Hot and Sweaty and Sunny and We Just Missed a Typhoon
I got back from Hong Kong yesterday, although considering that's not quite technically correct; the correct version, I think, would be to say that I left Hong Kong the day before yesterday and arrived home yesterday: the train ride took 13 hours and doesn't count as a place in itself, unless you count "between places" as a place itself. My two kid siblings and myself were visiting an aunt and her husband, who both live there; I'm still unable to work out their citizenships short of asking them directly, and I don't want to do that. My aunt is definitely a PR of the place, or at least on a residential pass; the uncle-in-law, though, appears to be a citizen or maybe also a PR--but his mother lives in a little hut there so I suppose it's more likely that he's a citizen by birth there. Still, I have no idea.
We arrived in Hong Kong one day after we left Fifth Hun: again, by train, 12 hours between places. It wasn't a particularly pleasant trip, but then that's what you have to expect when you travel on economy-class sleeper carriages: the mattresses are lumpy, the blankets too thick in spot and too thin in others, and the pillows would probably classify as blunt weapons in themself. Overall, though, we slept moderately well as we were quite tired and sweat-soaked by the time we got there: lugging bags all over a station in the middle of hundreds of other people lugging their own bags doesn't really promote air circulation or efficient cooling, and I declare those bags were steadily putting on weight throughout the entire trip through the train station.
The train dropped us off at the Shenzhen station about 7am the next day, in the middle of the same hundreds of people and their bags, except that this time they were much more energetic-seeming than they had the night before. The aunt and uncle-in-law met us at the exit, after which we went through both the Chinese and the Hong Kong customs with little or no trouble, apart from when the kid brother accidentally left his bag behind on the counter where he'd been filling out the entry forms for Hong Kong; fortunately he realised it before we crossed the border and so was able to go back and get it, and fortunately it wasn't somewhere else or the bag would've been quarantined and examined for nitrogenous products. Incidentally, duty-free shops were all over the Chinese customs, where you could pick up cigarettes and alcoholic drinks and various other items that are traditionally duty-free at such places; we went 200m away, and there at the entrance to Hong Kong was a sign telling people that if they had more than 16 sticks of cigarettes then they had better report it and pay the taxes. A quite interesting approach, I should say. We went for breakfast then, and had our first introduction to the price of food in Hong Kong; each meal cost an average of HK20, which is roughly equivalent to SGD4: in fact the two places are remarkably similar apart from the languages popularly spoken. The uncle-in-law left for work after breakfast; it was Saturday, after all, and not a public holiday--or any sort of holiday for that matter, even the students there were still having classes. The Hong Kong end of the customs (we'd had breakfast in a little shop near it) opens up onto a shopping area--in fact, almost everywhere in Hong Kong seems to open up onto a shopping area. It was a pity we were there at 10am, though, as most of the shops weren't open yet, so we left and returned to the aunt and uncle-in-law's house.
We were there, getting used to the place and unpacking and generally talking and getting used to each other until about 1pm, when we went out and met the uncle-in-law for lunch: Saturdays are half-days so he got off work after 12. After lunch, which was again eerily reminiscent of Spore, we went to this computer centre nearby. The building must be about 5 storeys tall, and we went through the entire thing before deciding we didn't want to buy anything even though I would've liked another SD card for the camera and maybe a minivacuum cleaner for my lappie; the keyboard is depressingly dusty. Maybe I'll get one sometime, but 'til then it's just tissues. At any rate the place was quite crammed with people, and somewhat unsurprisingly, white people at that. I suppose the ruinous prices aren't quite so ruinous for their paychecks, but it takes awhile to get used to the sight of white people in such places. For some reason the sight of crowds of haggling people always makes the sight of a blond head amongst the crowd that much more unusual.
We went on a tram ride after the computer place, and got lost while the aunt and uncle-in-law were explaining the history and origins of every other place we passed. It turns out most of the tram route is along reclaimed land, and thus is along the sea, and therefore for about 20 minutes of the ride, the scenery consisted of rows of shops selling dried fish or fish products. As it turns out, Hong Kong shopkeepers are quite unscrupulous about claiming space for drying those products; we passed at least three baskets of fish drying in the sun on top of the roof of a bus stop. How those baskets got there, both I and my kid brother are at a loss to explain, but ladders or pogo sticks spring to mind. We also saw bits of litter there, despite the ubiquitous signs threatening huge fines for littering, but then I'm pretty sure health inspectors don't tend to take tram rides around the place and so miss all the stuff on the various ceilings.
The tram ride eventually ended, after we'd had to pay the fare twice to get on the tram twice (once to get on it first and once to get on it after getting off after the last stop), and we found ourselves shortly after on a bus to The Peak, which is the highest point of Hong Kong, and from which you can reputedly see the entire country.This reputation, as it turns out, is quite deserved, although admittedly the place isn't exactly the vast plains of the Sahara. On the other hand, I bet the Sahara's much easier to photograph since it probably doesn't have huge towers and skyscrapers jutting out all over the place the way Hong Kong does: the architects of the place really allowed themselves some free rein when it came to designing buildings. Everything's tall and shiny, even the cookie-cutter condominium buildings (albeit they're not so shiny when they have lines of dripipng washing hanging over the balconies). At any rate we took a long bus ride past more buildings and under several roads and up a long twisting mountain path and eventually arrived at The Peak, where it's hot and sunny and there's lots of foliage all over the place so that you can't really see the whole of Hong Kong except in several disjointed views and even then only from certain angles. There was a asphalt road through a section of the forest where we went walking to appreciate the greenery and to attempt to take some photos along the way. Both objectives were fulfilled, although admittedly the greens were only appreciated as far as they shaded us from the early evening sun; apparently the sunlight in Hong Kong only comes in Full and Off settings, and the Off is only at 8pm or thereabouts. (It was about 2 or 3 then, I think.) The photos, on the other hand, are a good indicator of how tall the buildings around there get, as well as a demonstration of the limitations of the Macro shot capabilities of my camera: being green, the place attracted bugs and spiders, and I now have several failed attempts at capturing a spiderweb glistening in the sun. Much prettier in the flesh, so to speak, than on my screen.
The walk there ended after awhile when we were all thirsty and tired and decidedly beginning to be sore in the feet; we had a snack in the McDonalds' nearby, mostly consisting of fried foods and cold soft drinks, and then a bus ride later we were heading off to the Star Walk. The Star Walk of Hong Kong is dedicated to the slew of stars who've come from that general region and contributed to the entertainment industry sufficiently to merit stardom, and like the Hollywood counterpart (although I've no idea what the one in Hollywood is called, and if it's in Hollywood to begin with), the Star Walk has bits of pavement on which are large embossed stars, a patch of concrete, and a name; sometimes the star is awarded posthumously and then the concrete is left blank but stamped with another star; sometimes the star is awarded and apparently ignored, and sometimes the concrete has a handprint in it--upon which the handprint, if belonging to a famous person, is either stained black by the hands of countless fans who stick their hands into the prints and take photos, or ignored and thus left clean.
However, the route there took us past a few other little landmarks or interesting sights of Hong Kong; first, the ferry ride across the river, which is lined by enterprising businesses trying to advertise to the other side by their flashy neon lights. I looked at those signs, because I'm one of those strange people who read most of the signs they pass, and I realised that apart from the odd hotel neon sign, every single business by the riverside was either in electronics or in insurance, a clear sign of where the money tends to be these days. The other was a 13-minute light-and-laser show put on by those neon-endowed buildings; apparently, every night at 8, some music plays somewhere across the river and the neon on the buildings, as well as other neon tubes that seem to have been installed specifically for this purpose, "dances" according to the music. It's a rather boring little video though, since the lights don't really have that much variety and the music isn't too inspired-sounding, since it sounds like it was made for neon lights on buildings to dance to. There were accompanying strobes and flashes of lasers into the sky every now and then, but again it got repetitive after the first 4 minutes or so. Not too exciting, but it was pretty for awhile.
The Star Walk was... well, it was night and it was breezy so we didn't get quite as thirsty as we'd been in the afternoon, although I retained a panicky need to bring at least 1000ml of bottled water per person wherever we went for the rest of the stay in Hong Kong. We recognised a total of 5 names, out of maybe forty on the walk; went home, arranged some moderate sleeping conditions for ourselves in the living room with a mattress, a sofa, and a thick-ish carpet, and woke up the next morning with my kid brother on top of me because he was too wide for the sofa and had fallen off. Fortunately I weigh a little more than he does, which is why I hadn't woken up with dreams of suffocation.
The next day wasn't anything special, I think. Let's see... Sunday. We went to church, which was entirely in Cantonese and consequently unintelligible to myself and the siblings: none of us speak it or any other dialect, though the Empress speaks decent Hakka sometimes. After that we went for lunch, which was mostly dimsum and much better stuff than I've had anywhere in China (mostly because while in China, we eat non-Cantonese fare, which means no dimsum). And then we went walking around to places unremembered, or at least places I don't remember. Certainly the camera doesn't have anything on there... ah, wait. I remember now: we went on a shopping spree. The aunt and uncle-in-law have been planning to visit the Empress in October, and the Empress has a list of things she would like to have; also, my father's birthday is near and we wanted to get him something to wear other than polo shirts and button-up ones, although to be honest printed tees aren't really his style. So we went shopping, I got myself another pair of three-quarter shorts that can be shortened to half-shorts, and the rest of us bought other items of clothing. We then went back.
