Where West meets East

Well after a bit of a long week sitting around praying for news on our visas Sini our new Finnish flatmate dragged us out to Mong Kok to try and sort out the wi-fi in the flat. So we took the "Mong Kok Bullet" from Sai Kung which turned out to be quite an experience. I was, (as I'm sure you'll understand) quite exited by the name.  On reflection I think it's maybe a bit of an ironic title, nevertheless it was a good laugh. It's a wee 16 seater minibus, but unlike all the other minbuses in Hong Kong the drivers on the Mong Kok Bullet all wear aviator sunglasses and leather driving gloves. And to keep the Top Gun theme running they drive like lunatics also. Until this I had never seen a minibus overtake a Porsche 911, or heard an engine with quite the same on the edge of exploding sound. For those of you that don't know Mong Kok is the most densely populated area in the world, with 130,000 people per square kilometre. And well having been there, I can believe it. It's crazy! Step out the MTR and you are immediately swept away by the swarm of people. Everyone is in a rush and seems to know exactly where they are going.

Every building and down every dark alleyway and on every street corner someone is selling something. What would you like?  The huge electronics stores, clothes shops of every variety, dodgy jewelers, and even more dodgy designer handbags, a fake rolex, a tailored suit, a kayak, some thermal socks, a cuban cigar, a fridge. Well this is your place. To be honest though all we wanted to do was get someone to come and fix our wi-fi, and after battling through the armies of raging shoppers the man in the shop told us to phone up the customer helpline. At that point all I wanted to do was press the eject button and get out of the claustrophobic sweatbox that is Mong Kok. But for over a million people this is home, and I can't imagine it. Half an hour was enough for me. 

Today, back to the city. But this time to Central. If you've seen a photo of Hong Kong it's probably of the skyline of central. The skyscrapers are amazing and well there's certainly no shortage of them. Hong Kong is the tallest city in the world, and it has 3 of the worlds 10 tallest buildings. 

Although not particularly tall The Bank of China Tower is the most striking of all the buildings with the chopsticks on the roof and the mirrored windows. Off to the right of this photo is the HSBC headquarters, unfortunately I couldn't get a photo of it but the centre of the building is one huge atrium that goes all the way up and criss crossing the atrium are hundreds of escalators. The building holds records for having the most escalators in one building and for having the longest unsupported escalator in the world. So in case you hadn't gathered Hong Kong holds a few records! They do seem to be a bit of a record hunting group of people. I was reading an article in the South China Morning Post (yes I did buy it) outraged that Hong Kong was only 5th in the world for quality of life, maybe they'll have that one sewn up by the time I leave.

Anyhoo, I ventured from Central up the now infamous Central/Mid-Levels escalator to Soho. I think it's a little different from the London Soho. It means South of Hollywood Road and it's one of the most affluent areas of the city. It's also a little odd. This is where my title came from. Walking through Soho is like a cross between upper class London and what the rest of us would think of as China. Rich English and Filipeno wives crowd designer boutiques and trendy coffee shops waiting for their chauffeurs to come take them to the next shop. On the street though the chinese  delivery boys and slightly lost tourists (aka me) dodge the constant stream of Mercs and Rolls Royces. Above the bamboo scaffolders are still climbing to scary heights, and there is still a constant stream of bin rakers pushing their rusty trollies around looking for aluminium cans they can sell for pennies at the scrap merchants. Soho really is the contradiction to top them all.  At times Hong Kong seems so Chinese but Soho seems for the rich to be the answer to this, they can hide away in their champagne bars and pretend they're in Monaco or.... wherever else rich people go.

 In Hong Kong there is obviously a huge divide between the rich and poor, probably more so than in most other countries in the world. But never have I seen rich and poor so close together, or so accepting of each other. The difference is, here the poor are employed by the rich: anyone who is anyone has at least a chauffeur, a maid, a gardener, a nanny and a Filipino wife, and well the poor respect the rich because they pay their wages. I suppose this is part of the new system, but hardly anyone in Hong Kong is unemployed. There is a job for everyone, and if there's not then one is created. A new skyscraper is built or a new tunnel dug and the city continues to expand. Hong Kong's development is in the opinions of many, spiralling out of control. Its only a matter of time before the star ferry will no longer be needed as the island will cease to be an island. Even now more land is being reclaimed for another huge building.

Central is obviously stunning to look at, and for a wannabe civil engineer about the best place in the world. However, Chinese or cultural it is not. And to top off my cultural tour of Central I went for a Macdonald's, yum. Actually not yum it's really discusting i'm never going to have one again. Oh and just in case you were worried about my health...

Good to see they've got it covered.

