Hong Kong Part 2

It was Sunday the second of June. This was the day that I went to Hong Kong University, which I will refer to from here on as HKU, except for one time where I will call it Dave.

Nelly lives just ten minutes walk from HKU and her father works there as a lecturer in Law, like a sister in law but different. Since they do not have the Internet in their apartment Nelly goes to HKU library to use the Internet and borrow DVDs – which they incidentally have a big collection of, including Danger 50,000 volts with Nick Frost.

Nelly has a library card because of her dad, but it took some effort to get me inside too. I presented the people at the front desk with my International Youth Travel Card, which implies, without specifying anything, that I am a student. Nelly introduced me as her friend who is living in Japan. The woman at the desk eyed the card suspiciously and my face even more suspiciously. “Are you studying in Japan?” she asked. “Yes,” I replied, which was sort of true as I was on a Japanese course. “Where?” she asked, “Tokyo University” I replied lying through my teeth. “Ok,” she said, “just for today you can use the library but you cannot borrow anything or use the Internet.” In other words, “Ok you can get in without being arrested but while inside you can’t do anything that you came here to do.”

To get my way I abused HKU library by sneaking up to the second floor with Nelly’s account details and logging in as her, their system let two different computers log in using the same account so I could use the Internet after all. Ha.

Nelly was looking for jobs that day; I messed around sending emails and then decided to do something on my own. So, I left Nelly with Dave and got on a bus to go to a big famous market for souvenirs – Stanley Market.

The bus ride there was simply beautiful; it took me along the coast so I got my first proper glimpse of all the small green islands rising up out of the blue sea around Hong Kong. There are some amazing beaches there and interesting hotels standing at the foot of the green hills that follow the coast. One that everybody seems to know is very wide and tall but with a huge rectangular hole in the middle that seems like it can only exist because the architect’s mischievous son rubbed out part of the original sketch. However, it is apparently to let dragons fly through, and is a feng shui thing.

So Stanley Market, it was hot, large and full of tourists so I explored around it for a time instead. The market is right next to the sea and you can walk along the promenade quite far, passing shops and restaurants and then a big Victorian house. I didn’t have my camera with me but I got this picture from Google.

So this is Murray House, a beautiful old building that used to be in central HK but was taken apart and reconstructed in Stanley. It is one of those designs that might only really work in hot countries because it is so open. Where there would normally be external walls there are open corridors with pillars and the whole building feels very airy and special.

Just beyond it was a path leading into the trees which I followed. It was really hot and I didn’t know where I was going but I suspected that if this were Enid Blyton the path would lead me to a secret cave, a tunnel, treasure and a sense of Christian morality. But instead, it led me to a small water temple that I was too scared to go into. On the way back I found another path which led steeply up the hillside, I climbed its many steps and the sounds of the undergrowth got louder as I got higher. A few times I heard a noise so unusual I stopped and looked up into the trees for its source, and then saw the giant ants running around below me or felt a mosquito land on my arm so kept moving. That interesting path led to an uninteresting road, so I walked back the now less interesting path and bought some water.

In Hong Kong markets you should banter, bargain, haggle – everybody knows that, but I am awful at this. The last time I tried was when I bought a Mr Homepride flour dredger for my mum for Christmas, it was from a big antiques shop/warehouse back in Stroud. Once I found it among the old chairs and broken cupids I asked the shop person how much it was, she told me the price and I made a “that’s expensive” face and pointed out that the dredger was old and a bit grubby. I mentioned the adjective old first and she replied with “everything here is old,” which was such an astute a thing to say when somebody complains about the age of an item whilst standing in an antiques shop that it stopped me in my tracks. Anyway, afterwards we talked numbers and I got it down to a good price that I shall not name in case my mum is reading this having just taken it down to the Oxfam shop.

Anyway, there was one thing, and one thing only that I wanted from Stanley Market. This:

It's a wooden Chinese children’s toy that is like a ping-pong bat with chickens on the top that are connected by string to a ball hanging beneath the bat. When you hold the bat and make the ball swing in a circle the chickens peck the bat because the ball pulls their strings as it swings. As the chickens all peck together there is a nice clicking noise, perfect for annoying any parent or stressed person.

