Hong Kong Highlights

Gearoid didn’t leave as soon as he got to Hong Kong, he was with us for a few days sightseeing first - which in Hong Kong mainly consists of staring in awe at the height of the buildings. There is nature to be found too though. In fact, surprisingly, 80% of Hong Kong Island is greenery, with plenty of hiking opportunities. I was happy enough to stay in the urban areas though - with the experience of Everest base camp still quite fresh in my mind, hiking on the comparatively tiny hills here would be like taking part in a go-kart race after winning a grand prix.



Happy Valley Racecourse was the most impressive of the sights seen in those first two days. Not for the racecourse itself, which is pretty standard as far as racecourses go (not that I’m any kind of expert on racecourse design), but for it’s location. On the side of the hill where a large proportion of the city’s buildings reside, it’s completely surrounded by skyscrapers. From the outside you wouldn’t know it was there. Inside the grounds I noticed a picture of the racecourse as it looked when it was recently built in the 19th century. With featureless hillside grassland surrounding it, I got an idea of the incredible changes that have happened to the landscape on this little island, from a few small fishing villages to metropolitan behemoth during 155 years of British rule.



As impressive as the skyscrapers are during the day, at night the city is transformed. The famous Hong Kong skyline known worldwide is located on Hong Kong Island, where we were also based, meaning we were unable to get the panoramic view. It wasn’t until our fourth day here, when we traversed the bay to Kowloon on the mainland (which is still part of Hong Kong territory), that we were able to see it with out own eyes. I can still remember the spine-tingling moment - it’s such an impressive sight that I won’t say any more about it, except to go and see it for yourself if you get the opportunity.



The previous day, while Gearoid was busy sorting out his transport to Shanghai, John and I were busy seeing other parts of the territory. By my reckoning, Hong Kong has more escalators than any other part of the world, and seeing that a lot of the city is located on the side of a hill, the world’s longest escalator was built so that people wouldn’t have to work up a sweat going to work. It takes a good 20-25 minutes from bottom to top, and it works quite well. If only they had built a slide to go back down.



Gladly they hadn’t built an escalator all the way up to Victoria Peak, but they had built the Peak Tram Line, which was also an experience in itself. It’s a tram that travels straight as an arrow up to the peak, with the journey steep enough to warrant carriages with specially angled seats so that you sit level while the rest of the tram is at a steep angle.



The view from the top wasn’t bad either.

And Then There Were Two

I knew it would happen at some stage, I just thought I would be the first to do it. No matter how strong they are, travelling together puts a demand on friendships greater than marriage (would). In each other’s pockets twenty four hours a day, sleeping in the same room, eating together, drinking together - it can be tough.

However, the first exodus from the trio was not the result of a massive bust-up, as I’m sure some people back home were expecting. It was because of a woman. Gearoid was returning to Shnaghai to see Kaisa again. After three days exploring a horrendously humid Hong Kong, he cheesed it, leaving just John and myself.

Bread and Lucozade

Just about half-way through the planned six months, Hong Kong was perfect for a half-time break. The city is a mish-mash of eastern and western values, but it has enough of the western elements to feel somewhat closer to home than, say, Beijing.



Lucozade, a drink to which I have a mild addiction, is one such just-like-home comforting treat available. So too is decent bread (impossible to find in India, Nepal and China). In the plethora of supermarkets dotted all over Hong Kong many other items could be found that I had not seen since leaving Irish soil.



I was surprised at just how delighted I felt at seeing these little links to home. I didn’t feel particularly homesick before Hong Kong, but now there was a tingle of that feeling inside me. I had read that three months is often the time when most travellers hit a homesickness barrier, when they start to reconnect with their own cultural values after the novelty of new ones wear off. Seeing links to the life I left behind sparked this in me. Funnily enough, having these western comforts around also helped reduce the homesickness, the cause also being a good cure. This is why I (and maybe John too - John fill us in with a comment) ended up staying in budget-damaging Hong Kong longer than initially planned - a week’s break from alien cultures.

There’s A Shenzhen East?

Our break from big cities didn’t last very long - after Luotiancun our next destination was a little bigger: Hong Kong. Once again though, getting to the place was not a simple matter. Travelling over land, the gateway to Hong Kong in China is Shenzhen (a city that is mostly noted for getting incredibly rich incredibly fast in recent times). Seeing as Hong Kong is not completely part of China yet (it remains a “Special Administrative Region” until 2047), a border control and customs must be passed through to reach the territory.

Seeing as we were getting an overnight train to Shenzhen, we were pleased to learn that the border crossing is adjacent to Shenzhen train station, saving us a bit of bother. What we didn’t know was that our train was to Shenzhen East, which was actually about 25km east of the main station. After our arrival we had some difficulty working out how to get to the Hong Kong border. It came down to a choice between paying too much to some hard-nosed taxi drivers (who frustratingly refused to lower their extortionate quoted prices) and taking our chances with public transport. Typical of the Chinese, there was one young woman who saw our predicament and decided to help. With her basic English, she guided us to the correct bus. In the end it was easy, the bus conductor letting us know exactly which stop to depart for our metro connection - the metro here being like the other metro systems in China, efficient and easy to follow.



After breezing through customs, the differences between Hong Kong and her (step) motherland were noticeable, though obviously not as pronounced as the differences between China and Nepal. Stopping for a quick coffee, I was able to browse through an English language newspaper, something of a specialty item pre-border crossing. The different currency was the most noticeable difference, though it was an easy adjustment, dividing by 100 (rather than by 10 in China) to convert from the Hong Kong Dollar to Euro.



With the border now linked to the city’s metro system, we were able to travel all the way to our Hong Kong Island-located hostel in amazingly quick time for somewhere as densely populated and urbanized as this. More differences were apparent after we resurfaced from our metro journey. Compared to Chinese cities, here seemed less chaotic, better organized, and certainly more developed. Some Chinese cities can seem like they’ve been rapidly thrown together quite recently, and are still adjusting to this new, faster pace - whereas for Hong Kong life in the fast lane is all it’s known for quite some time.