April 30, 2004

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is freaking me out. It's so strange after mainland China. I just paid HK$50 (about 50 yuan) to store my bag, it costs 3 yuan in China. I couldn't find Chinese food for lunch (had a Canadian hamburger instead), and I only just stopped myself from spitting in the street (just a small piece of food stuck in my teeth mind you, not hacking up my guts in the Chinese fashion).

That said, coming in from China is the only way to enter Hong Kong. You start in typical peasant-and-rice-paddy country, riding a fairly shabby bus. Gradually this gives way to the urban sprawl and high-risers of the new city of Shenzen. Then it's through immigration and on to the modern and clean Kowloon-Canton Railway through the New Territories. Half-an-hour later you find yourself walking past the venerable Peninsula Hotel and boarding the famous Star Ferry. As the boat bobs in the waves of the harbour you see the incredible skyline of Hong Kong Island approach. Huge skyscrapers rising high but dwarfed by the steep, tree-clad slopes of Victoria Peak. You step off the boat into the central square, from where the British governed the colony for a century, now overshadowed by the sensational Bank of China building. Symbolic of the new millenium for the city.

You have arrived.

Posted by David at April 30, 2004 02:07 AM