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A second chance for this city of millions. Now that Remko has arrived we can visit all the really touristy stuff. Perhaps we'll get a better impression now. We pick up Remko from the airport, mistakenly use the airtrain, emptying my just refilled Octopus card - although it's so worth it, the journey is totally relaxing - and guide him back to our little hole. Having just arrived, Remko starts complaining about the heat, the humidity; we can just laugh at this, today's actually the coolest day since I arrived. The small apartment gets another curious look as well. Two people were already a crowd, a third one will be pretty tight squeeze. But we'll see. I keep my spot at the top of the bunk bed and not worry about the frenzy, the constant fight for space down below.
Besides the shopping malls, the ferry between the two islands and the buzzing of the metropolis, there are only two real sights in the Hong Kong administrative district. Victoria's Peak and Giant Buddha. Wednesday is peak-time. Taking some detours to show some interesting places to the new arrival, we queue up for the cog rail to the top. It's like a magnet for the Caucasian man. Well, tourist, better said, and as we near this place of departure we see more and more Europeans, towering above all the small Asians. It is strange to see so many white people together. Even though Hong Kong Island - the rich part - should be filled with expats we don't really meet anyone anywhere. Just the sporadic few. Being a tourist attraction, you pay top price for the cog rail. Not too interesting, only the 20+% climb adds some small excitement. On the way down we take a regular bus at a fraction of the price, but so much more rewarding. As the road winds down on serpentine-like roads, the city flashes in and out of view, the night-lights providing perfect picture-opportunities. If the bus would stop that is; or we were on foot. So just the memories remain. But back on topic. The peak is filled with little boutiques, one selling more crap than the other. A view from top of the building is of course at an additional charge, but - after good capitalist customs - only signposted after you ascend at least 8 stairs to the highest floor. Well. We are Dutch, or aren't we, so just walk down. They aren't getting our money!
The view, even from 10+ meters lower is still a beautiful sight. Hong Kong's beautiful skyline stretches out before us, the sparkling waters that divide the islands, behind that Kowloon, and the New Territories. And, as in the Heineken commercial, "now we wait". The sunset is still about an hour and a half away. A must see. More people must be thinking the same, I see some already having claimed seating at the top-spots, and a girl half-hidden in deep concentration, reading a book. She must've just started, only a few pages have been read. We stroll around, Michel finds his beloved McDonalds, I settle on the kid's playground and enjoy myself with riding on little seahorses, dolphins, being generally crazy. Or bored. But probably just crazy. Yes, definitely. At least that's what everybody must've thought.
As the sun slowly sets we go back to the viewing platforms. That same girl is still sitting there, still reading the book. She must be bored out of her mind, for only a few pages have been read in these two hours. So to put her out of her misery we rudely intrude her concentrated read :) It's not dark enough yet, and the crowd is still claiming the view, so we talk with Mar and challenge her for a game of chess right there and then. Time goes faster this way...
With the sun set, the lights are switched on at the waterfront and each skyscraper starts into its own crazy animation. It's like Macau, or Las Vegas. Buildings change colours, advertisements move, it just looks so pretty. Why do we like lights so much? Meh, not in the mood for philosophy tonight.
Let's just say I whip out my trusty podzilla tripod and start shooting away. We'll have some lovely pictures tonight, I know it. I even manage to get all of us on photo, sharp enough if we just don't move. We invite Mar to join us for dinner in SoHo and have a nice time chatting the evening away. As she goes to bed, we still have a few hours left until today's football game, Holland - Uruguay.
Mr. Giant Buddha is on Thursday. Situated across town, next to the airport, a 30-minute cable-car ride takes us up to its base. You can feel your ears pop as the cabin ascends. It's a strange feeling to see Lantau island rising up steeply more than 500m from the. The adventurous - and crazy ones - can of course always take the "Path of Wisdom", a winding trail which has to be transcended on foot. Hmm, I think I've had enough of that for the coming period. But it's free, so others might reconsider. I'm not the judgemental type. I am bored though during the ride, so decide to wave at every cabin coming opposite. It's really funny to see people's reactions, the behaviour beaten into them since childhood. Most Europeans give back solemn - royal - wave, if it's teenagers - especially in a group - I get a wild shake of hands and bouncing of bodies. The HK Cantonese simply ignore all my efforts, I think I have seen one of them smile, although I'm not sure. Normal Asians either turn away quickly, or just give a short wave back and then turn away being too shy to be looked at. At least they wave back. Pfft, stupid Hong Kong princesses. I even tried standing on my hands to get reactions; but all that came back was a curt look and a royal turn of the heads. Anyways...
