Alex's Blog

Tuesday 6th October

An enormous cockroach appeared in the bathroom as I was getting out of the shower. It was about four inches long and I dispatched it with my shoe. It could be worse I suppose – at least it’s the only one we’ve seen all week. We’ve seen quite a lot of dragonflies out and about but there don’t seem to be any scary insects or spiders lurking around Hong Kong.

It was lunchtime when we left the hostel and it felt like the hottest day yet, quite a dry heat instead of the humid warmth we’ve begun to get used to. The cafes were packed but we found a table in one very basic establishment, and I had yet another ramen, with random bits of chicken in it this time. It wasn’t particularly exciting.

We then headed to Lantau, one of the outlying islands, to see the 34-metre Big Buddha at Po Lin Monastery at Ngong Ping. It’s apparently the largest bronze outdoor seated Buddha in the world, which seems quite a specific claim to fame. There must therefore be quite a few bigger Buddhas out there, although this one is impressively huge.

You can reach Ngong Ping either by rickety, unreliable cable car, or by bus, as we did. You’ll probably feel sick either way – the bus travels along winding roads for about 50 minutes, struggling up the steep hills.

At the monastery itself, you can buy a combined ticket that gets you a vegetarian meal and entry to the museum under the Buddha. It was 3.30pm when we arrived and they were only doing food until 4.30, so we went straight for the meal even though we weren’t that hungry. I was even less hungry when the food came -bland and unappetising. I felt that it needed quite a lot of salt or soy sauce. Or, to make it more like the other meals we’ve had out here, perhaps the internal organs of an obscure animal would have given it that little extra something.

There is plenty of building work taking place and plenty of tourists at the monastery, so it’s not very peaceful. Incense smoke is everywhere. A big hill with a long stairway takes you up to the Buddha, and you have to zigzag your way up past all the people posing for photos. The museum is full of Buddhist artworks and one tiny, well-guarded crystal, which they reckon is some kind of relic.

Back down at ground level, leaving the monastery itself we entered Ngong Ping village, which is straight out of Disneyland by the looks of it. It is truly hideous and features a “Chopstick Gallery”, a “Walking with Buddha” exhibition and a Starbucks.

We retreated back to the bus stop and the metro to return to the hostel for a nap. Will went out to get some shopping done, and me, Rachel and Nick went out for cocktails. But first we picked up some Japanese fast food from a place called Yoshinoya. It seems silly to me that in the UK the fast food concept is only ever applied to burgers and fried chicken – this food was both very quick and very tasty.

For our cocktails we went to three different hotel bars. First was the Holiday Inn, which seemed rather posh for such an establishment – there was a Lamborghini in the car park. The cocktails were nice and strong. Then we went to the Sheraton which is near the harbour, to its Sky Lounge bar on the 18th floor, which has an excellent view of the skyscrapers on Hong Kong Island. I had a mojito which was pretty good, though not quite as strong as I’d have liked. Finally we went to the Peninsula hotel, to its Felix Bar on the 28th floor. The view isn’t as good as the Sheraton’s, because for some reason they have Venitian blinds over the windows. The bar was pretty small and our drinks were on a strange sloping table. Very much style over substance. Surprisingly it was the toilets that made the trip worthwhile – the urinals have a great view, and the central sink is a weird table contraption where water appears from twisted metal when the attendant pushes a button. Mad.

Monday 5th October

I was stiff this morning after yesterday’s hiking. It hurt to stand up and sit down, so I was hoping to spend most of the day in a sitting position.

We went for some Taiwanese food, which consisted of various dishes of chicken, pork, fried rice, noodles and slices of kidney. They do seem to enjoy their offal here, and the kidneys were pretty tasty.

We had a quick look around the jade market – lots of stalls of green jewellery with no prices listed anywhere, so haggling must be the only way, though you’d have no idea if you’d just been taken for a mug. It was in a big shed which is I think the only non-air-conditioned building we’ve come across.

We went for a coffee and then headed for the tram that goes up Victoria peak at a 27 degree angle. We’d probably chosen the wrong time to go as the queues were huge. It must have taken about an hour to get to the tram. Once upon a time this was probably quite a pleasant experience but unfortunately the Tussaud’s group has taken over and turned the whole thing into a touristy theme park ride. You’d think with their experience of running actual theme parks like Alton Towers that they’d have a decent queueing system, but as the queue narrowed through a small bottleneck, an undignified scrum of elbows and shoving emerged. It’s impossible to sit together as everyone rushes for seats – indeed Rachel ended up getting a different tram entirely.

At the top, the delights of Madame Tussauds awaited tourists with more money and less sense than us. Instead, we grimaced at the tacky gift shops and Disneyland promotional stand and made our way up to the “Sky Terrace” which offered some nice views of Hong Kong at night – sadly it was totally rammed and frankly the views aren’t much different to those you can get for free elsewhere.

