22nd January 1998
You may have got the impression from the other instalments of the tour report that stupid things are going on everyday, 24 hours a day here in Korea. While this is undoubtedly true, it doesn't mean that they happen to me. Most of my time is spent doing work which you would all find far too dull to read about so I have had to distil my experiences down to a few pages which I hope you've found entertaining so far.
However, I did get a one week break from work a little while ago so I've decided to devote the whole of this instalment to reliving that experience.
The middle of September is Chusok holiday here in Korea. Chusok is the harvest festival and is the time that Koreans go back to their home towns and villages to pay homage to their ancestors. It's only one day but most of the country stops working for the week. And they need a week because about 25 million people are on the move. Just imagine rolling 4 bank holidays into one day. To travel from Pusan to Seoul by car usually takes about 5 to 6 hours. On the first day of Chusok it was taking people between 16 and 22 hours.
As part of the terms and conditions of my contract, I get to go on an expenses paid long weekend away every 3 months. Come the middle of September and I still hadn't had my break. However, due to the shipyard closing for Chusok, it was decided that we would all be allowed to have most of the week off as well. This happy coincidence meant that I could stretch out my R&R break to a week.
The only problem was that I'd left it rather late to organise anything. I chose to go to Hong Kong and getting an international flight out of Seoul was easy since all the Koreans were staying in Korea to visit their family graves. The problem arose in trying to get a flight to Seoul all of which were booked solid. Miss Kim, however, was a star. She has a friend who works in a travel agents office. Her friend managed to queue jump on my behalf to get me on a flight from Pusan to Seoul early on Sunday morning in time for my flight to Hong Kong in the late afternoon.
My problem now was going to be getting from Koje to Pusan. The easy way to do this is to get the 7am ferry from Changsungpo arriving in Pusan about an hour later. The problem with this is that it takes over an hour to get out of Pusan to the Kimhae Airport and I was particularly worried that it would take a lot longer than this because everyone else in Pusan would be attempting to get out of the city as well. The alternative was to drive round to Pusan but I was also concerned that I'd get stuck in traffic going this way and I had the small issue of not having a car or driver available to take me.
I decided to risk the ferry and with the help of Miss Kim, managed to get one of the last remaining seats on the boat. Well, it's actually a hover craft but I wasn't bothered about details at this point.
On the Saturday night I was down at the Foreigners Club with the others and they were joking that I'd never make it to Hong Kong because the typhoon coming in from the Pacific would make the sea too rough for the ferry to sail. I admit that I was more than a little worried that this would actually happen as I looked out of the window to see the trees beginning to sway in the increasingly stronger wind.
Basher, one of the Korean barmen in the Club, said that he was going home to Pusan on the same ferry as me and we exchanged phone numbers so that we could share a cab to Changsungpo. I left the Club early so I could get a decent nights sleep but as I was saying goodnight to John I joked that if the ferry was cancelled, I'd be giving him a call at six in the morning to give me a lift to the airport. His reply was not particularly polite and I won't repeat it here.
Sunday morning, I awoke at 5:30 and rushed around getting dressed and packed. Dead on six o'clock, Basher phoned to say that he'd just found out that the ferry had been cancelled because of rough seas. With the horrible sinking feeling that I'd be spending Chusok in Okpo I phoned John.
John sounded very groggy and very rough. "John, you know we were joking about me phoning you at six in the morning to ask for a lift. I don't suppose you'd take me to Pusan, would you?"
Apparently, he'd been out until the early hours of the morning and was still drunk. He agreed that if I drove to the airport, he could kip on the back seat ready to make the return journey.
Twenty minutes later, having picked up Basher and filled the tank with petrol, we were on our way.
The roads were actually quite quiet but as we neared Masan there was a distinct increase in traffic. By the time we got onto the expressway on the other side of Masan, the traffic was getting really heavy, luckily, all of it going in the opposite direction. About five miles from the airport the other side of the expressway was doing its impression of the M25 in rush-hour. Not a thing was moving although our side was mercifully free.
We actually, got to the airport about an hour early, in fact early enough for me to get a standby seat on an earlier plane to Seoul. With that, I said good-bye to John with many heartfelt thanks and joined the aircraft. John was not looking forward to the trip back since he'd be joining the queue of traffic going the other way. It actually took him over four hours compared to the two and a bit it had taken for us to get there.
I arrived in Seoul at about 10am and with my flight to Hong Kong not due to leave until 6pm I had a few hours to spend in the capital. I jumped on the subway and headed off to see the Namdaemun, one of the old gates to the city and apparently one of Seoul's major sights. However, when I got there it was completely invisible behind the scaffolding being used in its restoration. That was a wasted journey, I thought to myself.
