Hong Kong

  Hong Kong, China
Wednesday, March 25, 2009

25.03.09: Time to use our extra miles to fly to Hong Kong. It seems to be a really busy city, far more than Singapore or Kuala Lumpur, it is just packed. We arrived at our guesthouse, which was closed, finally the guy - who was in the shower- could only speak Chinese, had f*cked up our reservation, and we had to move guesthouse for the first night. The room in the other place was everything you can imagine what a guesthouse in HK or Tokyo would be: a box. But it had a private bathroom. Bathroom is a big word though, because you could sit on the toilet while showering and brushing your teeth at the same time.!! The other funny thing was the size of the bed, relative to the size of locals. It was too short for Sean!!!.

HK by night

We walked around the place after the mess, everything is really dear. The city is full of neon lights. A big Las Vegas but written in Chinese! Our area has loads of shops, tons of Indian guys try to hassle you to get a suit tailored and Chinese women to get a massage. There are also plenty of jewelery shops for some reason.We found a nice little Indian place to eat at and we ate there every night, as it was so nice and cheap! We missed Indian food so much! Couldn't eat Chinese food anymore, specially since a bag of sweet and sour sauce leaked on by backpack in the bus luggage compartment between KL and Melaka! They all seem to bring food with them on trip (rice, and sauce!!!!) . It must be something they picked on after the Dutch colonial time.

Silver and gold

26.03.09: The weather is not at his best today. It is very grey and foggy. I feel cold and it is 18 degrees. Sean feels like at home again! We take the  Star ferry to Hong Kong island (only 7mn!). It is crazy to go island hopping. Different type of commuting, I suppose. All the businesses and banks are on this island. It is one big advertising billboard. It is a bit of a pain to navigate as sometimes you are not allowed to cross streets, you need to go over through a shopping centre to get on the other side. Our shopping frenzy had died by now.. Between the large buildings are small little streets with markets. Meat (ducks hanging), fish (and dry sea horses!) and other fruits and veg are sold here. It is very agitated and fascinating to watch.

Do you want cat?

By now, we became big fans of markets. We walked through Soho and the antiques quarters. You can buy everything you want there: old pilot glasses, old telephones, coins, etc..really cool. We visited the Chinese temple, Man Mo. We also strolled down HK and Hollywood park. There is  an aviary which is quite impressive (careful of bird flu!!). At the end of the day, we took the tram up Victoria Peak, which gets a great view of the city and the islands around. Well, technically because it was so foggy that we didn't get to see much!

Lantau..big Buddha

27.03.09: We went back to HK island to see the Golden Bouhinia Square, which is were they England officially said bye bye to HK and packed their bags home. We took another ferry to Lantau island. It is like another world, it is very green and jungly and much more rural. A nice break from the hectic city. We went up to see the Big Buddha statue, largest outside bronze sitting Buddha in the world. There are just so many of them around Asia that they need to be really specific to get their claim to fame! The monastery near it was great. A monk lady dressed in grey with a shave head and little circle scabs on her scalp was taking care of the place before the male monks arrived for the mass, chanting and praying for a while.(Van, j'ai fait une prière pour ta soutenance!) It started to rain really heavily so we stayed in the monastery for a good while. On the way down, we could admire the nice views and the reservoir.

Funny mirors

The town was also getting ready or the Sevens (rugby tournament where the team only contains 7 players for the ones who don't know). In the evening we went to the Avenue of Stars (like a Hollywood blvd with hand prints of Chinese celebrities).Every night at 8pm, the Symphony of lights starts for 15mn. All the buildings of the two islands lit up in various colours in sync with a music. It is quite crazy!!