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I was always a little snobby about neon lighting. I used to think that it was tacky, cheap, old fashioned even ugly. But not anymore. We're in Hong Kong, where Jackie Chan is worshipped as a demi-god next to Buddhas and Neon lighting is used without restraint in architectural lighting. But beside all this you have the occassional red post box, some menus exclusivley in English and enough luxury goods and designerwear shops to keep Posh Spice happy to the next millenium. It has an identity very distinct from the only point of reference I have for such a neon oasis, Shanghai. Like Shanghai it is very bright and busy and exciting but there doesn't seem to be the freneticness of Shanghai, nor the legions of desperate hawkers. Hong Kong feels more "Western" and still retains a lot of its colonial attitudes even though it is supposed to be a part of China now. The neon adds to its charm. At night it looks spectacular.
We arrived on the very comfortable overnight sleeper from Shanghai and made our way to the first of 2 hotels we were to stay at in our time here. After faffing about with a bit of admin we went out for an Egyptian meal. Perhaps not what one might do on ones first night in Hong Kong but we had been advised by our taxi driver not to eat Chinese food in Hong Kong, other than Dim Sum on a Sunday. The restraurant was fantastic. The food was all dips and home made breads washed down with good wine and local beer, all the time being entertained by the proprietor who was doing his utmost to see everyone had a good time. Having been on the move quite consistently for a few days it felt like the first time we had had chance to sit down and relax and just talk rubbish with each other. All in all an excellent evening.
The next day, Sunday, we took the advice of our taxi driver from the night before and went to a Dim Sum restraunt. We couldn't find the "Superstar" restraunt he had recommended but after much looking we found one called Do Ha which was teeming with families out to gorge themselves on those delicious little dumplings of loveliness. The service was a bit poor but we couldn't fault the food.
After that we got the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbour to Kowloon. All through the journey I was humming the tune from the start of Enter the Dragon, as the ferries haven't changed a bit in the 30 years since that film was shot here. In fact, along the waterfront just as we came of the ferry there is Hong Kong's Avenue of the Stars where Hong Kong pays homage to the stars of its busy film industry with Hollywood style hand prints in cement. I've been a fan of HK cinema since I saw Jackie Chan in Police Story 20 years ago and it was nice to place my hands inthe depressions left by such greats as The Great Chan himself, Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, Sammo Hung and Chow Yun Fat.
We followed Nathan Road to the park where we briefly paused to watch a kung fu demonstration. Having satisfied ourselves that any one of our friends from Shaolin could "rip the face off" any one of the demonstrators here we got bored and moved on to The History Museum.
This is an excellent museum. The first part was dissappointing only because we have seen so many exhibitions of how places were formed geologically and what fauna used to live in places that we are no longer thrilled by rocks. However when we reached the area describing the three tribes that traditionally settled in the Hong Kong area (not including our colonial tribes from Europe) and describing some of the differences between them as well as their festivals and entertainments it got much more interesting. There was an excellent description of the form and importance of Peking Opera as a gift to the gods as well as entertainment for the people as well as glimpses of the Festival of Children (we're young children are decked out in their finery and carried through the streets on the end of long poles) and much more besides.
The best part was the history of the city itself. Charting its development from its colonisation and the first and second opium wars to modern times including the Japanese invasion of the second world war and its 1997 return to China's jurisdiction. All the topics were handled with a great deal more balance than was shown in the Shanghai museum we visited, and I was only dissappointed that we didn't leave enough time to see everything we wanted to see.
When we came out it was dark and I had wanted to visit the night market. In Beijing's famous night market you could purchase such delicacies as grilled ckicken heart or BBQ'ed scorpion and I had promised myself a tasty scorpion in HK. Unfortunatley, but not dissappointingly, the market was a market of goods rather than food and we instead sat at a street side cafe and had prawns with their shells on and chilli pork. I'm sure it tasted better than the scorpion would have and the hustle and bustle of the street was exciting and fun to watch. I succumbed to temptation in the end and bought a miniature remote control helicopter which I had had my eye on since we arrived. I have regressed 20 years somewhat in China. In Shanghai I bought myself a set of heel rollerskates with flashing lights in the wheels. Like I said, I have really got into this neon thing.
Monday it was a short ferry ride to the Las Vegas of Asia, Macau. Having read our guide book we had been expecting a seedy city of gambling dens and inequity with a few crumbling colonial Portugeuse buildings thrown in for good measure. The reality is very different. The Island shares the same SAR status as Hong Kong and its history is just as chequered. Given to the Portugeuse in the 1700s as a reward for wiping out Piracy in the South China sea it prospered as a trading post. During the opium wars Britain was at one point kicked out of HK and China and took refuge there before launching a devastating counter attack to get HK back. To this day many street signs you see there are in Portugeuse first and Chinese second. Now there are many Las Vegas style casinos with their cartoon shapes and neon cladding, MGM Grand and Sands have opened there and one company has even created a theme park representing the Roman Colliseum, Venice, a live volcano, a Ming Dynasty fort and a Middle Eastern Souk. Its all good fun but somewhat souless. We lost 20 HKD (120p) in a slot machine because we didn't understand how it wa played but did not gamble anymore. I was tempted by Texas Hold 'em but it looked like a very unfriendly table and my buy in would have lasted minutes.
The Portugeuse quarter, what is left of it, was charming. It was like many 18thC southern European towns in style, thin streets where crowded with buildings with whitewash wall topped with brightky coloured piping and occassionally you would stumble across a Taoist Chapel or a Dragon Wall. We had lunch and dinner in little cafes we found there. The food is quite famous as it is a mix of Cantonese, Portugeuse and African.
Unfortunatley, the people who run Macau are more concerned with getting gambling business in to Macau than promoting it as a genuine tourist attraction for its history and peculiar culture. The old Portuguese quarter gets smaller every year and is being towered over by very new very angular monstrosities that remind you just where the priorities of the SAR administration lie.
Tuesday we came back from Macau but didn't do a great deal. We had found out that we actually needed a new visa to get back in to the Chinese mainland from HK. This was news to us as we thought that China was running the whole gaff and that HK was part of China. So we spent the afternoon finding the Chinese consulate but leaving when we saw the length of the queue. So we went to an agency and were told we had to have confirmed accomodation in the mainland before a visa was granted as well as confirmation of our exit plans. We had neither, being of the attitude that chaos travelling was more fun. But not wanting to jip the Chinese machine we dutifully went a booked some dummy accomodation in Guilin and printed off our flight schedules. Plus we had to fill in their form too and surrender our passports. So a very long day. Thankfully today we have our passports back with a shiny new visa in, but there was points where we were tempted to just fly straight to Laos and sack off the rest of China. It can be a very frustrating place to get stuff done.
Yesterday was a fine day weather wise with warm sunshine and clear skies so we took the tram up to Victoria Peak (after getting the bus to Ocean World and deciding we didn't like the look of it first). The view from up there is picture postcard stuff. The evening we went out for a meal in Soho, which is the funky , happening place where all the expats hang out. We ended up at a Nepalese restraunt and to my enduring shame I ate so much we had to go home so that I could lie down. I even had to give up the first good pint of Guinness I have had in months as there was no place in my stomach for it. That has never ever happened to me before.
Tonight we are going to get a bit drunk to celebrate our succesful dalliance with Chinese beureucracy. We got our passports back and transport back in to China proper. Though to get there we had to endure many misunderstandings, inflated prices and the thought of having to get yet another chinese visa. Roll on Vietnam.
Chris
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