Hongkers

Hong Kong, aka Hongkers, RULES. This city is just so cool on so many levels. First, it's got this great modern, super high density building style. I've never seen so many really tall really skinny skyscrapers. Something like 7 million people are crammed into this tiny area, and it seems that they're forced to build up instead of out. Super modern buildings with crazy designs, really good subways, immaculately clean streets, no smoking in any public space (not even in parks!) and what clearly must be a lot of money all come together to make a sort of Asian Manhattan. Second, there is a seedy, older, sort of trashy element reminiscent of sketchier Chinatown areas in the US. These areas have all sorts of little shops, dimsum joints, street markets, endless signage, packed streets with zooming trucks, etc. Cool! There is a weird third level to Hong Kong, which is the expat/ex-British Empire vibe. This is subtly visible across the city in the form of English street names, old European style buildings, restaurants and bars catering to westerners, and also by the high "whitey on the street" count: probably 5 to 10% of the people I saw on the street were white foreigners. These factors all blend in to make for a really interesting and diverse city, and I have to say, I'd seriously consider living here at some point!

digging some more harbor out?

crazy building style

Dim Sum, Hell Yeah

On the recommendation of our pal Ling Sung in Oxford, we went to Maxim's for dim sum. This food is pretty popular back in Seattle, so we're familiar with the experience and the dishes, but it was extra cool to do this in Hong Kong, watching boats come in and out of the totally packed harbor.

shrimpy porky whateverballs

Peak Train

One major feature of the HK landscape are the hills. The city is ringed in by very steep jungle covered stone hills, which the locals have diligently built up upon. In the 19th century, British colonials build a railway to go up these hills to some hotel they had build on top of one peak. I guess this was a pretty famous spot, and in world war two, when the Japanese invaded, the Brits put up a heroic style last stand there. The train still runs, and the only way to describe it is as a rollercoaster crossed with a tram. It climbs some 400 meters in about 10 minutes, and the view is pretty breathtaking. Of course, the HKers built a shopping mall at the top. :)

the ride up

view from the top

Mong Kok :)

Our neighborhood in HK was in a part of Kowloon called "Mong Kok". Naturally we had lots of fun with this name. Enough said.

Markets

Like lots of old cities, HK has various small neighborhoods given over to small shops selling one particular good. We checked out the bird market, flower market, and the fish markets. The bird market consists of lots of little stalls filled with all manner of tropical birds, including parrots, minah birds, cockatoos, cockateels, love birds, finches, budgies, and a bunch I don't know the names of. Wild sparrows are swooping in from everywhere to steal birdseed, I'm sure this place is a haven for avian flu. The guidebooks even suggest that you don't touch the birds. Some of the cages are very crowded, and the birds get crap and whatever all over each other, so the vendors wash them down, and then dry them out with heat lamps.

bird market

The flower market is about what you'd expect, a whole street of people selling different bright flower bunches.

flower market

We didn't get a good photo of the more interesting parts of the live fish market, but there are a ton of little shops with brightly colored fresh and salt water tropical fish. Little turtles, anemones, crazily colored shrimps, and even octopi are available as well. There must be some very hard core aquarium keepers in HK.

(live) fish market

The other fish market (dead) is for the kind of fish that people eat, but these fish make it to the market alive. The vendors keep big aerated saltwater tanks filled with still living fish. They then hack them open right in front of customers. It seems that it's desirable to buy 1/2 a fish that's been cut so that the still inflated bladders inside are showing. I watched a guy in one of these stands split a live two foot fish in two with a cleaver. Kinda gross.

(dead) fish market... apparently fishheads are hot here

Bespoke Tailors

We also went to a bespoke tailor's called "Jantzen" at Kaysa's recommendation. I got fitted for suits and shirts by a supergay asian dude with a bleached combover, a moustache, a burbury scarf, and an outfit that remedied me of long underwear crossed with a jogging suit. They measured me one day, and had the fittings read for the next. I could have had the suits the following day, but we were leaving and I preferred to have them shipped to Oxford anyway. For about $1500 USD, I got two custom suits, and five custom shirts. Being the drab dresser that I am, I chose black and dark green 3-button flat fronts with working buttonholes on the sleeves, though I did get some pretty groovy linings, again at Kaysa's recommendation. I got 4 plain white spread collar french cuff shirts, and 1 black one (friday night, all right!) as well. If I bought these all off the rack at Brooks Brothers, it would have cost about the same, maybe a little more. If I got these same suits and shirts hand made in London, I'd probably have to take out a mortgage or something. The jury is still out on the quality of the final product, I should know for sure in a few days.

Engrish

One of the great pleasures of far eastern travel is Engrish. This is where the locals have printed signs in the local language, and in (attempted) English for tourists, business travelers, etc. Apparently English really is the de-facto 2nd language to the world, which makes things nice for me since it's my defacto only language. Check out www.engrish.com for examples, here's our favorite one from this trip.

Langham Place Hotel

The hotel we stayed at was the Langham Place, which is a 5 star joint (for $200 USD/night!) attached to a super modern shopping mall. Gucci, Prada, Chanel, YSL, Rolex, Hennessey, Cristal, etc. are all very big brand names over here, and the locals clearly buy it up. Ashton says that this is typical in China, where people wear brands like badges to indicate status, even to a greater degree than in the US. The hotel itself was really great: kickass rooms, service, food, etc. We even got massages at their 42nd floor spa. That was a trip: getting a really brutal Chinese style rubdown with a view normally reserved for airliners and spy satellites. Chilling out on a couch in the "relaxation" room, drinking jasmine tea, and sporting my cozy robe after the massage, I sat and stared out at the buildings, billboards, cars, and trains below, all lit up like blade runner christmas, thinking: this city RULES.

Next stop: Shanghai!

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