"One Country, Two Systems"

HONG KONG

 Bright Lights, Big City!

Transportation is fast, easy, and cheap.

Everyone wears scarves, and they wear them fashionably. 

The Feng Shui of the architecture creates balance and calmness in an otherwise chaotic city

I love this place!  The bustling streets, the colorful allure; millions of neon lights, dim sum, windy weather; the mountains, the diners, the funky night life!  What a town!

I decided to spend my birthday weekend in Hong Kong, and what a great excuse to venture to this island off of China.  Hong Kong is a bustling, thriving city, and I love the look and feel of it.  Unlike in Singapore, where most Chinese speak Mandarin, they speak mainly Cantonese in HK.  

Flying into Hong Kong was an incredible experience; its made up of lots of little islands, and its very mountainous, and we swooped into the mountain range as if it consumed us, and the clouds were floating like waterfalls, and we're surrounded by water, and the sunlight streamed across; the tall buildings then came into view...it was wonderful.  

I traveled with Drayton, a 1st year in the Dramatic Writing Program.  When we arrived, we took a train to HK island and then a free Airport Shuttle to Causeway Bay, where we were staying.  We stayed in a Guesthouse, the Alisan, which was a flat in the midst of a bustling Hong Kong street.  We were staying with locals, and it felt a little bit like In The Mood For Love (Wan Kar Wai's beautiful tapestry of HK in the 1960s).  The owners of the guesthouse were really sweet:  Tommy, an older Chinese man, talked our heads off and enthusiastically recommended places to go and eat.

We walked around the area looking for a place to eat, and ended up at a typical Hong-Kong Cafe (like a diner), which had an eclectic ambiance:  neon lights, mirrors, diner booths, etc.  We took a tram into Central Hong Kong (this time, I felt like I was in Ang Lee's Lust Caution), and oohed and ahhed at the architecture of the city.  Then we walked to SoHo, which has the "longest escalator in the world" (more like, a series of escalators)--it's a really steep hill with lots of cutesy cafes and pubs and restaurants.  Kind of like the other SoHos of the world, except this one is on a very steep incline.  After dinner in a cafe, we went to Lan Kwai Fong, where the nightlife is.  We almost forgot that it wasn't midnight on a Saturday night, because it was packed with people!

ARCHITECTURE

 

Bank of China:

This impressive looking structure has gotten some criticism for being the only skyscraper that didn't consult a feng shui master first, before construction.  (Notice the X's, and the sharp, jagged edges, and the pointy thing at top...  and it's angled towards its rival, the famous HSBC building.)

HSBC Building:

The inside of this building is quite impressive.

LIPPO:

This one's my favorite:

 

 

KOWLOON

The non-Hong Kong Island side of Hong Kong is called, Kowloon.  It's across the river from Hong Kong.  It's the down and dirty side of HK.  It's great!  It's like Brooklyn to Manhattan.  You can either take the metro (the MTR...which oh by the way, rivals Singapore's system.  Very easy, clean, fast, great!) or the Star Ferry.  We did both.

Karen, the girlfriend of Drayton's classmate, Phil, took us out for Dim Sum in Kowloon.  It was lovely!  Then, she showed us the flower market and the bird market (yes, where they sell birds), and a street market. 

Dim Sum:

Flower Market:

Bird Market:

Chunking Mansions:

This is the quick and dirty place to stay in HK.  Drayton and I considered booking a room here just for the experience.... I'm glad we stayed in Causeway Bay, though, I think we really got a slice of Hong Kong life over there.  And it was fun!

Star Ferry Back to Hong Kong:

They're still adding to the Harbour, you can see it as you take the footbridge across from the Ferry to Hong Kong proper.

Construction on the Harbor:

That night was the designated night to celebrate my birthday, so we got dressed and went back to Kowloon to go to the Peninsula Hotel's Felix Bar, which has an impressive view of the Hong Kong skyline (across the river) and an urban-chic vibe.  The bathroom's in that hotel/bar were the nicest bathrooms I've ever seen.  EVER.

No, that's not the bathroom of the Felix.

Then, we went across the street to the Intercontinental Hotel, which has a lobby-lounge with the most impressive city view I may have ever seen:  giant windows on the water that overlook the ever impressive Hong Kong skyline, but instead of an aerial view, it's a panoramic head-on view and it consumes you.  The lights of Hong Kong are some of the best in the world.

 

We rode the Star Ferry back to the Hong Kong side and took the MTR to Wan Chai, the "red light district," which was quite colorful (interestingly, more "interesting" than anything I saw in Bangkok; but probably not as (AS) seedy).  We stumbled upon this great felafel place, and continued through the funky neighborhood. 

The next day we hit the major tourist spots, that is, after meeting a random Brit in the elevator and going to breakfast with him, to The Flying Pan, a British-American type breakfast diner.  It was simply lovely to have a proper (Western) breakfast!  Afterwards, we went to Victoria Peak, took the tram up to see the view of Hong Kong.  It was a cold, windy day, yummy.  Love the fall chilly weather!!  Seasons!  Yay!  

VICTORIA PEAK

Then we high tailed it to the end of the island, where you can take a cable car to another little island where this giant gold buddha is.  We were the only two people on the cable car (suspended in air, mind you) on the way to the Buddha; it was an amazing journey (at least a half hour in length), which took us over a giant river, ravines, through mountains...and into the mist.  Complete fog, we entered nothingness.  What an experience.  We disembarked on the island and made our way through the fake Chinese town (seriously, it was built to represent an old Chinese town, think Epcot), past a monastery, and then we reached the steep staircase up.  We started to climb into the fog, and all of a sudden, out of the mist appeared....

THE BIG BUDDHA

The ride back to Hong Kong was scary.  We barely made it, first of all, onto the cable car in time to make our flight.  Also, it was raining...a lot... and windy, very windy...and the wind was howling and it was PITCH DARK in the cable car as it sways, and we were packed in with another family or two, singing, "Tonight's gonna be a good night..." (Blacked Eyed Peas).  And we had seen this journey in the day time, so we knew what we were suspended over in this cable car in the rain at night in the dark with the wind howling... a very deep drop into a very deep ravine...  Scary.  But we made it!  I'm here to tell the story.... the story of Steph (and Drayton!) in Hong Kong.

For those of you who are confused:  here's a map of Hong Kong: