9/6/02 Kennedy Town, Hong Kong (Phillip)
Since I'm not sleepy yet I thought I'd post, even though today I took a day off. It's weird, because I think to some people taking a day off from this trip seems ironic. I still get the emails thinking that I'm on 'one heck of a holiday'. In some ways that's true, but it's not all easy! Anyway, I spent the day taking advantage of free faaaaaaaaast Internet and got lots of work done. I haven’t really done much preparation for Hong Kong, China or South Africa
which is fine. I know what I need to know but I booked a hostel in Beijing today, printed out the Chinese Characters I'll need to show the taxi driver (unlikely to speak or read English) and read about the sights.
In theory I'm going to Beijing tomorrow, my visa for China should be done at 2 and there's a train at 3pm. There's only one train every two days so it's very spur of the moment. But my backup plan is to go to Macau for a couple of days if I can't get on the train (or there's a problem with my visa). Either way works.
I came across this though, thought it was cool:
~~ Next time you contemplate a diet ~~
A. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the
British or Americans.
B. On the other hand, the French eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer
heart attacks than the British or Americans.
C. The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks
than the British or Americans.
D. The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and also suffer fewer
heart attacks than the British or Americans.
Conclusion: Eat and drink what you like. It's speaking English that kills
you.
Tell you what, though, it felt great just to stay still for a day. There was a storm outside my window which I could watch and that was amazing. Looking down on the harbour as it was battered by wind and rain. Even now (it's 12:22am) the view is great. Kowloon is lit up on the far side and every so often a boat passes through the darkness of the water.
So tomorrow I wake up and grab a ferry to Kowloon. Need to track down a couple of travel agents I read about that might be able to discount the train to Beijing. It's a 30 hour train and costs about $150 which I'd like to reduce. Flights are actually only $200 return but that'd be cheating. The train is supposed to be spectacular. Plus I have about 1000 new songs in my arsenal that I can listen to if no one speaks English and we tire of signing! :)
Hong Kong really is an interesting place. I doubt I could live here, the materialism is pretty overwhelming, but I like the hi-tech parts. Even the buses have live TV on flat screen to entertain you. There are escalators that run almost 1km up the side of a mountain to connect that suburb. You can buy anything from vending machines just by using your cell phone in front of it. However, on the downside the place is packed. It's has a higher population per km than anywhere on the planet and this becomes evident just walking down the street. You're continuously bumping into people (physically) and every nook and cranny has a stall set up in it. This actually makes it quite fun for visiting and walking around but I can see how it would become tiresome.
Plus, I think it would be terrible not to be rich in this city. What I mean is that it's really tailored for upper middle class, lots of flashy shops and brand names. I find it quite funny to see how many people aren't carrying bags full of new things they've just bought. There are not many of them!
Hong Kong reminds me quite a lot of Singapore but far more extreme. I suspect Beijing will be a little less flashy. The hostel I'm booked in sounds pretty cool, it sounds like it'll be a good place to be based. I should be back in Hong Kong in less than a week though and then Macau. Macau is kind of like HK except it was Portuguese not British. From what I've read it has a bit more culture but the same materialism (since it's basically one big casino these days!). Should be an interesting couple of weeks!
Posted by Admin at June 9, 2002 09:33 AM