Hong Kong & Macau

Hong Kong makes me remember a guy in my secondary school called Johny Wong and a little song we would sing every time he would pass in the corridor “Johny Wong play ping pong in Hong Kong”. Yet another financial centre in Asia similarly to the very clean cut Singapore. We had been travelling without the use of lonely planet guide book for some time now, however I did have the Hong Kong & Macau edition as my brother gave it to me before I left. It was around 6 years old and it is surprising just how much prices have gone up since then. We decided to stay in Kowloon due to necessity as the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens made it impossible to find cheap accommodation on Hong Kong Island. The room was designed for 5 feet tall Nepalese monks, it was miniscule. Privacy was minimal as the glass door which acted as the barrier between the toilet and the room was neither sound proof nor smell proof. Ahh the glamour’s of the life of an international backpacker extraordinaire. Kowloon is definitely worth a look with its many tourist traps and shops selling everything from fake Rolex watches to Gucci ipod accessories. We arrived around 7pm, Mark and I proceeded to do a reconnaissance of the area i.e. Mark would locate all fast food outlets within walking distance from HQ and report to Captain Elmi. We found a great road to grab food; it had all types of restaurants covering most Asian cuisines from Thai to Vietnamese. Mark and I went for the wholesome option which was noodles. The food in China is not my favourite I find it is either boiled or fried, black or white with no grey areas i.e. grilled for example. With regards to taste it doesn’t really stimulate my taste buds into a frenzy like the Vietnamese food. That night we kept a low profile and had a quiet one in order to best recuperate our financial losses incurred in Singapore. We did find a 7-11 adjacent to the building where we were residing, it seemed to be the local hangout for Nigerian men where they are free to drink beer and hold discussions. Before it escapes me the building where our so called hotel was located in was a communal building with apartments, hotels, hostels and small businesses. Ghetto would be a very nice word to describe it, I am confident enough to say that that is how a local estate agent would advertise the property. I am guessing that he or she would focus on location location location.
After a good night’s sleep we were up and ready to go, of course it was not 9am like normal tourists but approaching 2 instead. Our first real day in Hong Kong the so called “Singapore but on speed” city. The city definitely had a buzz about itself largely due to the Rugby Sevens, the Hong Kong tournament being very famous for its unparallel atmosphere to say that of Dubai. We took the metro to Central which is located in the heart of Hong Kong Island as the name suggests. The metro in HK is world class, making the Parisian metro look second rate in comparison. It is fast, slick, clean and frequent, all the attributes that I think a metro should be rated on. They have been using an oyster card system for well over 12 years, called an octopus card. The key difference is that this card can be used everywhere from buying cigarettes (or a gentlemen’s magazine) in 7-11 to paying your parking meter on the road. It replaces the need for coins; it is something I think London should already have. We all got an octopus card and certainly noticed how effective they are once we left and took the metro in Shanghai. There are many high rises of corporate banks and international companies in Hong Kong Island giving rise to its famous skyline. When you are there you can definitely feel just how densely packed the area is, quite claustrophobic. Many people who want to live a spitting distance away from Central tend to live in the Mid Levels area where it is impossible to see what the weather is like from you apartment without sticking your head out and looking in between the two towers that sandwich the building. I find this quite extraordinary as a person who grow up in London because even in a crime ridden ghetto estate in say Peckham you can still see the sky from your window.
As mentioned before, it was the all famous rugby sevens. We set out to borrow, steal or beg for tickets constantly reshuffling and streamlining the personal finances so as to be prepared both emotionally and financially to pay a ticket tout an extortionate sum of money. On Friday Mark decided to stay in and attend to some r and r, Weli and I had itchy feet and our plans lay elsewhere. I contacted a family friend called Hugo who works for a prestigious wine trader company and in one sms text he managed to write in the most concise English all the hotspots and hip places to go out. We grabbed the metro towards Lockheart Road which is a strip full of bars, coincidentally the all famous bar that appears in the James Bond Man with the Golden Gun. We examined each bar for both atmosphere and people; it would be completely dominated by rugger buggers. I paid around 6£ sterling for a bottle of San Miguel, which explains why 7-11 looked more like Favela Chic on a Friday night than a convenient store. So from there on in we would grab drinks from 7-11 and just walk into the busy bars as if they had been purchased there. This might not be acceptable in terms of bar etiquette, oh well. That night we met many people ranging from Swiss traders to Australian boggans which we avoided like a case of chronic Black Death. All in all it was a great night, we were feeling pretty confident at 6am that if we made it to the stadium within the hour we would find many early bird ticket touts selling tickets. Optimism became disbelief almost instantaneously when we found the surrounding roads well patrolled by the police. My mum had told me the night before that some friends, that is Hugo’s sister Lucy maybe able to get me tickets so when I got back home I kept two phones close to my ears, it looked like a blackberry call centre.
