Hong Kong 2009 Photos now available.

Anyone who reads this blog (or the Bandanna Club website) – even occasionally – will know that I’ve made a number of visits to Hong Kong. Certainly it’s my favourite stopover whenever I head back down under and I don’t generally miss the chance to stroll down it’s streets and sample the wares of it’s markets

This time my stop-over was for 3 days and as always, it was a chance to indulge my touristy leanings a little, after a fairly busy month in NZ, helping my folks out with a few little jobs and catching up with some old friends.

The flight from NZ was fairly uneventful, except for a minor sense-of humour failure in Sydney, where a smug security guard clocked my accent and informed me that the Aussies had beaten the Kiwis in a Rugby League game the night before. I responded by suggesting that their success was probably due to the Aussie team having more time to practice in the prison yard, while our lads had to work. This resulted in being pulled into a booth for an explosives residue test (my Dad apparently experienced something similar, the last time he was in Sydney; when asked by the immigration officer: “Do you have a criminal record?”, he replied: “I didn’t realise you still needed one”. My mother assured me that a similar stoney silence followed). To add a minor insult to injury, the Aussies gave me a seat reassignment, which left me with less free foot space than you would find on Imelda Marcos’s wardrobe floor and it was with some relief that I disembarked in Hong Kong some 10 hours later.

Being a reasonably frugal chap I had on previous visits shunned taxis etc in favour of the hotel shuttle bus, but on the last visit I ended up stuck at the airport for an hour and a half until the bus arrived and then had another hour on the bus as it stopped into every hotel before it reached mine. This time I was planning to do it in style and had arranged with the Hotel to be picked up in their “limo” – a late model Mercedes Benz S class with all the extras. What a nice thing it is to fly through immigration, grab your bags (which remarkably were the first to appear on the carrousel), clear customs and then see a uniformed chauffeur bearing a sign reading: “Mr. Mickenzee” as you walk into the arrivals lounge. Minutes later, we were on the road and I was watching the sun set through tinted glass, in air conditioned comfort with all the foot space my tired feet could wish for.

On almost all previous visits, I had stayed at the Kimberley hotel. It’s a nice hotel, within easy walking distance from Nathan Road and the Golden Mile. It’s slightly expensive but has an excellent in-house tailors’ shop, from which I have purchased most of my more formal wardrobe. This time I decided to have a little change and booked myself into the Regal Oriental Hotel, which looked just as nice as the Kimberley with the added bonus of being a bit cheaper. Check-in was swift and efficient and I soon found myself settled into a very nice room on the 10th floor. As is mostly the case in all but the most prestigious hotels in Hong Kong, the view from my window was far from desirable, being that it overlooked a series of rather squalid and grubby-looking apartment blocks, all merrily waving the national flags of Hong Kong (i.e. the tenant’s laundry/washing) from stained and rusty windows. Still, I never come here to look out the window, so who cares.

After settling in, I did my usual recon of the surrounding area and discovered something a little disturbing…I didn’t recognise much of the area around the hotel at all. The following morning, my suspicions were confirmed when I looked at a map supplied by the concierge and discovered I was quite a way north of where I thought I would be, when I made the booking.

Bugger!

I shall take a moment now to make an observation about Hong Kong, which I should have mentioned in at least one of my previous musings about one of my favourite cities:-

A good cartographer could have a lifetime’s worth of work, creating useable, readable maps for the Hong Kong Tourist board. The maps supplied by all the hotels absolutely suck!

Moving on…

The next morning, I rose early and headed out to get my bearings and work out just how far I was from where I thought I would be. Within about an hour, I returned to the hotel in considerable pain, thanks to my crocs rubbing the instep of both feet raw. Still, it wasn’t all bad; I had located the Kowloon City Walled Park and the dramatic Wong Tai Sin temple along the way, although I had completely failed to find the Lok Fu MTR station, where my *@*!*$* map indicated it was supposed to be. However, once my feet were strapped with sticking plasters, I headed out again and this time I found it.

The Mass Transit Railway (or MTR) is a shining example of what a public transport system should be and a fantastic way to get around Hong Kong. A tourist day pass (equivalent to the one-day travel card in the UK) costs only HK$55 (about £4.60) and is good for as many journeys as you want in a day, from one end of the network to the other. The system is clean, efficient, well organised and safe. All signs and all on-board announcements are in both English and Cantonese and the on-board maps even have little LED’s showing what station you are at, which direction the train is heading and what station is the next destination. The whole system is properly air-conditioned. By comparison, the London Underground is a shitty, third-world setup and Britain could learn a LOT from Hong Kong that’s for sure.

Back in Nathan Rd, I spent a couple of hours shopping for a little of Su’s favourite perfume and negotiating the purchase of a telephoto lens for my digital camera, before heading down to Peking Road for a quick lunch comprising a couple of kebab sticks of delicious mystery meat that would put CMOT Dibbler to shame, along with a cup of freshly squeezed mango juice, both served to me by an old lady who kept smiling at me.

Slightly disconcerting, but what the hell right?

Once the inner tourist was satisfied, it was time to visit the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, which I have meant to do on every previous occasion. Among it’s other attractions, the centre features a very good Space Museum and I spent an enjoyable couple of hours browsing around it’s exhibits. With an entry fee of only HK$10 it is well worth a visit. The centre itself is an impressive building which also has great views of the Hong Kong Harbour and is quite picturesque in places, with tropical Orchids and Jasmine dotted around the place.

Back into the Golden Mile and I took the opportunity to duck over to the Harbour City Shopping Centre in Canton Road, which is home of most of the world’s best known designer brands. It was interesting to see that virtually all the posh-brand shops were empty, save for a number of bored-looking staff, milling about in groups and surreptitiously looking at their watches every few minutes. Meanwhile, the little one-man shops tucked into most of the surrounding alleys on Haiphong road are still doing a good trade. People appear to be a little more dollar-conscious than style-obsessed even here in Hong Kong these days…

The copy watch and tailor touts are still very much in evidence, but since the Chinese takeover, their approach is a little more subtle. Gone are the pocket-sized flip charts showing all available styles that they used to wave under your nose as you passed.

Possession of one will apparently earn it’s owner a swift ding on the head and a night in the slammer as the Authorities attempt to show the world that they take copyright fraud seriously. Still, the banter is much the same (“Copy watch mister? I do cheap” or “Good tailor sir. You buy”). However, on my way back down Nathan Road, one of the more imaginative touts walked up to me and said: “Sir, you are a lucky man”. In one of those rare moments of coming up with an off-the-cuff reply (the ones you generally think of two hours later), I responded with: “Yes I know, but thanks for confirming it” and caught his open-mouthed expression out of the corner of my eye as I walked on. Result!

Time to visit Pacific Coffee on Nathan Rd – which always serves up a great cuppa and is apparently the only Internet cafe around for a mile or two. Two large cups of Sumatran cappuccino later and I’m suitably refreshed and ready to head down to the Temple street markets for a bit to eat, followed by a little hard-bargaining at the night markets…

Catch you later…

On to Part 2 …

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