So to round up a rather long and rambling post, as I sit here listening to the Pulp Fiction Soundtrack and tucking into a fresh tube of Pringles. It's sometimes quite hard to believe im in China, moving just a mile or two through the city going from China to Monaco is quite strange, but I suppose thats Hong Kong... Strange.

So, we're still waiting for visas! How long can it take? And yes it's still hot.... Very Hot!

What have you got to look forward to soon. Well we need to go see the harbour light show, which may or may not produce some awsome photos. Also when we do eventually get our visas we have to leave the country and return to validate them (don't ask me...). So we're going to the Portugese colony Macau. There they have the biggest casino in the world and the biggest bungee jump in the world. It could be quite a trip!

See you soon.

Kenneth

Paradise and Pizza

I should start by saying I have now caught up with my sleep! YAY! This has certainly made the last few days a bit easier and we've had an amazing few days exploring the country. Firstly we decided to go and see the Tian Tan (Titan) Buddha on Lantau Island at the other end of Hong Kong.

It's 30m tall and weighs almost 300 tonnes. To be honest though it's just a bit of a tourist trap. It was only built in the 90's and although it's impressive I can't imagine it's really very important to Buddhists. What was amazing though was Lantau Peak sometimes known as Sunset Peak, a fairly big mountain that towers over the statue.

It's only 923m tall, so not incredibly high but it is really really steep. So steep that the "trail" up is more of a staircase than a trail. Also we now know that midday was not the best time to start climbing on a clear sunny day. Several breaks and a couple of bottles of water later we eventually made it to the top. The eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed that we didn't start from sea level and that the Buddha is actually half way up the mountain. Well, to be honest it was a really hard climb and well boo hoo. Anyhoo the view from the top was amazing!

Well after the painful walk down and the awful rush hour MTR ride home we sat down for a slice of the best pizza in the world "Paisano's" in Sai Kung! Well earned I think.

So how could we follow the mountain adventure? Well I think we did quite well. We hired a couple of Kayaks from the beach club and paddled out into what looked like Ha Long Bay or whatever it's called off James Bond. It was a stunning day, and despite an entire bottle of suncream being used we still got burnt. We found a deserted beach on a tiny island and stopped for lunch.

It really was like being in the Carribean or some other tropical paradise, the water was so warm and well obviously the sun was a little too warm. No wonder the Hongkongers never go on holiday or leave the country, with all this only a short train ride from the city centre it really must be an amazing place to live. The other thing is, on weekdays all these places are deserted because everyone is working. I don't think we'll ever bother doing this sort of thing at the weekend because it seems half the city comes out to the country park to do something. Also the prices seem to skyrocket at the weekend, for the kayak hire it would have been almost 3 times as much at the weekend.

In other news, we are still waiting for visas. It's only been 18 days now and on average takes 30 so still a bit of waiting to be done :-(  But on a good note we are moving to our permanent flat today out of this mice infested one. I'll let you know how the new flat is at some point. Anyhoo I better get packing.

Bye xxx

A city of contradictions

Well the last few days have been a bit of a struggle. I can't sleep at all at night but seem to crash about 8 in the morning and sleep through till 2 in the afternoon. Once I get this jet lag cracked everything should be a little easier. At the moment we are still waiting for our visas to arrive, so for the next two or three weeks we're effectively on holiday. They have agreed that my year doesn't start till I get my visa though so looks like I'm getting an extra month for free :-).

As mentioned, "The Spirit of Outward Bound". The skipper Nigel could be recieving a few beers as a bribe to take us out me thinks. 

Anyhoo, your probably wondering what the title of this post was all about.... 

Over the last however many days it's been I've begun to notice and understand a little more about this city, and the way it works. Hongkongers pride themselves on running the most efficient city in the world, and to a certain extent they should be proud. The transport system here is amazing, it runs like clockwork, they polish it every night so it's squeaky clean and shining every morning and it's mega cheap! To get into the city costs me $15 (about 1pound 30) And this crazy attitude to public service continues throughout everything, landline phone calls in the whole of Hong Kong are free for everyone, and mobile calls are very cheap, like 2p a minute! And on the sailing front, all the watersports centres here are government run, they're open 7 days a week and run courses in everything, it's based on the RYA scheme so you can do pretty much whatever you want, the best bit is membership is only $100 a year (7 pounds 90) and that covers everything! It's hard to believe that in a country with on average 5% income tax and no VAT that they can do all this.

Well, whats the catch? If you actually want to buy a house here you have to be loaded! But from my point of view there are still a few issues. They seem to have completely ruined the whole amazingness of this sailing centre by forcing everyone through  pages and pages of paperwork every time they want to do anything. So if I wanted to go down to the centre and hire a boat, (which FYI i'm not allowed to do as supposedly an RYA dinghy instructor isn't good enough to hire a boat there!) I would have to book 3 months in advance and tell them what my mum's first pet was called and any other irrelevant bit of information they want. What A Fiasco! 

This is just one example of Hong Kong's crippling bureaucracy. Everything needs to be approved by someone,  you must be qualified to do anything (even to jump off the pier!) and if you want to change a lightbulb..... "No no no no, you'll need planning permission for that". So when Hongkongers claim that they are efficient, i'm afraid i'd have to disagree. This is for sure the least efficient place i've ever seen.Ok at home things get done badly, but at least they get done. Hong Kong might have a shiny fast MTR but if you want to get anything done here you better be patient. 

I've only been here a week or something so I don't want to draw too many conclusions from what I've seen, these are just my observations and later in the year I might begin to understand a little more about why it's like this. 

And well as a final comment: For the most health and safety obsessed culture I've ever seen (yes I thought the UK was bad) how come they allow this?

Ok, well plans for the next few days: We're going to try and go see the horse racing at Happy Valley tomorrow night, and theres maybe a trip to ocean park as well. I'll let you know how it goes.

If anyone fancies writing me a letter heres my new address:

Kenneth Laing,

Outward Bound Hong Kong,

Tai Mong Tsai Road,

Sai Kung,

New Territories,

Hong Kong,

Night night everyone.

Kenneth

xxx

Heat, Crowds and Noodles

Well after a pretty uneventful 16 hour flight we arrived in Hong Kong, and my god it was hot! 35 degrees and almost 100% humidity and it was properly sunny (which it turns out doesn't happen too often). Anyhoo we got straight into the van and headed through the city to our new  home.

The centre is in the New Territories of Hong Kong, so it's not actually in the city. Instead it's in the lush and hilly Sai Kung country park. The centre runs a lot of land based courses and kayaking, but the best thing is the   70ft ex BT Global Challenge yacht moored out the front! :-)

For our first meal in Hong Kong our host took us out for a Thai..... Not quite what I was expecting, but when it arrived it was the nicest meal I have ever eaten. The flavours were explosive! There were about 10 different dishes for us to try and each one was stunning! It only cost about $15 for a main as well!

Despite the distance it only took us an hour to get into central, the MTR was pretty amazing and it only cost us 2 pounds. Well heading up the peak to get a first view over the city seemed like a good idea at the time. This was the view.....

Pretty amazing, but I think we'll try and go back up on a clear day to get the full view. Well it wasn't the last blunder of the day either we thought we'd try and walk down to the mid levels escalator. Rather than building a tram or another subway line they thought they'd just build a huge escalator to go up to the flats in the foreground. Well it turns out the escalator only goes down in the morning, and comes back up for the rest of the day. So we had to walk all the way down to the city in the heat and humidity. Wat A Fiasco!

Once we actually got down the city looked pretty amazing, as you'd guess it's very very busy but its so different from Edinburgh or London. For a start there's no litter, and the other thing I really noticed is the air quality is much better , there's no smoky buses, and certainly far fewer lines of traffic than in Edinburgh. The whole city runs like clockwork, the Chinese are very impatient but it's fine because they never have to wait for anything.

Last night we headed into Wan Chai, Hong Kong's famous rowdy party district, for my 18th. I decided it best not to take the camera for obvious reasons ;-) but the city really does look stunning at night. Even for a Thursday night the place was buzzing and most places were open all through the night. Every bar we went into was full of rich expats, and as I was wearing my kilt I certainly got a lot of attention. Best bit was we only had to buy 2 drinks for ourselves for the whole night :-) Just as well to be honest with a pint costing $60! (thats 6 pounds!)  It's amazing, wherever you go, you always meet another crazy Scotsman! This one was a rich architect called Angus, he saw me passing in my kilt and dragged us into his local and him and his Thai bride ;-)  bought us a lot of drinks. All in all a pretty amazing 18th! :-)

Today.. well it was a long lie in ;-) and well jet lag has truly destroyed my body clock, I really have no concept of what time it is and I'm really struggling to sleep at night. Hopefully I'll get there over the next few days. Anyhoo the one amazing thing we saw today was a local seafood restaurant. This was the front....

We decided not to, and instead went for a Chinese with the locals. It was very nice and only cost $16 for a main, but they do huge portions here and I do feel quite guilty when I can only manage half the plate. It rained like crazy today, which was pretty good cos it's much cooler now and for the first time since I arrived we can sit outside without sweating! Might even turn off the air con in the room tonight.... maybe not tho ;-) it is still 25.

Tomorrow we're going to head into Mong Kok the famous shopping district, and there should be lots of photos.

Night.

Kenneth