Hong Kong
27 December 2007 | hong Kong
Warm, dry, smoggy
Wow! An amazing city. Hong Kong is bursting with life and confidence. So far we have seen only a tiny part of the place. The airport is impressive, a spacious modern building, with high glass vaults and overhead walkways. A magnificent man in his flying machine hangs from the roof, the yellow wings of his biplane matte in the enveloping shininess.
Our hotel, which is in north west Kowloon, has rooms the size of matchboxes. Just big enough for us and our three months of luggage. The bed is probably smaller than that on Roaring Girl. We've got out of that habit in our luxurious three months ashore so even exhausted after the long flight, we didn't sleep too well.
Before bed, though, we sallied forth. A bit of research had suggested Tsim Cha Tsui, on the Kowloon side of Victoria Bay as a good place to start. Touristy but some recommended restaurants, and straight through on the MTR (tube) from our hotel. The tube itself turned out to be very modern, with huge trains, and everyone's mobile working as it speeds along. Also, all the signs are in English and (presumably) Cantonese; in some ways it's easier than Wales because you never think you should be able to read anything but the English.
We had identified Hutong, a northern Chinese restaurant, as a possibility. It's on the 28th floor of Peking One, a huge tower block on Peking Road, which has all sorts of different things on different floors. Hutong indeed had a table, but not for a little while and we retired to Aqua Spirit, the bar on the 30th floor, to wait.
What a VIEW. The most amazing urban view we've ever seen, and it must be one of the best in the world. This picture (taken from our dinner table) captures one small segment of the lights of the Hong Kong waterfront. We are looking straight across Victoria Bay to Hong Kong Island, and the lights and colour and sheer extravaganza of advertising go on for about a mile in each direction from what you can see here. Each night at 2000, there's a light and laser show too; we'll be catching that before we leave.
Dinner was itself spectacular; we over-ordered but gorged ourselves anyway on wonderful food. Pork and dried oysters in rice with this delicate sauce. Umm, yumm. The loos, too, were impressive; a new take on an ancient Chinese theme with a bamboo water feature and dried ferns and the soft smell of incense like the echo of a distant bell.
It's now Thursday morning in China, and we're about to start off exploring in the daylight.