First morning in Hong Kong. Had a reasonable nights sleep. It's the usual hotel bed - not exactly soft, not exactly firm, almost but not quite comfortable. For some reason they've placed the exhaust fan in the bathroom as far away from the bathroom mirror as possible. It makes shaving a bit of a challenge in the constantly fogged up mirror.
Hotel located in Kowloon.
Went down the have the buffet breakfast - as you would expect replete with suspicious meat - baconish and sausage-type meats. So I just did the usual, closed my eyes and ate it. Going on a half-day tour of HK today - so that should be good to at least get a bit of a run-down on the sights of the place.
Just finished the half day tour of Hong Kong. It was pretty interesting - especially with the tour group being only the four of us.. The tour started off travelling to Honk Kong island - the financial district. As the tour guide was trying to give us a bit of an overview of the place, Dad kept having to jump in with his half-recollected pieces. It made me wonder, who was giving the tour?
One of the buses we passed had Monash Uni adverts plastered all over it. Quite funny. We travelled to Hong Kong island via one of the five tunnels that go under Hong Kong harbour - 'Can Do Campbell' would be quite impressed.
Travelled up to the top of Victoria peak via the tram. 450+ metres above sea level. The view of the rest of HK from there was quite spectacular. Before the construction the tram in the 1880's, people use to travel up there via carriages carried by a couple of coolies. That would have been the very definition of back-breaking work. When you get onto the tram, the floor is uneven - with a whole bunch of peaks and troughs. If you're not expecting it, it can trip you up. I was kind of wondering why it was like that, until the tram stopped halfway up and I realised it was to stop you sliding all the way to the back of the tram - duh!
Travelling down from Victoria Peak via Peak Road was another experience - quite steep and windy. I'm pretty sure you could do some excellent James Bond car chasing going down it - if they haven't already done so.
Prices on some stuff has been rather disappointing so far. $A70 for a 2GB SD card,which I can get off eBay for $A50 for example. Hopefully things'll pick up the further I look. And I've got to engage in my great love - haggling again - a real pain in the arse.
For all the Penn & Teller lovers out there, they'd have a great time with the seeming fact that every second building has either been designed or fiddled with in order to satisfy some fung shui rules. One example was a round 60 story white office building, owned by a Mr Wu (naturally) which had a ceremonial pool filled with fung shui stones built on top because the fung shui expert decided that it was a bad building. It was a bad building because it was cylindrical, white and looked like a cigarette. So he decided that, without this pool on top, the building would burn down. Who knows if it's true - but it sure is funny.
Went past Hong Kong cricket club - it field was full of kids playing some kind of skills game with looks of kanga cricket equipment. The ground looked great - pity I couldn't get the bus to stop :(.
Stopped at one of the markets - in many ways like the ones in Thailand - full of that cloying burnt water sickly smell. There was the usual haggling stuff going on. Unlike Thailand, lots and lots of sandshoe shops.
Also stopped at the Aberdeen section - the bay there seemed to be called 'old Hong Kong' - mostly a big bay/river with a whole wack of boats/junks there. Supposedly there's no-where near as many as there was during the 70's due to a fire there. A whole heap of people live on these boats - not my idea of fun. There's two gigantic floating restaurants there. The biggest- the Jumbo - seats about 2000 people at once = big boat. Looks like a typical fancy asian style building from the front. But when you go around the back - to what I presume is the kitchen section - it sorts of looses its romance quickly. Rusty, patchy green metal - a far cry from the front. Guess it's the kind of thing you don't want to know about when you're thinking about eating.
Had Dim Sum for lunch. Was fun looking for the restaurant. We walked past it twice. Would have helped if Dad told everyone else the name. Dim Sum is possibly the best and worst of Asian cooking - you're never really sure what you're going to get until you bite in. Best dish? The baked bbq pork buns. Think the sweetish macca's bread filled with tasty pork inside. The worst? The steamed rice flour rolls with bbq pork. You know that horrible slimy feel you get when you clear your nose and mucus slides down the back of your throat? That's what the pastry felt like. Rather unpleasant.
Everywhere you go, you're forced to listen to really, really, really bad piano musak. Most of which are Christmas carols. Horrible stuff.
This evening we went down to the waterfront to watch a lights show. There's a whole bunch of buildings across the harbour with lights on them that put on some kind of coordinated performance to the typical sickly-sweet J-pop style music that is so predominant. It was pretty cool - although I guess the big green lasers that shoot off one of the buildings would play havoc with passing planes?
They weren't out last night, but like some horrible fungus there seem to have spawned a whole horde of dodgy Indian tailors touting their wares. I thought I'd left the offer of 'big boss man' suits behind in Phuket.... Not to mention the offers of rolex's and designer handbags. Sure buddy...
Dinner tonight was at a Cantonese restaurant recommended by Lonely Plant. Being the only white people there obviously upset one or two of the staff. They were shockers. Rude doesn't adequately describe their behaviour. Despite that - the food was pretty nice. Although the menu did seem to have a particular obsession with trying to get us to eat either pigeon or birds nests...
End of night gelati was good - even if the girls in surgical masks couldn't understand my order, even when I pointed to the flavours I was after.
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