Hong-Kong Sept 06

My friend Laurene was seconded to a client in Hong-Kong for 3 months. I went to visit her the second last week of September and discovered the intriguing city that is Hong-Kong.

Taking the subway from the airport to central Hong-Kong I was immediately struck by how modern- with its air-cooling system, automatic doors, very frequent trains, electronic station display etc- the subway was (of course living in London, my expectations in terms of public transport are rather low, but I have taken the tube in Paris, New-York, Rome, Marseilles, Montreal, Barcelona and Prague), in fact, the underground system in Hong-Kong is the best conceived I have seen: it is made in such a way that commuters never have to change platform when they change lines- each crossing lines intersect at two successive stations with one of the station taking commuters westbound and the other eastbound (or southbound / northbound), meaning that, regardless of their ultimate destination, commuters only have to walk across the platform whenever they are changing lines.
I would later have the opportunity to use the other means of public transport in Hong-Kong which include ferries (€0.20 per ride to enjoy one of the most breathtaking harbour view on earth!), trams, busses and… elevators! All are as efficient as each other, extremely cheap and can be used with the “octopus” card (the equivalent of the “oyster” card in London- I wonder why public transport paying scheme in the Great British Empire always have the name of brainless sea mollusques?) I must admit “elevators”, as they are known, are some of the most unusual forms of public transport I have come across- they consist of a series of steep outdoor escalators taking commuters, from one of the most wealthy districts of Hong-Kong, down from the top of the hills where they live to the centre where they work, and back in the evening; at peak times the system is one way, during the rest of the day it is two way.

On the first day, Laurene and I, went to Tai Long Wan on the Sai Kung Peninsula (on the East of Hong-Kong’s New Territories)- a tube ride and a couple of short bus rides away from Hong-Kong city and we found ourselves amongst splendid wilderness. In fact, when we got off the bus we came face to face with a couple of cows who were taking a stroll on the road. We walked through the peninsula for six or seven hours (OK we got lost!) admiring the white sand beaches, the incredible sceneries (we enjoyed views on some of Hong-Kong's 260 islands), the little fishermen’s villages. In many respects, this excursion was a perfect introduction to Hong-Kong- one of the striking aspects of Hong-Kong is the interaction between nature and urbanisation. On the one hand, Hong-Kong, with its rife pollution, congestion and high-rise buildings, shares the features of highly industrialised cities, on the other, nature is everywhere from the live toads, fish and poultry sold in the street markets, to the Zoological and Botanical garden right in the heart of the city, the extremely steep streets reminding visitors that the city is built on hilly to mountainous terrain and the ferries, part of the public transport infrastructure, taking citizens across to the various islands constituting Hong-Kong city.

On the second day, with Laurene back at work, I decided to go to the tourist office to organize the rest of my stay. Keen to grow the tourism industry, the tourist board offered many free activities for tourists in exchange for marketing information (nationality, reason and length of visit, sight visited etc). Activities ranged from Chinese cooking to tea tasting and Tai Chi classes. I signed up for a free “Fen Shui” class the next day thinking that, on my return, my boss would surely be accommodating when I would explain that I needed to change my phone number to one that did not include any “8” and we’d need to change the building we work in and move to one facing the Thames (so that any “bad” influences could “flow out” via the Thames).

After my visit to the tourist office I headed towards Lantau island to visit the Po Lin Monastery and the Big Buddha. The vast majority of the “heritage” sites have been destroyed in Hong-Kong to put high rise building in their place; in recent years, great efforts have been put in restoring the few remaining heritage sites in an attempt to make HK more appealing to tourists. As part of this, a funicular was built to take tourists up to the Big Buddha and Po Lin Monastery- unfortunately the site, once isolated, has been somewhat “Dysneylandised” in the process, hosting a variety of restaurants ranging from “genuine” Italian, French and Indian cuisine to Tapas bar. Despite this regrettable “Dysneylandisation”, the Tian Tan Buddha, Po Lin Monastery and the spectacular background in which they are set, remain well worth visiting.

I spent the next few days exploring the numerous markets around Kowloon and Hollywood road- I must admit, to the detriment of my bank balance, this is what I enjoyed most in Hong-Kong! Hong-Kong, literally meaning "fragant harbour", and traditionally a great trading port, has always been a place for merchants and buyers (me! :) to gather. In the food markets stock is sold live (fish, poultry, toads (hmmmm!) etc) or killed in front of the buyer (which, for Westeners, takes some getting accustomed to). In the bird market, locals take their caged birds for a “walk”, like Parisians take their dog for a stroll. In the antique market beautiful hand painted objects (boxes, glass bottles, wooden objects etc) can be bargained down to a euro or less (I have since then seen many of these items selling for up to £50 in London shops!) bargaining is orchestrated with the help of a calculator where the seller types his price and the buyer his until a consensus is reached, in the fish market meanwhile exotic fishes (even saw some small sharks) can be bought as pets etc. I did so much shopping, at the end of the week, I had to send myself a 14kg box, via post, full of souvenirs!!

In the evenings, Laurene and I would go to some of the local restaurants. One evening we went to the races- one of the most, if not the most, popular distraction with locals. It was an interesting evening where “East meets West”- the majority of race goers are locals with a minority of “expats”. The locals seem to thoroughly enjoy it whilst the “expats” seem to be there mainly to be seen and because they have little else to do (from what I was able to observe the expats live in their own little bubble- the expat quarter is full of highly-priced Tapas bars, Italian restaurants , “Colonial British furniture store” (why one would want to buy British colonial furniture in the first instance is beyond me, but especially when one can buy much nicer furniture, in local shops, for a fraction of the price!) It seemed to me that the expat community was nostalgically trying to recreate their own little Europe instead of making the full of their Asian experience (Laurene told me she had even met some expats who had been living in Hong-Kong for 10 years and had never had had the curiosity to venture out to Shangai)). As for myself, not being the biggest fan of horse racing, I had a great time photographing the locals at the races. Indeed, in many respects, this was a window into the locals’ lives whom we had few opportunities to see in a social context.

The rest of my time in Hong-Kong was spent going to some of the central tourist attractions (The Peak, Avenue of the Stars, Victoria Harbour, Hong-Kong Park, the Botanical and Zoological gardens, the Financial District etc)