So I thought I loved Shanghai, but now that I've been in Hong Kong 2 days I realize that loving Shanghai is like loving Des Moines.
Don't get me wrong, Shanghai is great. But Hong Kong... Hong Kong is fucking amazing. It's frenetic, international and cosmopolitan. It's a center of fashion and culture. It's this amazing combination of London and China. The cars drive on the wrong side of the road, and crossing the streets isn't quite like playing a game of chicken. The subways are full, but don't involve an army of pointy elbows shoving their way around like Shanghai. Everyone speaks proper English, even the signs.
But to say that Hong Kong is cosmopolitan like London or New York doesn't do it justice. It is unmistakably Asian. The people are unbelievably kind and gracious. There are neon signs everywhere. The skyline is like an art gallery of modern architecture. Being in Hong Kong makes me smile. I want to explore every street, learn Cantonese and get myself a little apartment.
Zach, Sergio, and I arrived in Hong Kong Friday afternoon. We fled miserable cold raining weather in Shanghai. We landed here to find more rain and only slightly warmer weather. We headed to Causeway Bay, a frenetic shopping area on Hong Kong Island. Louis Vitton was covered in a film of red lights. Two blocks away, street vendors had unsanitary buckets of unidentifiable meats and vegetables that they fried or boiled on demand.
Our impression of Hong Kong was immediate and uniform. We all love it.
Yesterday, we wandered the streets looking for breakfast. We were tentative in our choices. Our neighborhood is more local than tourist, and we definitely need an English menu to order. As we stood in the lobby of a restaurant trying to figure out if there would be English menus, a patron who was leaving approached us and said her daughter, who was still eating upstairs, could help us order. She just offered and her daughter happily compiled! Her daughter, a young hip girl with a fantastic haircut and Aussie accent, pointed out some of her favorite dim sums, being careful to avoid chicken feet and other delicacies our American sensibilities weren't loving. The menu was in English after all, but that kind of unrequested kindness and helpfulness has been ever present since we landed in Shanghai.
Our dim sum was fantastic. We had pork sticky buns, steamed shrimp dumplings, fried vegetable dumplings, turnip pastries, sticky sweet rice, sweet pastry wrapped around salty pork, and more. We head out for breakfast in an hour. I can't wait.
After breakfast, we hit up a bus tour since the weather was crappy. Typically, I avoid the "follow the leader, snap pictures right here" bus tours, but I am so glad we went on this one. It gave me an entirely different view of Hong Kong than I would have gotten on my own in the city. Our lovely tour guide Rita took us to hard- to-reach locations in the Northern territory, which is the "rural" area around the city. But rural is a misnomer. It's suburbs of gigantic government built apartment blocks right on top of each other. Even the fishing villages we went to had apartments so close you could spit into your neighbor's window. Really, there is no such thing as a house here.
In Hong Kong, the wealthy person's apartment is 700 sf, and cost about $800-$1400 a square foot. Most people, however, live in the Northern territories in a government-flat. They are 300 or 400 square feet and cost about half as much. Rita lives in her 300 sf with her husband. Before that, she lived in a 300 sf apartment with her 4 siblings, parents, and grandparents. My family often had trouble sharing a 2-floor, 4-bedroom house.
I got a primer lesson on Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism when we went to a Chinese temple. Many Chinese practice a combination of the 3 religions, which are technically one religion and 2 philosophies. Since Chinese New Year starts in a week, many people were at the temple burning incense and offering gifts to his or her god to thank him for the good things that happened over the past year. There are forty gods in total, and your birthday determines which one you pray to. It's an open, cheerful display of faith, unlike the solemn mournfulness of Europe's Catholic churches.
Fanling Village, one of the outlying fishing villages, has been inhibited by the same clan of people for hundreds of years. All of the apartments are owned by the family. They never sell and males only inherit the property in the village of about four thousand people. The walkway between the buildings is smaller than the hallway in my office.
Post tour Zach, Sergio and I headed to the Peninsula, a hotel build back in 1928, and covered in opulence that only old British money and sensibilities from the early 20th century can achieve. High tea was being served in the lobby while a brass quartet played from its special nook above the tea and crumpets.
We headed up to Felix, the Peninsula’s high end, decidedly modern fusion restaurant. It was a dining experience from the minute we stepped into the elevator. It was made of dark brown textured wood, and the lights dimmed before the doors opened onto the Philippe Starck designed paradise. Every seat had a spectacular view of the city, and decor itself was worth staring at. In an effort to not feel like an asshole tourist for a couple of hours, I refrained from taking pictures while eating. But I surreptitiously snapped some photos of the bathroom and it's view. As a note, using a camera in the bathroom feels dirty.
Hong Kong is amazing in it's details. The people, the shopping, and the buildings. It's old and new. It's decidedly Chinese, yet subtly Western. It's a city, surrounded by coastal beauty and mountainous fresh air. Today, it is probably not warm, but it's not raining. So more city exploration, shopping and eating await!
(I'll post pictures tonight)
