Views of Hong Kong

The photos from our big holiday last year are nearly all up now; I've just finished putting up the biggest day's worth of all; the 28th of October. That was the one full day we had in Hong Kong. Fortunately, we had planned to cram a fair amount into that time.

Still, it was just one day, so it's probably stupid of me to draw conclusions about the city. On the other hand, this is my blog.

What I almost said is that Hong Kong is extraordinary. But that's just not true, really. In a very important way, it's the most ordinary place on Earth. (Except perhaps in the small matter of scale.) Human beings have been building cities for the last five or six thousand years, I guess, and Hong Kong seems to me to be the modern quintessence of the city. It's not actually the biggest, it's certainly not the most beautiful, but it does the thing that cities have done for almost all that time, but which cities in the West have largely given up doing - and it does it much better than most of the developing world mega-cities. That thing is partly make money, or perhaps just make some people rich, but even more important is being seen to make people rich. Which is why Hong Kong - bustling, plutocratic, adaptive - is still sucking population out of its rural hinterland (relatively backward, almost feudal) at a formidable rate - the ancient power of the promise of The Big City. However, as modern Hong Kong has modern medicine and sanitation, it doesn't kill those immigrants or its own children especially fast, unlike most cities in history (although it's managed slightly more in the way of plague in recent years than most developed-world cities), so it grows instead. And the smart and the lucky get rich, and flaunt their wealth, and buy showy gold ornamentation - gold stuff that would barely look out of places if it emerged from a Sumerian archaeological site.

Anyway - in the morning, of our day, we had a coach tour planned. So after breakfast in the hotel's previously-mentioned multi-ethnic buffet restaurant, we grabbed a taxi to the starting point, got ourselves onto the right coach, and set off. The coach promptly headed out of town past a couple of minor landmarks, and took us away from the urban parts of Hong Kong Island and into the rather greener south. This is an area with a fair amount of, essentially, very expensive suburban development, but it also encompasses places like Aberdeen Harbour, our first stop. This is a working harbour and home to a fishing fleet, but it's also a tourist destination with a giant floating restaurant, and a location for scenes in James Bond movies and the like. Also, according to the guy on whose boat we took a brief tour of the harbour, one of the big yachts we saw moored there belongs to Jackie Chan, and the big house overlooking the harbour is also his, so I guess the place has multiple sightseeing options covered.

Then we were  back on the coach and along the coast, past Repulse Bay (evidently a serious plutocrat playground) to Stanley, which would pass as a pleasant small seaside resort in Britain, apart from the thing for which it seems to be most noted; Stanley Market, a mass of stalls selling a lot of the sort of stuff that people come to Hong Kong to buy (silks, souvenirs, and so forth). However, we weren't shopping much, so we found a local restaurant and grabbed an early lunch of dim sum.

And then we rolled back over the hills at the centre of the island, admiring some views on the way, to catch what was probably the most dramatic view of all - the one from Victoria Peak, above the city. (Okay, I also managed to find a green tea and date ice cream there. I could get used to that stuff.) Readers will note that we took a fair number of pictures. The other thing about the Peak - apart from its status as an up-market residential and recreational area - is that access to and from the centre of the city below can be by a specialised tram, and we rode that down, passing the upper floors of skyscrapers as we went, to meet our coach and return to our starting point.

Which basically gave us the afternoon and evening to explore the city for ourselves on foot. To start with, we found ourselves in Times Square. (Yes, that's what it's called. Hong Kong displays an unlimited willingness to nick ideas from other cities if they seem saleable.) We then wanted to make our way from there to the waterfront, so we looked at a map and set off in the right direction. And within yards, we were out of the realm of shiny skyscrapers and expensive shops, and in a bustling street of grocers and fishmongers, the latter of whose wares were so fresh that they were often still flapping around.

This brought home to us something that we'd already begun to register on the shuttle from the airport the night before; Hong Kong really doesn't seem to have "neighbourhoods" in the sense that those of us used to Western cities think of the word. We were staying in a moderately swish hotel, and had cause to pass even fancier places - and yet, within a few yards of the door, one could be passing shabby cafes and very ordinary residential blocks. We didn't encounter anything that felt threatening, but the shifts in urban atmosphere over a few paces could be startling. It seems that, when something is needed in Hong Kong, it gets put where there's a space, regardless of what else may be around - and presumably the land prices are just high everywhere.

Anyway, we found the waterfront, and most importantly, something that had rightly been recommended to us. A ride on the ferry between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, on the mainland, costs about 20p per person, and may be the best tourist trip for that money anywhere on Earth. Hong Kong sprawls along both sides of the straits that it uses as a harbour, and looks pretty good in late afternoon light. (Actually, I suspect that it looks good from that viewpoint in most lights.) And so it was that we came back to the mainland of Asia. Gawping a little, in my case, perhaps.

(Other observations when looking round Hong Kong harbour areas; well, a "typhoon shelter" turns out to be a bit less dramatic than the term makes it sound. Basically, it's a bit of harbour that's reasonably sheltered from bad weather.)

The area where the ferry docked had a few tourist sights of its own close to hand. To start with, there's a clock tower, which is actually all that's left of the old Kowloon-Canton Railway Terminus of colonial times. Then there's the old Marine Police Headquarters, now a luxury hotel; this used to be perched on a small hill, but that's now been dug away to accommodate a shopping centre. Then, heading back to the waterfront, we took a stroll along the Avenue of Stars.

I mentioned that Hong Kong happily pinches ideas from other cities, didn't I? Well, it pinched this one from Hollywood, obviously. Yep, hand-prints of famous Hong King movie stars in cement, plus a couple of only-slightly-tacky statues.



Working back round from there, we hit Nathan Road, Kowloon's big shopping street (with jewellers selling some of the previously-mentioned gold), before getting up as far as Kowloon Park. That was a bit of an accidental discovery, to be honest, but worth the time, with not only a range of greenery but a sculpture walk and a pool which serves as the home for a range of bird species, including a flock of flamingos.

After which, we crossed a major road by a footbridge and had a brief look at the glittering skyscrapers of a modern waterfront development. (Okay, yes, another one.) By this time, dusk was falling, so with some difficulty, we found our way down to street level through a slightly maze-like covered shopping area, and wandered back down to the ferry terminal.

Another trip across the harbour later, we were looking for dinner on the evening streets of Hong Kong. The guidebook pointed us at the Luk Yu Tea House, a handsome establishment, all wood panelling and slightly old-fashioned style, where we had what was certainly a very decent Chinese meal... Perhaps not anything I'd have been surprised to get in the UK, though. Perhaps we should have ventured into some of the wilder parts of the menu (I just didn't feel up to trying frogs' legs), or perhaps we should have gone their in the afternoon (their dim sum are supposed to be excellent).

By then, though, we really needed to be getting to bed - we had an insanely early start the next day - so we added our last Hong Kong experience; a tram ride back to the vicinity of the hotel. Actually, we got off too early, and spent a few minutes noticing that no-specific-neighbourhood-atmosphere effect, but in due course we found the place and crashed out.