"Leisurely sightseeing in Hong Kong"

Hong Kong was the last British-occupied corner of China, which was the final part of the colonial saga that started more than one hundred and fifty years ago, and ended when Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997.

Most people think of Hong Kong as an island, whereas it is actually made up of two hundred and thirty six islands plus a chunk of mainland China bordering the Chinese province of Guandong. Much of the area is uninhabited while other areas are among the most densely populated in the world. At the heart of it all is the seventy eight square kilometre Hong Kong Island itself, and it is the oldest part in terms of British history as it was acquired in 1841. The centre of Hong Kong Island is the Business District where today, as the name suggests, the colony’s business life goes on in some of the most expensive buildings in the world.

From Central, it is a seven minute ferry ride across one of the worlds great harbours to the Kowloon peninsula on the mainland. At the tip is the shoppers paradise of Tsimshatsui, and beyond that are the high-rise business and commercial estates. Beyond Kowloon is the New Territories, which includes not only the border area with China, but also the other two hundred and thirty five islands that make up Hong Kong and covers nine hundred and eighty square kilometres km in total.

After spending a leisurely morning with Ken and Freddie, they took us for a very traditional meal at what looked to be a rather nice restaurant. (Certainly the best one that I had visited since leaving the U.K.). The meal was Dim Sum which is a traditionally Cantonese meal served only for breakfast or in this instance lunch, but never dinner. The term Dim Sum means a snack and is often referred to as Yum Cha, which literally means ’to drink tea’, since this is always served with Dim Sum meals. Eating Dim Sum is a social event, and today was no exception as we met with some friends of Ken and Freddie that were at the party last night. We all sat around a huge circular table and the Dim Sum delicacies were served in a small bamboo baskets in which they are normally steamed. All the time there were waitresses and waiters walking around pushing large trolleys with various steaming baskets. ’Thank God’ that I was dining with experts as they were able to ask in Cantonese what each basket contained and then request the thing they liked. Each of the baskets contained four identical pieces and each basket was priced the same, so that at the end of the meal, the waiter simply added up the amount of baskets and that was the price that we were charged, which I thought was a great idea. It is estimated that there are around one thousand Dim Sum dishes to choose from and each of the trolleys being pushed around had a variation to all the others, so the overall choice was incredible. After lunch at 3.00pm, I went off to do a spot of sight-seeing and also to do some shopping. Hong Kong is renowned for the choice available in the department stores as well as the numerous side streets in and around Tsimshatsui. I really wanted to buy Michelle some nice presents to take back with me, and the first thing that I purchased was a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses which were $300 (£24.00). I found the shops packed from floor to ceiling with bargains and it was very hard to control just how much money I spent. Everywhere I went there were shops selling all the latest Hi-fi and camera equipment, all at a fraction of the cost in England.

For much of the day it rained so it was hard to walk too far from the buildings, even so the lights of Tsimshatsui were incredible, the amount of neon lights used to light up the streets and the buildings made it a good subject to photograph.

I walked for what appeared to be miles and miles and at 8.00pm I went to a telephone office to call Michelle, she was home and we had a really good conversation and for once it did not matter about the line being bad or people listening as I was putting the call on my Visa card so we just chatted and chatted, I was very happy to have spoken to her at last!

At around 10.00pm I made my way back to Ken and Freddies apartment and spent the rest of the evening writing a letter to Shelly, just to tell her again everything that I had told her on the phone!

6th January (Day Thirty Two)

Once I was up and had eaten breakfast, I spent the next few hours ringing around all the travel agents in the telephone book, to see what would be the best deal for flights to England via Thailand, as I had decided that I would like to go their again. (My second time). All the local telephone calls in Hong Kong are free! This was great as I could just keep ringing and ringing as many travel agents without feeling guilty about Ken & Freddie’s phone bill. Actually the Hong Kong Chinese are so liberal with their telephones, a good example is that no matter where you are in a shop or an office, they will always allow you to make local calls without question.

