Hong Kong

When you visit Asia for the first time, you have a feeling that you will not understand any signs, menu catalogues, people talking, directions or maps and you will spend most of your time getting lost. The funny thing is that you know there is little or nothing you can do to prepare yourself in advance.

If you are coming to a China, the best thing you can do is to pack your bags in London a week before departing, and go to stay within Chinatown area for a while without leaving those 2 square blocks. If you can survive that, then you are probably ready to travel east.

The next best thing is to enter Asia via Honk Kong. This country (actually more of a city as it is now given back to motherland China) has the typical Asian culture with a hint of English that makes the perfect blend, for any English speaking traveller.

I have just realise how cleverly we had designed this itinerary and we flown to Hong Kong first before the rest of Asia. Although it was not intentional, I am claiming this as my idea.

Hong Kong is a city that has more skyscrapers than Starbucks & Mac-Donald’s put together (I know it sounds crazy, but it is actually true). A city that has more mobile phone shops than skyscrapers and more dry food shops than it really needs. (I think people here gone a bit crazy when they discovered dehydration). A city that is practically an enormous shopping centre that has for sale everything you can ever imagine. It is as if EBAY was a real town. Even those Balinese people selling fake things, they have come here hassling you on the streets!!!

We arrived late at night and got the bus from the airport to our hostel.

20 USD in Bali can get you a big double room with air-con in a hotel with a pool and breakfast included.

20 USD in Honk Kong can get you a bed that can barely fit in a room with a bunk-bathroom.

Bunk-bathroom is a Chinese invention where the toilet is under the sink and the shower is on the top of the toilet all in one. Depending on the direction you are facing you can either go for “Number 2” or brush your teeth (and both cases enjoy a shower at the same time). A true multitasking and space saver concept that uses less than a square meter.

The next day we walked around town and had breakfast in a local café. We felt adventurous and we tried one of the local places that has no English on their menu, thinking that is a “must” for our introduction to the local life. It is strange when you are looking at the menu and the pictures make less sense than the Chinese scripting language. It is also weird when after you taste what you order you still have no clue of what it is but we did manage to get for breakfast something we did not have to kill it first or event fight with.

We spent the rest of the morning getting lost in a huge shopping centre. Here shopping centres are like little towns with thousands of shops in multiple levels and corridors in every direction.

The different shopping centres are also connected with bridges that go over the streets, so you can practically walk across Honk Kong from one shopping centre to another and never get out.

The day ended with a walk on the Hong Kong’s “golden mile” street. Here Oxford Street meets Tottenham court road. Electronics and fashion shops open until 22:00 with side roads full of small restaurants. Anything you cannot find in the posh shopping centres you can definitely get here.

The next day we did a tour in the north territories to see the “out of the city” life. The more you get out of the city, the less glamorous it gets but it feels more traditional and well worth a visit. In the evening we crossed over to the “business-central district” to see the nightlife of Honk Kong.

Here a beer costs £3 which was as much as we spent for the whole meal we had earlier in a local restaurant.

We only had 3 days here so the last day we visited the local markets, parks, some museums and finished the day with a night cruise across the harbour. We also got some time to attend a few free clashes such as Chinese medicine, feng shui principles and tea making ceremony. Overall I would say that Hong Kong is a good place for a western traveller to live and experience Asia without too much of an effort which is totally different from our next stop in Bangkok…