I am writing from an internet cafe in the Mong Kok district of Hong Kong, a sort of electronics bazaar on the Kowloon Peninsula. But let’s go in order.
We took a plane from JFK in New York to the Hong Kong airport, about 16 hours nonstop. The plane’s route went over Greenland, the North Pole, and Siberia, and Airbus had thoughtfully included among the video channels a direct feed from a fairly good video camera attached to the bottom of the plane. We were in luck; there were few clouds for much of the trip. I saw the glaciers and mountains of Greenland, the fjords of its north coast, the icebergs in the Arctic Ocean, the North Polar ice cap, and the lakes of Siberia, all from 35,000 feet. I was enthralled.
We got to our Hotel late at night, and were quite amazed. The room is miniscule, though I couldn’t give you measurements. Literally the majority of the floorspace is occupied by the two beds, and there is no room to walk. Nonetheless, the design is fantastic. The room is astonishingly clean and cold, with tiles on all surfaces and gleaming steel bedframes. We have our own private bathroom, even smaller than the one in my Cambridge dormitory. This is all the more amazing for its location in a boiling hot high-rise slum, with a melange of foreign vendors selling all manner of food and trinkets from the grimy ground floor.
Yesterday, we saw seemingly all of Hong Kong in one day. We took a ferry to the main island, and then another to Lantau island, where we visited the largest Buddha in the world. We also went to the fishing village of Tai O (pronounced “Tai Wa”; blame Giles and Wade for the spelling). We took a boat ride to see the beautiful pink dolphins who live in these waters; at one point we could look in one direction to see the ultramodern skyline of central Hong Kong, and in the other to see the traditional fishermen’s homes of Tai O, their tin siding suspended over the water by rotting pilings. I will post pictures when I have a chance; it was beautiful.
We had an enormous lunch at an excellent local hole-in-the-wall with a friendly waiter/owner and a powerful, overweight shirtless chef.
After lunch we returned to the main island to follow a self-guided walking tour, starting with what is supposedly the longest escalator in the world. I was disappointed; it’s more like a long series of slightly inclined moving walkways. One of them was broken, however, and walking aroud it I quickly learned their importance: Hong Kong is definitely the steepest city I have ever visited, and quite possibly the most inclined major metropolis in the world.
From the top of the escalator we went to the “botanical and zoological park” (it was a zoo, on a steep incline). It was an excellent zoo, especially for being free and open to the public. After seeing the zoo, we navigated the 3D maze of Hong Kong streets to find the base of the Peak Tram, a funicular railway to one of the highest points on the island. The view of the city at sunset, sprawling across multiple islands and enclosing a busy seaport, was awe-inspiring.
We took a ferry back to Kowloon just in time to see the nightly light-show, in which lasers, spotlights, and various other colored lights are used to create a sort of mile-high graphic visualizer for a song played on the radio (unfortunately, the song was terrible).
At that point we were well and truly beat; it was 8 AM in New York, and jet lag was setting in.
Today we woke up and tried to think of what else we could do. Having hit the major tourist attraction in Hong Kong, we thought to cross into the mainland for a few hours of shopping in the Shenzhen. Unfortunately, after a 50-minute train ride, we learned that if we used our single-entry visas today, we could not use the tomorrow, so we turned around and took the train home.
Tonight we’re going to have dinner with my friend (and Chorallaries music director) Anna and her family. It’s nice to have friends everywhere.