Our journey to HK started with a little bump, we’d accidentally booked to go to the wrong station in Shenzhen. Thankfully that didn’t take long to rectify, and we made our way through another well air conditioned mentro - boxing gloves were attached to the hand grips in some faded sponsorship. It was a smooth transition across both borders, and before I knew it we were on a train through the New Territories.
I’d read about Chungking Mansions and thought god no, that place sounds like hell. So guess where we were staying! In it’s defence, it was cheap, the wifi worked (no more VPN needed) and it was a prime location. But it was also a sweaty cupboard that kept finding new ways to injure me, and I hardly slept during our four nights there. And the photo from the hotel booking website was unbelievably misleading.
Hong Kong really is London on the orient, there’s so much familiarity. Driving on our side of the road. Double decker buses. Same font on the road signs. People stand on the right on escalators. Many, many little details that made the whole place feel strangely familiar, albeit full of millions of strangers. But these were strangers that carried themselves with a bit more politeness than what we had experienced on the mainland.
We started with a walk around the skyscrapers, then we met a former colleague of Angelos’ who lives out there now, and went for what was probably the best Chinese meal of the holiday in Mong Kok. We finished the evening back on the waterfront, seeing all the buildings lit up.
With minimal sleep, we got up early for a ferry to Macau (pro tip - book your ticket the day before, and don’t forget your passport). I think this was a national holiday weekend, but we managed to avoid the crowds for most of the day. If HK is an outpost of the British empire, Macau is a chill mediterranean city, from the tiled pavements to the vibrant painted buildings. The old part of the town had the same sun bleached urban decay vibe as Patra. It was a another strange experience seeing something so familiar yet so foreign. We spent the afternoon walking from one garden or castle to the next, Lou Lim Ioc Garden being a particular highlight. Once again I could feel the sunburn and once again did absolutely nothing about it. This led to some serious Lobster Face.
Struggling to find a bus, we took a taxi across to Taipa. Starting in an older part, again busy with tourists who seem to all walk up and down one street, we managed to ditch the crowds by just turning a corner and heading for Antonios. One guide book said “if you only eat one meal in Macau, this is the place” and I couldn’t agree more. It was the best food of the whole holiday, beautiful Portuguese cuisine. We had octopus salad, cod fish cakes, crisp salty salmon with white sauce, garlic mash and vegetables that exploded with flavour, washed down with my old love Super Bock. We then took a walk to casino region, utterly bizarre to be in Lisbon one minute and Vegas the next. We took in The Venetian which had a shopping mall in the style of an indoor Venice, because of course it does. Unbelievable opulence everywhere you turn, and very chatty gondola operators. We exited through one of the casino floors, my first time amongst the card tables and fruit machines. Now I never have to go to New Vegas or Venice, not that I wanted to. We made our way to the ferry terminal past other crazy casinos - water displays and cable cars everywhere. We naively thought we could just get any boat back, but seeing the crowds gave me a nagging feeling. Nag confirmed - there were no standard class seats available until midnight (four hours away). To speed things up a little, we splashed out on some first class seats to get us home earlier. Sometimes you have to treat yourself. Got two free beers on the way back and everything.
Our next day took in several locations. We started with what was probably my favourite of the day - Nan Lian Gardens. That was followed by a nunnery, a busy temple, flower and bird markets, cats in windows and Kowloon Park. By this stage, it had started to rain a bit. As we were near the end and hadn’t experienced a drop before now, I didn’t mind so much. However, as it also wasn’t forecast, we were without jackets, so we sheltered somewhere for lunch and the rain had gone by the time we were done.
We went for more of a walk around HK island - this is where all the white people have been hiding, amongst the antique stores and coffee shops. Then it was on to Hong Kong park, which was nice enough, and I made a bird friend in the aviary. The queue for the Peak funicular train was nuts, so we got on a bus and I promptly fell asleep. Waking up a bit groggy, my first experience of the view from the top was on a half closed viewing platform in a shopping mall. The main viewing area was another one of those tourist tat areas, but the view down to the city was pretty stunning. It was also pretty breezy, which felt good on the old sunburn. There was a large queue for the bus back down. Maybe it was the lack of sleep talking, but I was feeling some disappointment. If we had walked up to the top, would that have been better? Would we have earned it more? We’ll never know. Back to the waterfront for it’s big light show, which quite frankly was no Bund display. The night ended on a better note - our block of Chungking had a fantastic curry house which was very popular.
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