I first saw these toys in Malaysia when I went to stay with my friend Hannah and her family (hello, sorry if it takes away the pleasure of blog stalking when I mention you directly). We both bought one when we went to the historic town of Malacca but I gave mine away to a close friend, whose cat then destroyed it so now I wanted one for myself.

I found slightly ugly versions of them in one shop in Stanley Market for 25 dollars each, I tried to haggle with the shop people there but they wouldn’t have any of it. So I said I would look around. I did, I looked everywhere, I asked lots of people but nobody knew what I was talking about. Most of the toy shops were selling the big ugly plastic kinds of toys you find everywhere in the world, but only this one shop was selling anything wooden and chicken related. When I returned and again tried to bring the price down, they said no and seemed almost offended, I don’t know whether at Stanley Market you are not supposed to haggle or whether it was just their tactic – because it worked. However, I got what I wanted so walked away happy if slightly confused.

That's it for Hong Kong Part 2. Next time on Nick's Blog, learn how I survived social awkwardness in the lift at a nudist convention plus the truth about flying moles - can they really play Scrabble?

Hong Kong Part 1

From the end of May to the start of June I went to Hong Kong (HK) for a week to see my friend Nelly. To introduce Nelly, here is a picture of her trying to eat a jellyfish.

I met Nelly in the kitchen during my third year of university, where we happened to live in the same corridor. During that year we spent a lot of time having long conversations in the kitchen and watching films in my room where, through the darkness, I would gaze across at her mournfully. This was to check if she had fallen asleep, which was invariably the case. I think the only film we watched where she didn’t fall asleep was Blazing Saddles and the worst offender was The Deer Hunter, which we both slept through and so equilibrium was gained.

But until we met outside the airport express train in HK at the end of May 2007 we had not seen each other since the previous July.

But how did I actually get to HK? Well, I took a flight from Tokyo which I booked through a company that specifically helps foreigners living in Japan who want to get away. Finding the office of the company was a big challenge, I had a map and a guidebook but still had to ask a policeman and wander around for a long time before I found it. The office was on the 7^th floor of the Don Quixote building in Shinjuku, here in Japan Don Quixote is a chain of shops that sells everything from nurses’ outfits to Ferero Rocher. I eventually found the building only because I heard the name “Don Quixote” being sung across the street, by what turned out to be the music from the shop. I’ve never had a musical clue before.

Once on the 7^th floor of the Don Quixote building a nice Japanese woman with good English booked my flight for me and then tactically only commented on how incredibly hot and unpleasant Hong Kong is at this time of year after I had paid for my flight in full.

The plane ride there was fairly uneventful, I sat next to two Chinese girls who I didn’t talk to, but one of them had a Little My (from the Moomins) Doll so I was sorely tempted to try and strike up conversation. Oh I did get to see Mt Fuji from the plane, it was late at night but the moon was full enough that I could see the flat snow topped summit (it’s an extinct volcano) rising above the clouds likes a massive beautiful blister. It really was both beautiful and like a blister.

So at 11:30 HK time Nelly walked back into my life and I waddled sleepily back into hers. We took a taxi to her dad’s apartment and got over the awkwardness that nearly a year apart brings, but that between some friends just a few minutes can dispel. Nelly lives on the 52^nd floor of a huge apartment complex called the Bellveders, right next to HK University. The one thing my sister had told me about Nelly’s apartment, because she had visited the year before, was that the view was scary. And she was right; as Nelly was in the kitchen getting some water I opened the curtains and had to take a step back. Not only is the apartment really high up but the window has no ledge outside, so if you push your nose up against the glass you can nearly see right down the wall below to the ground, the angle is so steep. On my last day I tried to take a picture to capture the scariness and this is it. I should say that both Nelly’s view and my feet are scary things so the final picture is doubly so.

After getting to her apartment and meeting her kindly father we got into another taxi and went out for some food. We ate at an Indian restaurant which was really really good, I can’t quite remember what we ate but it involved Halumi cheese and houmous.