We declined the opportunity to have our photo taken with a giant prawn, and sat for a bit in the tourist information office in a converted old tram, looking at some leaflets and taking advantage of the free wi-fi.

There is a circular walk you can take from the peak which lasts about an hour. We did a small section – it was completely silent apart from the chirp of crickets, and a much nicer place to look at the lights of the city below. But we were getting hungry so we headed back to the tram. The queues were more orderly on the way down. It was 10pm and the queues were much shorter at the bottom too – if anyone’s planning a visit I’d recommend heading for the tram pretty late in the evening.

We returned to Mong Kok and went to a place called Cheers Restaurant which was huge and busy. You sit at a table with a hotplate in the middle and they put a big cauldron of stock on it, then you order raw meat and vegetable ingredients which you boil in the pot. Tasty, cheap and quite fun, though I wonder who would take responsibility for food poisoning if you didn’t cook your chicken properly. Beer was very cheap as well, about £1 for a large bottle – sadly it was American Budweiser but we couldn’t argue with the price. The entire meal including drinks cost about £8.

We then headed out to some bars in the Prince Edward area where the beer was much more expensive. It turned out they were karaoke bars, and the locals take their karaoke seriously. They seemed to know the words well and were singing in tune, into wireless microphones as they sat around their tables, often to the seeming disinterest of their friends. We went to the machine and queued up a load of English tracks. As we screeched, shouted and chuckled our way through Hotel California, Suspicious Minds and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, the bar emptied pretty quickly.

Sunday 4th October

After all the walking we did yesterday, we woke up to a hot sunny morning that was the perfect weather for relaxing in the shade with some iced tea and a few beers.

Instead we went on an exhausting hike around Sai Kung East Country Park.

But first, a quick breakfast in Sai Kung itself, a rural town in the New Territories in the east of Hong Kong. We’d met up again with Will’s friends Sylvia and Winnie, who found a basic cafe. No tourist-friendly menus in English here, so I just had what they were having, which turned out to be a beef noodle soup that was pretty much exactly like SuperNoodles – I had no idea they were such an authentic oriental dish. They were served with a fried egg and a frankfurter on the side. Classy.

They give you free tea in establishments like this, which you can drink if you want, but the locals tend to use it for rinsing their cutlery. It simultaneously says a lot about the quality of the tea and the standard of washing-up.

We then took a bus to the middle of nowhere and began our hike. From what Will had told us, it would be a 3.5 hour circular route via a beach, and we had the option of an easier walk or a slightly harder but more scenic one, so we chose the latter.

It was certainly scenic – the hiking path rising and falling through forests and scrubland, over rushing streams and under impressive peaks.

But it was really too hot to be doing too much hiking – in the 31 degree heat we were sweating bucketloads. We were going through our water supply surprisingly quickly – we’d each brought 2-3 litres and it was gone within a few hours, so we were keen to reach the end of the hike.

We could see the beach – and it looked to be quite far in the distance. We weren’t expecting there to be much in the way of water supplies there either in such a remote location, so we were wondering whether we’d have to turn back.

We took a wrong turn at one point. We’d passed a few people on the hike, but we were having to fight our way through the undergrowth on this path. Fortunately we turned around before we had a chance to get ourselves totally lost and stranded without water. A ride in a rescue helicopter would have been exciting but ultimately embarrassing.

This was clearly not the 3.5 hour easyish circular walk we were expecting. But by some miracle, about 20 minutes after we’d rejoined the correct path, we heard a car. A road! Civilisation!

An information board showed us that the circular walk was about 8 hours in length, and rated “challenging”. But there was a road at this point with taxis plying their trade, and a half-hourly minibus.

A map showed us the village of Sai Wan was about an hour’s walk away, by the beach, and a minibus driver told us we could buy water there. So we didn’t have to abort the hike yet.

The walk to Sai Wan was easy, along a wide and well maintained path. Apart from by boat, it’s the only way to access the village. We seemed to reach it quite quickly, and the first thing in the village was a small cafe with a well-stocked fridge full of iced tea and water, which hit the spot beautifully.

We wandered down towards the beach and picked up ice lollies. By the beach was a ramshackle terrace restaurant, where Will, Sylvia and Winnie sat while me, Rachel and Nick went for a paddle. The sea was wonderfully warm and the beach was reasonably clean apart from a light dusting of polystyrene. We watched small white crabs darting across the sand, and failed to catch the tiny fish swimming in a stream that ran down to the sea.

We rejoined the others on the terrace. I ate a ramen which was rather similar to breakfast – a noodle soup with some kind of processed pork and a fried egg.