At 10 am the phone rang with great news, I had tickets to the Saturday games RESULLLTT. I was already dressed due to the amount consumed on my part the previous night. Sprayed some aftershave and shifted swiftly towards the stadium. Met Justin, Lucy’s husband and made our way to the BNP (French Bank) box with everything included, it was amazing free beer and food. It didn’t feel so wrong sipping that free beer at 11am, in free beer drops like warm honey down the gullet. I mixed around and got to know some nice people, the crowd were mainly men who seem to get a free pass every year from their wives. The day was amazing I saw Portugal get comprehensively beaten by the Pumas. After the Saturday games ended I was determined to get tickets for the finals. I had a great time on Saturday night meeting Justin in a restaurant for some beers and food where I got to meet some of his pals. I ended up at a place called Red Dragon until 6 am.
On Sunday we phoned Arnold Wong were we arranged to go for dinner and some site seeing. We walked around the shopping district. The shops are arranged by what they sell i.e. all trainer shops on one road and clothing shops on another and so on. The intense use of lighting makes this a great place to walk around at night time. We were impressed by the amount of electronics; it was possible to pick up 32 gb usb pen disks, which I never even knew existed. We ate and talked for hours it was good to see Arnold.
On Monday night I had dinner at Lucy’s flat, the food was beautiful plus I could drop all my laundry and have it nice and fresh for the next chapter of my travels which would be Shanghai. We went to Macau the following day the casino land which has overtaken Las Vegas over the last few years. It has been described as the Lisboa of the orient. That morning we made our way to the harbour near Central to and boarded the next ferry to Macau. The flying cats are similar to those used in Athens and the Islands. The journey took approximately 45 mins and cost around 15£ which I thought was pretty reasonable. Upon arrival it was very strange to see all the sings in Portuguese then Chinese and finally English. WE had splashed out on accommodation in Macau having booked Starworld Casino Hotel, the tallest hotel in Macau. That won’t be for long as next door was under construction and the building was at least 5 floors higher. We booked for two but of course we crammed three into the very nice and spacious hotel room which had break taking views of Macau and all the casinos in the area. The food in Macau is great, very influenced by Portuguese cuisine which made me a happy man as I could put the bloody noodles and rice aside and feast on some nice bacalhau grelhado. I would put the grilled cod that I ate in La Loarca as one the all time best that I have had, they are lucky in that they get great fish in the China Sea. Macau involved some site seeing as the old town is very beautiful littered with old Churches, ruins and a fort. Once again we went to the history museums which were dominated by the Portuguese exploration and their achievements. All in all there was a lot of relaxation and gambling (on very small budgets of course). The routette royally shafted me I lost 40£ in minutes and called it day. I returned on Friday to HK earlier so that I could collect my laundry all nice and pressed from Lucy. She was kind of enough to prepare me a packed lunch for the 19 hour train journey to Shanghai. I felt like a school kid again being given a packed lunch. What makes that gesture even nicer is that on the train they would not except HK dollars choosing instead to only accept Chinese Yuan. This meant we would or should I say Mark and Weli would not be able to eat for 19 hours hahaha I gave them the tube of Pringles which Mark duly dispatched into the black obis that is his stomach as I tucked in to the lovely pork sausages that Lucy gave me.
We had a funny episode concerning Shanghai and Chinese visas. The visa was so dam expensive totalling 100£. It was made even dearer as we would only be in Shanghai for approx 35 hours not making it worth whatsoever. The British seem to overcharge the Chinese when they get UK visas so as governments work on the basis of tit for tat they had done the same to UK passport holders. I must say that the HK to Shanghai train service was pretty slick and I pretty much slept the whole way through. The train was fully booked so Weli, Mark and I had to settle with being in different cabins it worked wonders as Weli the insomniac would not keep me up or Mark the serial Pringles muncher would not be masticating crisps the whole night.