Kong did grow on us as we saw more of it.

Our modest accommodation was located in Tsim Sha Tsui (TST) on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong. I could stand in the middle of the room and touch each wall with my outstretched arms. But it was clean, relatively quiet and centrally located.

Our street in TST

The only thing we really did on our first full day was go to a Chinese medicine class in the Central district on Hong Kong island. It was basically a Powerpoint presentation mixed with a little show and tell. It was interesting to hear about Yin and Yang medicine – although a little more discussion on how this can link into Western medicine would have been useful.

Elevated, covered walkways in the Central district seemed a nice, futuristic way to get to work

A handwritten protest sign outside a bank (and there were many protest signs and loudspeakers outside many banks), one of the only indicators we could see of the ‘Global Financial Crisis’, read:

‘Mini skirts are skirts

Mini mooncakes are mooncakes

Then why aren’t minibonds bonds?’

On the way back we spent some time on the waterfront, enjoying the city lights illuminating the clouds.

Yes this is night time!

To learn a bit more about Hong Kong’s past we visited the Museum of History – which happened to also have an exhibition on the French Revolution, reminding us of our time in France – complete with replica guillotine for cheesy photos that local high school students seemed to enjoy. More enjoyable for us was our visit to the Nan Lian Gardens (a replica of a traditional Chinese Tang Dynasty garden) and adjoining Chi Lin Nunnery.

Waiting inconspicuously at the metro station

Beautiful architecture and flora set against modern apartment towers is a good example of what can be found all over Hong Kong – a mix of the old and new. This is sometimes harmonious, and sometimes clashing.

We decided to keep the flora theme going by visiting the flower market area of Kowloon. There’s probably about fifty stores lining two streets that look something like this:

That night we met up with my old school friend Jeff who lives in Hong Kong. By chance it happened to be his birthday! We went out to the suburbs, to the sort of area where most locals live in their shoe box apartments.

Hot pot birthday dinner with Jeff and his girlfriend Jenny

The next day we decided to go to Lantau island and get the cable car up to Ngong Ping village – which turned out to be a really cheesy and overly fake ‘traditional’ village. I would think most traditional Chinese villages would not have a 7-Eleven and synthetic trees. The big attraction, pun intended, is the world’s largest seated Buddha statue nearby. We followed this with what was billed as a traditional vegetarian meal at the monastery – this turned out to be niceish, but bland, cafeteria food served by grumpy ladies in a mess hall.

Cheesy

Cheesier – it’s what the monks would want

Cold, misty and atmospheric

The Buddha and surrounding statues all have amazing expressions of calmness

Po Lin monastery

Elaborate interior

What better way to follow the calm, peaceful atmosphere of Lantau than with the hectic neon commotion of Tsim Sha Tsui and some karaoke! This was to celebrate Jeff’s birthday.

Busy street scene below

Jenny and her friends were much better at this than we were. Meanwhile we were masters of collecting food from the buffet (and eating it).

Jeff and Jenny offered to spend the following day with us in order to show us a different side of Hong Kong. We first wandered around one of the older suburbs, near Jeff’s apartment, where he went to school and which has not YET been overtaken by modern high rises. People were out at markets, and playing soccer and basketball in the park on this weekend morning. The elderly were out doing tai chi or, more adorably, their own brand of exercise. One older woman slowly walked backwards past us whilst swinging her arms back and forth.

Jeff’s high school

After a quick Yum Cha dumpling brunch, we visited Wong Tai Sin temple and gardens, where Cathy had her fortune read. The results were mixed…

A visit to the Tai O fishing village rounded out the day. It was still cold and misty, but it was really nice to visit one of the only remaining villages in Hong Kong that still lives in a more traditional way. A highlight was an elderly Chinese man who came up to me for a chat. “Are you from Finland?”, “No”, “Sweden”, “No” (this line of questioning was clearly influenced by the mullet, and went on until we offered that we were from Australia). ‘Aah – are you from Pymbo?’! When we said we were from Melbourne, he said ‘I have been fortunate enough to obtain several copies of The Age and the Herald Sun’. He went on to ask us several questions about Pymbo (a town in NSW), Gundagai and Geelong! He explained that his relatives would send him copies of The Age, The Courier and other papers; also that he loved geography and had worked in a shipping yard that had maps on the wall – so he knew the names of many cities around the world but nothing more about them. We’ll always remember being asked “So is Pymbo warmer than Gee-long?”

Tai O village: simple, pretty, misty and smells like fish

A surprise treat – there is a Shaolin martial arts school here. Check out our form!

My style is classic wing chun kung fu whilst Cathy’s is more sloppy Karate Kid.

It was a great day that delivered the other sides of Hong Kong that Jeff and Jenny promised.

Probably the most popular sight in Hong Kong had not even been visible for our entire stay there, that is until the last day. The Peak was no longer covered in cloud so we decided to venture up. To do this, we took the ferry across to HK island, then walked through to the Mid-Level Escalators – a series of escalators that help people walk to and from work on the hilly island. 800 metres long and climbing 135 metres, the escalators see some 55,000 people use them daily (thanks Wikipedia).

What followed should have been a straight forward walk to the cable car station – but it was easy to get lost. Asking for directions three or four times helped us find the station eventually, and so we made it to the top for this fabulous view:

Another great surprise, two eagles swooping around the buildings and Peak looking for food. They soared only a few metres over our heads at one stage – amazing.

Walking around the Peak, Cathy was successfully sidetracked by this diversion I created

Which ended soon after

Before our final dinner with Jeff and Jenny (a tasty Korean cook your own bbq) we viewed the world’s largest synchronised sound and light show which incorporates buildings on both sides of the harbour. It tried a bit too hard to be Hollywood-style dramatic, and made us hope that Hong Kong uses green power wherever possible, but was a spectacle!

And that was Hong Kong. Despite the cool, wet weather and jet lag, we definitely warmed to the place and enjoyed the sites we got to see and the friends we were able to catch up with. It was a good stopover that had us ready for the sun and sand of Thailand!

But we still have no idea what this sign, outside an internet cafe, meant.