The walk back to the minibus stop was much easier now that it had cooled down a bit. We soon caught a bus and it took us back to Sai Kung, on roads past the occasional loose cow, one of whom was standing at a bus stop as if she was hoping to go shopping.

We went to a bar for a few well-deserved beers, then went to have some relatively expensive but excellent sushi. A public minibus took us back to Mong Kok, its large LED display keeping passengers constantly informed of its exact speed lest they complain about dangerous driving.

It was a relief to get back to our scabby hostel room for a good long sleep.

Saturday 3rd October

We fancied pancakes for breakfast so we went to a place called Pancake Colour. I ordered a mango pancake and was told that I was looking at the wrong menu. So I ordered a mango pancake from a different menu and was told that Pancake Colour wasn’t doing pancakes. But they were doing crepes. I thought they were the same thing, but hey ho. Although they were indeed offering mango crepe as a valid menu selection, I was intrigued by the sweet potato option so went for that instead. It was better than I expected, but I think it is better if it sticks to its role as a vegetable. The crepes were full of cream – rather too filling for breakfast, but then I’d already stuffed my face earlier that morning with a load of brioche from the 7-eleven shop opposite the hostel.

Will then left us to spend the day with his family, so me, Rachel and Nick were left to fend for ourselves. We headed south to take the Star Ferry from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island, a short hop of only a few minutes, but one of the top items on the “must do” lists in the travel guides.

The area around the ferry was full of hawkers desparately selling their wares. “Nice suit, nice suit?” “Copy watch, copy Rolex?” Strangely I felt compelled to buy none of these things.

On Hong Kong Island, various walkways raise you above street level and it can be a little difficult to find your way around. We strolled for a bit taking photos of the skyscrapers and the old-fashioned trams.

In the large atrium under the Norman Foster-designed HSBC building, a mass of Philipino housemaids and nannies were enjoying their day off away from the houses of their employers. They were all over this part of town, in the parks and even the subways having picnics.

We ambled around Cheung Kong park, then got somed iced coffees and explored the Zoological & Botanical gardens. It was hot and humid – pretty tiring and so a slightly worrying sign for the massive hike we’re planning for Sunday, when 31 degree temperatures are forecast.

We then went to yet another park, simply called Hong Kong Park. The viewing tower gave us some impressive views of yet more skyscrapers and Victoria Peak.

It was time for food and we stumbled across a Vietnamese place. I had lemon chicken with rice, probably the most conventional by my standards of all the meals I’ve had here – I even ate it with a knife and fork. Tasty though. Nick had Vietnamese sausage with peanuts and satay sauce. There were two chilli symbols next to it on the menu which Nick presumed was out of five. It wasn’t. It was too painfully hot for him to finish.

Today’s full moon meant it was the mid-autumn festival. We walked around Victoria Park which was decorated with lanterns and where various festivities were taking place including shadow puppets and scary people in white makeup singing in high-pitched voices.

It is a festival tradition to eat mooncake, which according to Will should have one salty egg yolk in the middle surrounded by a beany paste. The one that we bought had sugary seeds and nuts in it – not bad a bit like sweetened hamster food for me.

Friday 2nd October

A rather shorter day than yesterday. I finally woke up at about 3pm – it seemed like I’d reverted to UK time and would have to recover from jet lag all over again. We didn’t leave the hostel until about 6 and it was already getting dark.

We went to a cheap and slightly grotty place for breakfast, by which I mean lunch, by which I mean dinner. We had a prawn dish and a couple of chicken dishes – one very spicy, the other much like a KFC really, except for the boney pieces of chicken they used. We wondered why all the chicken meals we’ve had in Hong Kong have been gristly and boney – what did they do with all the chicken breasts? I think they must use all the chicken feet and internal organs and so forth, then say “chicken breasts? Who the hell wants to eat a chicken’s tits?? DISGUSTING!” and then chuck them in the nearest bin.

Our quest for free wi-fi sadly had us resorting to a Starbucks. We sat and made vague plans for our remaining week in Hong Kong – touristy stuff on Hong Kong Island on Saturday, hiking on Sunday, and a trip to Macau at some point.

We went to a place for desserts. I had blobs of ice cream in gelatinous rice, all in a sesame soup. I thought it was OK though I couldn’t manage all the sesame soup – it’s quite a sweet, black liquid and I thought it would be better condensed into a small amount of thick sauce rather than a big gloopy soup.

On the way back we passed a sweet shop and Will bought a huge amount of pork and beef jerky. They also sell sweetened duck kidneys which sounds intriguing. Will says they’re good. I might pick up a bag for the office. It would certainly be different, and I probably wouldn’t have to buy very many – indeed I’d probably be excused from buying any kind of sweets for my colleagues ever again.