After a restful night's sleep, we woke up and ate breakfast at the hotel. It was in interesting mix of western style food (eggs, cereals), European (meats, cheeses, museli), and Chinese foods (dumplings, fried fish, noodles). I couldn't bring myself to have more fried fish after last night, so I stuck with the dumplings and western stuff.
Unfortunately, it was still foggy and drizzling outside, so we weren't going to be able to go up Victoria Peak to get an overview of the city -- missing out on the top tourist attraction everyone pointed us to. Instead, we headed down to the harbour front again to take the Star Ferry over to the central district of Hong Kong island.
Normally, the ferry provides a spectacular vista of the harbour and skyline, but the fog diminished that too. Nevertheless, it was good to see what we could from the 60 year old ferries that make their way across the narrow passage between the peninsula and island.
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| From Hong Kong |
We arrived at the Central terminal to find a massively crowded footbridge carrying pedestrians over to the central part of the city, near the base of the Bank of China tower. As we got closer to the downtown, we passed a large gathering of Filipino women. They appeared to be there both to remit money to the Phillipines at check cashing storefronts, while also taking part in a protest. Some of the streets were shut down as they sat in the road.
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| From Hong Kong |
We made our way south to Hollywood Road, a recommended walking path through the city. It was a narrow, winding road, up many flights of stairs, that passed through both Chinese stores selling spices, mushrooms and fish, as well as chic western-style restaurants.
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| From Hong Kong |
After walking for about an hour down Hollywood Road and back up some other roads closer towards the financial district, we made our way back to a restaurant we had passed called Wagyu. They ended up being full, but we were directed to their sister restaurant, the Wagyu Lounge, where we had a Wagyu beef burgers, which were okay, but not spectacular. The interior of the restaurant was very cool though, and we struck up a conversation with an American guy who had lived in HK for the last four years working for JP Morgan. The mood right now in HK given the financial turmoil, he said, was not great.
We spent a bit more time walking around the island, and then headed back to catch the ferry. Along the waterfront on the Hong Kong side, the city is constructing a massive public promendade to rival the one on the Kowloon side. It'll be interesting to come back and see what it looks like when it's finished.
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| From Hong Kong |
After taking the ferry, we walked around some more on the Kowloon side, and visited the Kowloon Park, which has a very large mosque on one corner. By that time, with the jet lag, and a long flight ahead of us that night, we decided to head back to the hotel, get our stuff, and head over to the airport early. I wasn't too disappointed to leave the city early in part because the HK airport is a sight to see itself.
Getting to the airport was incredibly easy this time -- and frankly, the HK airport express train puts all other public transport systems to the airport to shame. It is incredible. You can even check into your flight and check your bags right in the station - miles from the airport. On arriving at the airport, we entered into a main hall that at least felt like the largest open interior space I've ever been in, with huge white vaulted ceilings that look like sails.
Overall, with only two days experience, I enjoyed Hong Kong, and was impressed by the scale and density of the city. It felt amazingly cosmopolitan, with people and cultures from all over the world intersecting - yet decidedly Chinese too. Yet it also did not feel foreign -- rather like the epitome of western consumer culture. We only saw small snippets of the city, and I can't imagine what it's like the parts that sprawl and sprawl. It seemed like you couldn't look any direction without seeing an island or piece of land jutting out into the sea covered in high rises. Definitely a worthly stopover -- and now, onto Delhi.
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