Hong Kong wedding
Trip Start
Feb 29, 2004
1
25
33
Trip End
Nov 24, 2004
Hong Kong,
Hong Kong
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
The best way to arrive in Hong Kong for the first time must be by boat. The 150 pataca fast ferry from Macau only takes an hour to cross the Pearl River bay and reach Hong Kong's Kowloon district, and passes several islands - and the city centre - along the way.
The first glimpse of the wall of highrise buildings on Hong Kong Island - just 200m off the shore of Kowloon peninsula - is truly stunning. Dozens of skyscrapers are crammed on a thin strip of land beneath the steep 500m-high Victoria Peak. Because they're so close together, and framed by the mountain, they look deceptively humble, but many of them are higher than 250m, and at 350m, the sleek new International Financial Center tower is one of the highest buildings in the world. But more about Hong Kong in my later entry.
As Macau and Hong Kong both will remain distinct customs areas for 50 years after reunification with mainland China in 1997, I had to pass through customs again at the Hong Kong China Ferry Terminal, this time getting a nice free stamp allowing me to stay 30 days.
In Macau I had noticed that the customs officials had trouble finding an empty spot to place their stamp. I had a closer look at my passport, and discovered to my delight and despair that I'd managed to fill it up completely with stamps and visa stickers. This was great, because I've never managed to do that within the five-year expiry term of Dutch passports (it's mostly stamp-happy Czech and Polish border guards who can be credited with filling it up). But it was also annoying because this would mean the Chinese would not give me a new visa if there'd be no empty page for them to stick it on. I'd have to visit the Dutch consulate for a new passport if I'd want to travel on.
Walking towards Hong Kong customs, a spooky trio of medical staff wearing white coats and mouth caps was seated behind a table, watching a screen connected to a camera pointing at the approaching passengers. It reminded me of a scene from a Terry Gilliam film. But this was the SARS test; the infra-red camera would pick up areas with abnormal body temperature, indicating fever or erections. Everyone entering mainland China and Hong Kong gets scanned for it, and sometimes you have to fill in health declarations and leave a contact number so they can trace you if someone on your flight/boat/bus turns out to be infected. Hong Kong was hit very hard by the SARS scare last year, and is not taking any risks.
I was in town for three days only this time round, to pick up my return ticket to Vietnam, arrange a new passport, and attend the wedding of my cousin Wouter to Esther, a local girl he, amazingly, met via internet. I've seen and done many strange things on this trip through Asia, but maybe the strangest event was meeting my sweet granny in Hong Kong. I'm used to seeing her at my parent's home, or in her house near Rotterdam, but here we were embracing in the Far East - far out.
My uncle, aunt, other cousin and granny were here to represent the Netherlands, and at the wedding reception in a swank hotel we were heavily outnumbered by some 150 of Esther's Chinese relatives and friends. The usually complicated Chinese wedding rituals had to be slashed due to cultural incompatibilities and impracticalities (you can't just have the Chinese family fly over to Holland for a ritual dinner), so all we had was the reception banquet with a simple wedding ritual, plus the official wedding registration the next afternoon followed by more good food. I haven't eaten so much and so well for quite a while, and it seems that for the Chinese guests (apart from taking dozens of photos) the eating element was the most important part of the happening. I must have eaten too much over these two days, and felt stuffed for quite a while. No worries, I'll walk it all off in Vietnam soon enough.
In between courses I popped over to Central to visit the Dutch embassy, on the 57th floor of a fabulously modern skyscraper. They offered me the 60-page business passport, but as the stamp-happy Czechs and Poles will soon stop smudging passports (having entered the EU) I settled for the regular version. I paid the HK$450 fee, gave them a photo I felt would not be embarrassing to show to friends years later, and I didn't even bungle the signature - like you normally always do when you have to sign something important. Since a few blank passport robberies in the Netherlands recently, all passports are made centrally, so I'd have to wait a few weeks until after the Vietnam trip to pick it up.
On my last night, I visited the exhausted Wouter and Esther in their small but neat Whampoa Estate apartment, and joined them and my other family members for some noodles. Again, it was funny to say goodbye, with them heading home the next day, and me getting onto bus no.6 to continue my Asian adventures. The next morning, I was on board the A21 double decker bus to Hong Kong's dazzling Chep Lap Kok airport, and on my way to Vietnam.
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Next up: Tour of Duty in Vietnam
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Exchange rates: MOP 10 (Macau pataca) = HK$ 10 = RMB 10 (Chinese yuan) = €1 = US$1,27
