Hong Kong - thronging, colourful, buzzing and altogether not too good for a person with jetlag....

I arrived in Hong Kong closely resembling a person who had been trapped in a box, breathing re-circulated air, being fed microwaved food and having bad TV pumped into their eye sockets for twelve hours. Perhaps this was unsurprising, as that was exactly what had happened to me. The less said about the flight the better – I suppose ‘not fun’ would fairly sum it up, but since we landed safely and my bag turned on the luggage carousel, I will just say that I fully appreciate the miracle of flight, despite the short-comings on spending a day on aeroplane. (Side-note: to the English lady next to me - please book 3 seats for yourself next time so no one else has to hear you complain about minutiae for twelve hours! Or follow my dubious lead and wait until you’ve got a blog through which to broadcast your woes to much wider audience).
Not having slept in 26 hours, the task of escaping from the airport, finding a bus ticket, and then locating the correct bus for the sixty minute ride into Kowloon (the bit of Hong Kong attached to mainland China) was surprisingly easy. Even better, the buses here are just like English ones - even down to the red 'stop' bells. One of the better, if minor, hangovers from colonialism, I guess
My hotel (I was starting off my trip a little extravagantly, with my own room) was just off Nathan Road - a manic, Chinese-style Oxford Street, heaving with people, cars and shops, and cluttered from first-floor level upwards with neon signage. It was a quite a sight at nighttime, the signs competing for attention in a mash of garish colour, neatly concealing the cramped, grimy apartment blocks, each with their own window-mounted air-conditioning unit.
However, in daytime, severely lacking in sleep and lugging my ridiculously heavy backpack in the muggy heat, it was just slightly overwhelming!
The Evergreen Hotel is on a side street mostly taken up with street cafes and cheap restaurants, a stone’s throw from the buzzing Temple Street Night market. It was a small place, with rooms like shoeboxes, but at least my little box had a window - a luxury which is apparently frequently absent in the cheaper HK hotels.
The night market, which runs from 4pm-12am over three blocks, was just one street over from the hotel. Going out to explore I found it sold everything from padlocks and mobile phones, to cheap jewellery, t-shirts, chopsticks and the ubiquitous red & gold Chinese New Year decorations. When the streets got crowded – and they mostly always were - it was a faily manic place to be, with every stall-holder fighting to entice you in, typing prices into calculators to bypass the language barrier, and pushing goods into your hands while describing exactly how they would improve YOUR life. Haggling is encouraged. The streets around the market were similarily crammed, with busy, slightly ramshackle street cafes and small shops full of chattering locals and slightly more wary tourists poking suspiciously at their bowls of noodles. The main roads, Jordan and Nathan road, were more similar to cosmopolitan thoroughfares the world over, with larger shops, massage places, department stores and 7-11s. The streets stay busy and noisy late into the night.
Searching around for dinner that didn't come on a little plastic tray and taste like airplane, I encountered a problem which would dog me for my four days in HK - finding something vegetarian. (It was only on my last day that I noticed at least 2 veggie restaurants in the immediate area of my hotel - I blame the jetlag.)

I ordered something that look veggie at a street cafe on the first night, but after eating a few mouthfuls, an exploratory poke around in the bottom of the giant soup bowl turned up something that look like squid (well, I hope it was squid). It’s considered a little odd to eat on your own in China - all restaurant food seems to come in large, shareable portions, and everyone serve themselves from different dishes and eats from their own small bowl with chopsticks. It's considered rude to order a dish just for yourself if you're in a group. I got some odd (or perhaps just sympathetic) looks from staff and other diners when I sat down on my own, and soon learnt to ask for smaller portions when ordering. One of my favourite things about dining out in Hong Kong – apart from the staggeringly cheap prices – was the Chinese tea which is served with all meals, from the delicately painted blue and white teapots in the restaurants, to the chunky, yellow-lidded jugs at the pavement cafes.

written by

LizIsHere on January 25, 2010 from Hong Kong, Hong Kong

from the travel blog: New Zealand & Australia 2010

Send a Compliment

wa.....so happy. shopping in Hong Kong. i also want to go there in 2011.

written by sro gold on October 26, 2010

That seems quite an interesting trip. I always want to read and write about my experiences of different trip but hardly grab time to do so

written by Free Mobile Site Builder on February 22, 2011

That seems quite an interesting trip. I always want to read and write about my experiences of different trip but hardly grab time to do so

written by

Hasan82 on February 22, 2011

comment on this...