In the end the cheapest flight I was able to book was a Qantas flight to London via Thailand as I had hoped. The cost was $3,800 (£262) which considering the distance was quite good. I had already preliminarily booked a flight whilst I was in China so I had to ring and cancel that one. I had booked that one just to make sure that I had a flight home but now I had a confirmed flight on a first rate airline at flight times that suited me.

Money

The Hong Kong dollar is divided into 100 cents. The bank notes that were available were HK$10 (green), HK$100 (red), HK$500 (brown), HK$1000 (yellow). Coins are issued in denominations of HK$5, HK$2, HK$1, 50 cents 20 cents and 10 cents.

Hong Kong is the financial centre of Asia, therefore there was never a problem when it came to cashing traveller cheques, or paying with a Visa card, the only problem is agreeing a price! You have to bargain with them over everything which really gets on ones nerves after a while. It is impossible to try and match a price up between one store and another, as the price is never displayed on the goods and so you have to ask an assistant for the price I am convinced they say the first number that comes into their head! Then comes the laborious task of trying to ascertain a reasonable price for the goods so that you can find out if you can afford it, let alone buy the damn thing!

Needless to say this can really start to wear one down, as once you have managed to find out the true price and you then say you will think about it, they throw their arms up with horror and try to make you feel guilty about wasting their time. If they displayed the price in the first place it would not happen would it ?  Anyway, I was successful in knocking them down to what I thought was a good price on a Sony Walkman tape/radio, well I thought it was a good price, and the guy took my money, so I don’t suppose he lost anything on the deal. It cost me HK$950 (£65.00) and when I returned to England and priced it up at a local shop, it was £150.00 so on that basis I think I obtained a bargain. It was a pity that I did not have lots of spare money as there was just about everything electrical that I had ever wanted to own all in one street!

I headed down to the harbour to get the Star Ferry across to Hong Kong Island to see what is described as one of the most breathtaking views in the world as the ferry crosses from Tsimshatsui to Central on Hong Kong island. They weren’t wrong! The ferry service runs 7 days a week from 6.00am to 11.30pm and is continuous. You never have to wait more than a few minutes to take the seven minute trip across the water and, assuming the weather is good, it beats the Mass Transit Railway hands down. There are two prices for the journey, lower deck was HK$1.00 and upper deck is HK$1.20 per trip. All the ferries have names like:- Morning Star, Evening Star, Celestial Star, Shining Star etc.

Once on the island I headed straight for Hong Kong central post office where I intended to post home all the extra warm-weather clothes that I still had with me. I knew for a fact that the weather both here and in Thailand was going to be very hot and so the more things that I had in my back-pack, the hotter I was going to be when walking around. I have to say that I was fairly ruthless in what I had decided to post home and sent most things from my Timberland boots to all my long legged trousers, except for the one pair I would need when I arrived back into the U.K. The post office was very efficient as was everything in Hong Kong. There was boxes on sale for me to select the size required and then fill it with my belongings, there was a supply of sticky tape to seal the boxes and sticky labels to write on. Why can’t the U.K. post offices be as helpful and efficient as the ones that we have developed in Hong Kong?? The cost of posting the things home was HK$243 (£16.80p), a cheap price for a bit of comfort.

Once I had unloaded my clothes and books (Lonely Planet guide to China etc.), I headed off to explore Hong Kong Island and see some of the worlds most expensive buildings, one of those which was the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank building, which is the head quarters of the Bank. As well as being one of the most expensive buildings in the world, it is also one of the strangest, hence the name that the locals have given it, "The Robot Building". This is because the ’guts’ of the building are all visible from the outside. The escalators and lifts are made of clear plastic so that all the gears and other moving parts can be seen. The entire inside is walled with glass which gives the workers inside dizzy views if they get too close to the walls. Another building that I visited was the Bond Building, yet another strange looking building that is typically found in Hong Kong.

