20/2 - Hong Kong is starting to swing!

And there was sun! Figuratively speaking anyway. The sun showed itself as a very bleak little disc for a couple of minutes, but that didn’t mess up the day. My first port of call was the Star Ferry terminal. Accompanied by a venti Tazo Chai Latte, courtesy of Starbucks, I boarded the ferry and crossed Victoria Harbour to Kowloon. The plan was to see famous, or rather infamous, Nathan Road, Hong Kongs most famous shopping street, the shopping districts of Tsim Shia Tsui and Mongkok and perhaps take in a movie at the IMAX theater.



Nathan Road lived up to its reputation. Whereas people on Hong Kong Island leave you alone for the most part, on Nathan Road you are continually verbally assaulted by people trying to sell you suits. Very annoying. You can wave them off as you walk by, but stop for a minute to take a picture and they’re all over you. Icky. The other Nathan Road annoyance are the electronics stores. There’s about a zillion of them, and they’re very unreliable. No prices, no warranty, and the danger of bait and switch (buy something and it gets switched for another item) exists. Needless to say, I didn’t buy anything.



Nathan Road was a typical tourist place. As soon as I got to Mong Kok, things started ton improve. The number of Chinese people increased and with them , the quality of the shops. I got some T-shirts and a nice painted wall scroll. In one of the stalls I asked the storekeeper what a t0shirt cost, and he laughed and told me he was a customer. Then he asked where I was from, and when I said Holland, he, his wife and his son burtst out laughing and told me they Dutch too. They were on their yearly Lunar New Year’s visit. We had a nice chat, and I continued on my way, back to Tsim Shia Tsiu and the port.



After checking some e-mail and chatting with dad I walked along the Avenue of the Stars, Hong Kong’s version of the… um, the thing in Los Angeles, with the hands in cement. I forget.



Hong Kong Island’s skyline is what you see on TV and pictures usually. It’s viewed from Kowloon’s Tsim Shia Tsiu peninsula. It’s also the place to watch the New Years fireworks, which I missed by two days. On this foggy day, the buildings stood out grey against the sky. Old ferries and small tug boats run between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, sometimes a cruiseship passes through the Harbour. Old and new are very close to each other here.

My feet were starting to hurt, so I walked back to the ferry terminal, this time through the New World Centre. In the basement something was going on; some of the New Year’s celebrations were being repeated here. A show was being given by a group of dancers. They were very good, very well coordinated and, well, very pretty. It’s always nice to see… quality.

Anyway, back at the hotel, I was pretty tired. However, I did have some ambitious plans for the evening. Going back to Kowloon to see if the skyline was more impressive by night, having a quality dinner for once and then moving up to Victoria Peak to view the city from above. I got two out of three. Firstly, dinner. I decided to let Lonely Planet pick something for me, and I went to Gaylord, an Indian restaurant. Of course, it’s not done to do Indian when you’re in China, but Gaylord cooked some pretty good food. It wasn’t cheap, but it was quality, and well, I like quality.



When I got back to the harbour, I was greeted by a spectacular sight. Fog or no fog, Hong Kong Island presented itself in all it’s neon-lit splendour before me. Along the length of the island, for miles on end, skyscrapers rise into the air. This is not the stern, grey skyline of New York, but a spectacle with ever changing colors and animated lighting. A wonderful sight, in itself worth the trip.



I have another our or so to get to the Peak Tram. It’s last departure is 12pm, and I take the ferry back to Hong Kong Island. It’s a bit of a walk to the tram stop, but I get there with 40 minutes to spare. The place is deserted, apart from the ticket vendor. I’m the only one on the tram. At the last moment another passenger shows up, a rather stunning girl. She’s very busy with her phone, and she gets off at the midpoint stop of the tram. For a minute I wonder whatever her business is, since it’s in the middle of nowhere. The the tram continues and I spot a villa through the trees, overlooking the city. Parked in front of it is a Ferrari, and my girl is walking up to the place.

Now I’m rather lucky. I’m very healthy (apart from my shins, which are killing me since I started playing football again), I got a nice family, nice friends, and I get to make trips to Southeast Asia, courtesy of my employer, who incidentally also provides me with a fantastic job. But I’m still a few things short: A stunning girlfriend, a house with quite possibly the best view in the world and the most beautiful car every created. One needs goals I guess.

The tram continues on its very steep incline toward the terminus. When I get there, there seems to be some sort miscommunication. While the tramservice ends at 12, the Peak Tower is already closed. Darn. I decide to walk to the peak itself, a 500m walk according to LP. This is where things go wrong.

You see, Hong Kong Island consists of two types of jungles. The urban jungle, which covers the northern portion of the island, and the real jungle, which makes up the rest. When you venture out on the roads leading up to the Peak Tram Terminus, you are entering the jungle. Ok, so it’s got a paved road, but evil is lurking in the shadows. It takes the form of spiders, snakes and mosquitos, and possibly the Hong Kong mob (maybe I’ve seen to many John Woo films). To make matters even more atmospheric, the fog is considerably thicker up here, and increasing in density. Thin clouds drift across the road. Some other people are still about, and they point my in the right direction. Only it’s the wrong direction. I meet a security guy on some private road I end up on, and he’s very friendly. Pity he can’t read my map, and I decide upon a new direction myself. This is the Hong Kong gold coast. Long stretches of empty road are broken by thick walls with security posts, guarding some bigshots house. There’s little traffic. I refuse to give up, because I want to see the darn view! After twenty minutes, I am not making progress, and I’m utterly alone. It seems stupid and even dangerous to go on. I pass another little security guard house, and ask the guy for directions. He can read maps, and it turns out I’ve been walking in the wrong direction entirely… He confirms my own misgivings about my efforts: ‘Dangerous to walk around here!’. That’s all the input I need to make up my mind. I walk back in the direction of the terminus, but after a minute I spot a cab driving up the road. I get in, tell him ‘Central’ and sit back in the seats. Oddly satisfied. I didn’t get to see the view, but there’s another day. And I cheated the snakes, mosquitos and bugs. And the mob. Fifteen minutes later I’m back in the hotel.