Que the next day. Nelly’s mum lives in Tanzania and wants to open a salon there, and one of her friends in HK used to run a salon but recently closed it. This is why my first day in HK began with carrying sinks and chairs and listening to Nelly phone lots of small van companies.

This is a picture of us waiting for the van after Nelly, the lift and I had lugged all the stuff from the third floor.

The van company was really good, if you too need to move small but heavy items around Hong Kong, this is his card. Judging from the order my pictures were taken in I’d have to say that we went to the riverside next. Here are some pictures.

I think she was faking it.

We took the old Star Ferry accross to the other side, whilst taking some pensive boat pictures.

On the other side we went up this building.

They wouldn’t let us go up without making us name cards, in the queue for which I was drawn towards this plant. Maybe I’ve been a vegetarian for too long.

In the lift.

The view from the top was much like this.

The floor we were on was divided into a large viewing room and then a library area. Outside the library area was a small foyer where you weren’t allowed to take pictures, which was just taking the piss as this was the only part of the floor with a view towards the sea. There were hundreds of boats sailing between the islands; it was a spectacular view. Nelly and me sat for some time on a convenient red sofa gazing out of the window peacefully.

I figured that since the wall between the foyer and the main viewing room was glass, I could stand outside the foyer but legally take pictures of the sea view through the glass wall. Then I became distracted by how nice the actual room looked, or maybe it was just more pot plant attraction.

This was my name badge, I was sad to give it back to the woman downstairs and see her throwing it away so mindlessly.

Outside the building, Kragorn the evil fire demon who inhabits my soul, because in a past life I once killed his 18 brothers with a single wish and a birthday cake, started playing up. He was making my hand itchy; the kind of tingling that you know can only result in casting a fireball. Here are some pictures.

Ok that’s enough of that.

Some abstract pictures now of this and that.

I know that HK is an ex colony and everything, but I was still shocked by the buses.

But HK came into its own the next day when I saw a double-decker tram for the first time.

Nelly was having a driving lesson that day, we were in Causeway Bay, so I wandered around by myself for a while. I found a World Trade Centre, Gloucester Road and some obligatory bamboo scaffolding to take pictures of.

Once me and Nelly were reunited we began our long quest to find Cat Store, the restaurant with cats. My friend Long Ting (Hello to you) had told me about this place many years ago; he even had some of their merchandise to prove he wasn’t making it up. When I told him I was going to HK he gave me the address, and when I showed it to Nelly she said “Ok,” which was encouraging at the time.

We had to get to Kingston Street, so we asked a policeman who walked us back to the map we had just looked at. He too could not see Kingston Street on the map and so he just shrugged ashamedly. We asked at the subway station and within ten seconds the lady on the counter had given us a map, crossed where we were, where we wanted to go and given us verbal directions accompanied by hand-gestures. It was amazing.

So we found Kingston Street and next had to locate the Kingston building. There seemed to be two buildings called the Kingston Building. One of them looked like an apartment, the other was like a mall but the Cat Store was not listed as being within. We rang the bell for the concierge of the apartment building and he buzzed us in. As we entered a man was walking out and Nelly, who has no qualms about asking for directions, quizzed him about Cat Store. He said, “Ninth floor,” so up we went.

The ninth floor was a drab empty corridor of identical doors and dust. If there were any restaurants there they were probably the kind that only open late at night and all the neighbours pretend not to know about. This is a blurry picture of Nelly on that corridor.

As we were waiting for the lift to get back down a lady came out of her apartment. After some explanation she understood what we were after and told us it was on a street beginning with C (I forgot the name), which was opposite. But the street beginning with C had no cats. By then the sweltering heat, which for some reason I haven’t mentioned yet, was getting to us and we were losing hope. We went back to the Kingston Building and this time spoke to the concierge himself, “moved away,” he said.

So the Cat Store is no more, I never got the pleasure of eating food whilst surrounded by cats. You may think the idea incredibly unhygienic; I just hope that the number of stray cats on Kingston Street hasn’t gone up in the past six months.

So the Cat Store is no more, I never got the pleasure of eating food whilst surrounded by cats. You may think the idea incredibly unhygienic; I just hope that the number of stray cats on Kingston Street hasn’t gone up in the past six months.