I had planned to spend the rest of the day on the island so that I could see The Peak both at daylight and also during the evening when it would be dark thus giving me good views of Hong Kong in both types of light. Everyguide book quotes:- "If you haven’t been to The Peak, then you have not been to Hong Kong", so I definitely was not going to miss the views that the books talked of. If nothing else it was a good chance to get Hong Kong into perspective as the views over the harbour, with the aircraft landing at Kai Tak airport in the distance, were truly breathtaking.

Victoria Peak, or just, "The Peak" as it is known, has been the place to live ever since the British moved in, and today the price of real estate is astronomical. There is a tram to transport the visitors to the top where they will find the Peak Tower which is a type of scenic shopping mall. There were high powered binoculars on the balcony which, for HK$1.00 for a few minutes, were worth every cent. By around 6.30pm it started to get dark and slowly the whole city started to illuminate against the crisp clear skies making the visibility excellent. I have to say that Hong Kong by night is staggering! It was the only way to see the country properly, first the view by sunlight and then shortly after by moonlight. The entire skyline was alight with neon lights allowing me to see for miles and miles. Surprisingly there were only one or two other people up there with me and I had to drag myself away at around 10.00pm, not because I was bored, but because I had to go and get the ferry back to Kowloon and then the train back to the New Territories, to return to Ken & Freddie’s where I was staying. I did some shopping on the way and bought Michelle some lingerie and a silk kimono from a silk shop at The Peak.

Once I was back in Kowloon (the view again on the Star Ferry was amazing!), I went to a typically British pub in Tsimshatsui where there were many English,(probably tourists and ex-patriots at a guess). Then I headed home and I arrived at around 12.00 midnight feeling absolutely exhausted, this was due to the fact that I had missed the last busfrom the train station, up the hill to Ken & Freddie’s and the walk was a killer!.

Really there was not a lot to write about today, I just had a leisurely day walking around the streets of Hong Kong, taking in the sight and sounds of the place. I had tried to get out of the tourist areas and find the places where the Hong Kong Chinese do their shopping which, Ken had told me, was Mongkok. I found the prices in Mongkok to be a little cheaper than those in Kowloon but there was still the problem of having to barter for a price, just to see if you might be interested or not.

I was very grateful to Ken and Freddie for putting me up at their apartment as there was very little cheap accommodation available in Hong Kong, probably due to the very high price for land. One of the places that I had read about where there was cheap accommodation was Chungking Mansions. I thought that I would go and check it out for future reference as if I came here again I probably would not be able to stay with Ken & Freddie again. The Lonely Planet describes this place as:- "There is no other place on earth quite like Chungking Mansions" So I had to go and see it for myself, after all if I had not met Ken & Freddie, then I would have probably been staying there. The best way that I can describe it is a huge high-rise dump! The entrance to Chungking Mansion was in a shopping arcade in Nathan Road, which is in the heart of Tsimshatsui, so the place is certainly central for shopping and all the sights in Kowloon. There are five lifts labelled A to E and they were easy to find because of the queues for them! There are two overworked lifts for each seventeen storey block. I was told that it is often quicker to walk up the stairs rather than wait for the lifts, if one can walk up seventeen storeys that is! Chungking Mansions is a place that is full of cheap dormitories, some of which are really filthy and others not too bad at all. Altogether there are more than one hundred guesthouses with bedrooms the size of broom cupboards. I have to say that I would not have felt safe there at all. What if there was a fire? People could not get out down the staircases which were full of rubbish and there were loads of cockroaches as well!!! Also on the stairwells were a number of stray cats which, I am led to believe, do a great job of keeping the rats at bay!

The day actually shot by and after a great Chinese meal in Tsimshatsui I rang Michelle at 8.40pm which was good as always, (the daily call to Shelly whilst I am here in Hong Kong was getting to be a regular occurrence). After chatting to her I went back to the New Territories to Ken and Freddie’s and watched a film on the television, which incidentally, was just as good the U.K. with English speaking channels (as well as Chinese), showing the latest films that have been released.

Read Neils complete adventure here.