The day after that... ah, this will be a long passage indeed, or at least it'll have many sentences in it. After all, the day after that, Monday, was the day we visited Ocean Park: and ye gads, you know how I'll have a compulsion to describe and explain everything I can. But it's 2am right now, and in fact this entry isn't being typed on the day labeled above, although it was begun then. I think I'll save Ocean Park for tomorrow's typing quota, and go to sleep. Yes, that's what I'll do. So good night for the moment.
We arrived in Hong Kong one day after we left Fifth Hun: again, by train, 12 hours between places. It wasn't a particularly pleasant trip, but then that's what you have to expect when you travel on economy-class sleeper carriages: the mattresses are lumpy, the blankets too thick in spot and too thin in others, and the pillows would probably classify as blunt weapons in themself. Overall, though, we slept moderately well as we were quite tired and sweat-soaked by the time we got there: lugging bags all over a station in the middle of hundreds of other people lugging their own bags doesn't really promote air circulation or efficient cooling, and I declare those bags were steadily putting on weight throughout the entire trip through the train station.
The train dropped us off at the Shenzhen station about 7am the next day, in the middle of the same hundreds of people and their bags, except that this time they were much more energetic-seeming than they had the night before. The aunt and uncle-in-law met us at the exit, after which we went through both the Chinese and the Hong Kong customs with little or no trouble, apart from when the kid brother accidentally left his bag behind on the counter where he'd been filling out the entry forms for Hong Kong; fortunately he realised it before we crossed the border and so was able to go back and get it, and fortunately it wasn't somewhere else or the bag would've been quarantined and examined for nitrogenous products. Incidentally, duty-free shops were all over the Chinese customs, where you could pick up cigarettes and alcoholic drinks and various other items that are traditionally duty-free at such places; we went 200m away, and there at the entrance to Hong Kong was a sign telling people that if they had more than 16 sticks of cigarettes then they had better report it and pay the taxes. A quite interesting approach, I should say. We went for breakfast then, and had our first introduction to the price of food in Hong Kong; each meal cost an average of HK20, which is roughly equivalent to SGD4: in fact the two places are remarkably similar apart from the languages popularly spoken. The uncle-in-law left for work after breakfast; it was Saturday, after all, and not a public holiday--or any sort of holiday for that matter, even the students there were still having classes. The Hong Kong end of the customs (we'd had breakfast in a little shop near it) opens up onto a shopping area--in fact, almost everywhere in Hong Kong seems to open up onto a shopping area. It was a pity we were there at 10am, though, as most of the shops weren't open yet, so we left and returned to the aunt and uncle-in-law's house.
We were there, getting used to the place and unpacking and generally talking and getting used to each other until about 1pm, when we went out and met the uncle-in-law for lunch: Saturdays are half-days so he got off work after 12. After lunch, which was again eerily reminiscent of Spore, we went to this computer centre nearby. The building must be about 5 storeys tall, and we went through the entire thing before deciding we didn't want to buy anything even though I would've liked another SD card for the camera and maybe a minivacuum cleaner for my lappie; the keyboard is depressingly dusty. Maybe I'll get one sometime, but 'til then it's just tissues. At any rate the place was quite crammed with people, and somewhat unsurprisingly, white people at that. I suppose the ruinous prices aren't quite so ruinous for their paychecks, but it takes awhile to get used to the sight of white people in such places. For some reason the sight of crowds of haggling people always makes the sight of a blond head amongst the crowd that much more unusual.
We went on a tram ride after the computer place, and got lost while the aunt and uncle-in-law were explaining the history and origins of every other place we passed. It turns out most of the tram route is along reclaimed land, and thus is along the sea, and therefore for about 20 minutes of the ride, the scenery consisted of rows of shops selling dried fish or fish products. As it turns out, Hong Kong shopkeepers are quite unscrupulous about claiming space for drying those products; we passed at least three baskets of fish drying in the sun on top of the roof of a bus stop. How those baskets got there, both I and my kid brother are at a loss to explain, but ladders or pogo sticks spring to mind. We also saw bits of litter there, despite the ubiquitous signs threatening huge fines for littering, but then I'm pretty sure health inspectors don't tend to take tram rides around the place and so miss all the stuff on the various ceilings.