The giant Buddha can be seen starting from about half-way, appearing from behind the quickly moving clouds like some floating genie. As we ascend the one hundred or so steps - just like at Batu Caves, but without the monkeys - something magical happens. We get closer and closer. Wow. What did you expect?? I don't have any leaflet with me right now, and no internet to check, but it's big. Its head even shrouded in clouds at certain moments. Ok, fine, not that big, the clouds are really low at 530-something metres, but still. Smaller Buddha's encircle the plateau and at the base, donations are gladly accepted to enlarge the temple grounds. I can be short about the Buddha. It's nice; but definitely not like the giant statues that were blown up by the Taliban. The view from the highest point in HK is beautiful though. I have already spotted the perfect beach to just laze away if we were to linger around longer.
The whole hilltop is Buddhist ground with several temples lying around, and craftsmen busily working on new statues. Most likely for tourists as the whole village that is now located at its feet wasn't there fifteen, twenty years ago. Money is a big lure.
Tomorrow we will leave Hong Kong. Bangkok, and the "start" of our trip.
Tomorrow has also been the first test of my asianity: the Lonely Planet says the following: "whenever there is problem, try to solve it, but keep smiling. Always keep smiling". I think I failed tough. Checking in at the airport - we're still flying with the death-coffins, nothing can beat 90 Euros for a 3-hour flight - the flight assistant claims I haven't paid for any luggage and if I would be so kind as to pay at the spot. Maybe if it weren't for her smug Hong Kong attitude I would've been nicer, but it's really hard to keep smiling when someone is so obviously unfriendly to you. So I pretty much bark back at her that I did pay. Damn, got too frustrated for a moment there. I need to pay more attention next time!
I have written about the HK nights before, but as we've had ample opportunity to observe, it can do with some more details. The many football games at 2:30 we did stay up quite late many a day. About the only part of Kowloon where there are pubs open at this time is where all the clubs, bars are; but also the "pretty girls". It's fascinating to see the interaction between them and potential clients; including us. Most of the girls waiting for their turn sit on benches, chatting away, playing with their phones; dressed up really scantly. Not that the "normal" Cantonese around here doesn't try to put on as a slim amount of clothes as possible, but if you see their belly, you know it's a girl of pleasure. An older woman roams the park grounds, approaching any white male. As soon as she starts closing in on the target, the girls get up from the bench to present themselves. The madam grabs the victim, and points to the girls now inching closer so that he can make his pick. Now, if he isn't interested, and says no, it could still be turned into a maybe, and then a yes. So she doesn't give up, but starts following him, probably lowering the price, grabbing his arms again, pulling him back, trying to convince the rich white man to reconsider his decision. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. If it does, the madam pushes the chosen one to our male friend; they hold hands and make their way to the hotel. When it doesn't, the girls trot back to the benches and the madam scans the grounds for a new target. Now, it's not just the stray male that's target. Just sitting on a bench in the area will wake the curiosity of the old one and she'll approach you for a deal.
You approaching them strangely doesn't really work. Two Indies tried it several times, just to get shooed away, cursed at, by the girls themselves. Perhaps they were already known to them as overtly gross, aggressive, who knows. Filthy rats.
I guess we are nice. The first few times several girls approached us, grabbing my arm - why is it always me? - but all the English they could speak was "sucky, sucky", which, well, frankly didn't really excite me. Luckily Michel got her off of me by saying that we're going to watch football. Sometimes it's enough to just look at them on the bench and they're onto you. Which really sucks, cause I like looking at people.
Other nights were less exciting. Either they already recognised us as a total waste of time, our my nerdy netbook, Michel and Remko's very gay sandals and travel-chess branded us forever as pariahs. We were pretty offended not to even get approached. Mostly we passed the time looking very cross and giving long looks at the old geezers trying to coerce a girl into "action", making him feel the scorn in our eyes so he'd finally f*** off. At least we'd like to think we had a part to play. Or just playing games trying to guess which white male with an Asian girl was a real girl friend / wife, or just one for pleasure. Sadly, I usually won - guessing they were all for hire.
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