The tram ride eventually ended, after we'd had to pay the fare twice to get on the tram twice (once to get on it first and once to get on it after getting off after the last stop), and we found ourselves shortly after on a bus to The Peak, which is the highest point of Hong Kong, and from which you can reputedly see the entire country.This reputation, as it turns out, is quite deserved, although admittedly the place isn't exactly the vast plains of the Sahara. On the other hand, I bet the Sahara's much easier to photograph since it probably doesn't have huge towers and skyscrapers jutting out all over the place the way Hong Kong does: the architects of the place really allowed themselves some free rein when it came to designing buildings. Everything's tall and shiny, even the cookie-cutter condominium buildings (albeit they're not so shiny when they have lines of dripipng washing hanging over the balconies). At any rate we took a long bus ride past more buildings and under several roads and up a long twisting mountain path and eventually arrived at The Peak, where it's hot and sunny and there's lots of foliage all over the place so that you can't really see the whole of Hong Kong except in several disjointed views and even then only from certain angles. There was a asphalt road through a section of the forest where we went walking to appreciate the greenery and to attempt to take some photos along the way. Both objectives were fulfilled, although admittedly the greens were only appreciated as far as they shaded us from the early evening sun; apparently the sunlight in Hong Kong only comes in Full and Off settings, and the Off is only at 8pm or thereabouts. (It was about 2 or 3 then, I think.) The photos, on the other hand, are a good indicator of how tall the buildings around there get, as well as a demonstration of the limitations of the Macro shot capabilities of my camera: being green, the place attracted bugs and spiders, and I now have several failed attempts at capturing a spiderweb glistening in the sun. Much prettier in the flesh, so to speak, than on my screen.
The walk there ended after awhile when we were all thirsty and tired and decidedly beginning to be sore in the feet; we had a snack in the McDonalds' nearby, mostly consisting of fried foods and cold soft drinks, and then a bus ride later we were heading off to the Star Walk. The Star Walk of Hong Kong is dedicated to the slew of stars who've come from that general region and contributed to the entertainment industry sufficiently to merit stardom, and like the Hollywood counterpart (although I've no idea what the one in Hollywood is called, and if it's in Hollywood to begin with), the Star Walk has bits of pavement on which are large embossed stars, a patch of concrete, and a name; sometimes the star is awarded posthumously and then the concrete is left blank but stamped with another star; sometimes the star is awarded and apparently ignored, and sometimes the concrete has a handprint in it--upon which the handprint, if belonging to a famous person, is either stained black by the hands of countless fans who stick their hands into the prints and take photos, or ignored and thus left clean.
However, the route there took us past a few other little landmarks or interesting sights of Hong Kong; first, the ferry ride across the river, which is lined by enterprising businesses trying to advertise to the other side by their flashy neon lights. I looked at those signs, because I'm one of those strange people who read most of the signs they pass, and I realised that apart from the odd hotel neon sign, every single business by the riverside was either in electronics or in insurance, a clear sign of where the money tends to be these days. The other was a 13-minute light-and-laser show put on by those neon-endowed buildings; apparently, every night at 8, some music plays somewhere across the river and the neon on the buildings, as well as other neon tubes that seem to have been installed specifically for this purpose, "dances" according to the music. It's a rather boring little video though, since the lights don't really have that much variety and the music isn't too inspired-sounding, since it sounds like it was made for neon lights on buildings to dance to. There were accompanying strobes and flashes of lasers into the sky every now and then, but again it got repetitive after the first 4 minutes or so. Not too exciting, but it was pretty for awhile.
The Star Walk was... well, it was night and it was breezy so we didn't get quite as thirsty as we'd been in the afternoon, although I retained a panicky need to bring at least 1000ml of bottled water per person wherever we went for the rest of the stay in Hong Kong. We recognised a total of 5 names, out of maybe forty on the walk; went home, arranged some moderate sleeping conditions for ourselves in the living room with a mattress, a sofa, and a thick-ish carpet, and woke up the next morning with my kid brother on top of me because he was too wide for the sofa and had fallen off. Fortunately I weigh a little more than he does, which is why I hadn't woken up with dreams of suffocation.
The next day wasn't anything special, I think. Let's see... Sunday. We went to church, which was entirely in Cantonese and consequently unintelligible to myself and the siblings: none of us speak it or any other dialect, though the Empress speaks decent Hakka sometimes. After that we went for lunch, which was mostly dimsum and much better stuff than I've had anywhere in China (mostly because while in China, we eat non-Cantonese fare, which means no dimsum). And then we went walking around to places unremembered, or at least places I don't remember. Certainly the camera doesn't have anything on there... ah, wait. I remember now: we went on a shopping spree. The aunt and uncle-in-law have been planning to visit the Empress in October, and the Empress has a list of things she would like to have; also, my father's birthday is near and we wanted to get him something to wear other than polo shirts and button-up ones, although to be honest printed tees aren't really his style. So we went shopping, I got myself another pair of three-quarter shorts that can be shortened to half-shorts, and the rest of us bought other items of clothing. We then went back.
The day after that... ah, this will be a long passage indeed, or at least it'll have many sentences in it. After all, the day after that, Monday, was the day we visited Ocean Park: and ye gads, you know how I'll have a compulsion to describe and explain everything I can. But it's 2am right now, and in fact this entry isn't being typed on the day labeled above, although it was begun then. I think I'll save Ocean Park for tomorrow's typing quota, and go to sleep. Yes, that's what I'll do. So good night for the moment.
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