There's a notorious area of Seoul called Itaewon, home to brothels, seedy bars and the like. The Koreans consider it a major tourist attraction and promote it as such. Having failed to see the gate, I decided to make my way over to Itaewon to see what all the fuss was about. My only problem was that I didn't exactly know where Itaewon was. I flicked through my guide book and managed to work out roughly where it was. According to my book, there wasn't a subway station nearby but when I looked at a map in the subway station I noticed that there was a stop called Itaewon. My book is now a few years old and obviously a little bit out of date.
Looking at the subway map, I worked out a connecting route that would get me there and then it was onto to the train. A few stops and one change later I arrived at another station ready to change on to the line that would take me to Itaewon. All the lines of the Seoul subway system are colour coded and numbered so all I had to do was follow the signs. Except there weren't any. I wandered around for a while but without success so went up to the ticket office to ask for directions.
The cashier spoke no English so I just said 'Itaewon'. He looked confused but I wasn't too surprised. I'm just getting the hang of reading Korean based on the a standard system which converts hangul characters to a romanized equivalent. The big problem is that the system is quite often wrong. This leads many Westerners to pronounce Korean words differently to the way that Koreans do. Even if you know the Korean word quite well and are pretty good at pronouncing in a Korean way, most Koreans won't understand. It's probably due to them not hearing Korean spoken badly. For example, most Brits can understand a Frenchman or a German or even an American speaking English because we have experience of English being spoken with so many different accents. But few Koreans ever hear Korean being spoken in a foreign accent so unless you speak Korean perfectly, you're probably wasting you're time. The only saving grace is that many Koreans can't actually understand each other either. We've come to the conclusion that Koreans have no real concept of their own language never mind anybody else's!
Anyway, I continued saying 'Itaewon' over and over again in as many variations as I could think of with him repeating it after me. Eventually I stopped. There was a bit of a pause and then he nodded and said, "Yes. Itaewon." and handed me a tourist leaflet for Itaewon.
I glanced down at it and saw a heading 'How to Get There'. There were a whole lot of road directions and bus routes and at the bottom, in italics, it said that there was a subway line to the area which would be completed in Summer 1998. Whoops. Well that explains it I thought and thanked the man in the ticket office.
I sat down again with the subway map to study form. I worked out a new route that took me to a subway station near Itaewon and with that I was off again. A few stops later and another change I arrived at a station which would be a short walk from Itaewon.
Outside the station was a map of the area so I checked it out to decide which road I should take. I even had a compass with me after my experience of being lost on the hill above Pusan. I set off walking down the main road and just round the first corner came to a halt in front of a small but rather steep hill with a road tunnel going through it. There was no pavement so it was obvious that pedestrians were not allowed so I joined the thronging bus queue next to the entrance.
The bus turned up, everyone squeezed in and it disappeared into the tunnel. It came back into daylight just a few seconds later and stopped just next to the tunnel exit. I couldn't actually see out of the window because the bus was so packed so I just got off with a crowd of other people.
Just as the bus was pulling away, I looked further up the road to see a hill identical to the one I'd just been under with another road tunnel through it. However, across the road was the subway station after the one I'd just come up from. Sod this for a lark, I thought, and disappeared into the subway station to go back the way I came.
Arriving back at the previous station, I resurfaced and stood in front of the map I'd been looking at only a few minutes earlier. It was then that I noticed something which I've since become very diligent at checking. Every other map that I'd ever seen has always had north at the top of the page. Here in Korea I've seen a lot of maps which have west at the top of the page many of which don't have labels pointing out that north is the right of the page. I've no idea why west-up seems so popular. In these cases, I guess you have to know the area covered by the map well enough to decide which way up it is but then you wonder why you needed to look at the map in the first place.
Having worked out which was the right direction I set off on foot for what I thought would be a short walk. I spent the next 45 minutes wandering through various residential areas getting strange looks from the locals who don't usually see Westerners out that way.
Eventually I arrived at Itaewon. And what a profound disappointment it was. Basically, Itaewon is London's Soho but with Korean subtitles. And in the cold light of an afternoon sun, it looks just as innocent. Itaewon at that time of day is thronging with foreign tourists meandering through the mass of cheap shops and street stalls selling tacky trinkets. I noticed that almost all the tourists were Americans but at the time couldn't work out why this would be the case. I just assumed that because most of the Westerners on Koje were Europeans with the odd sprinkling of Canadians and Americans that the rest of Korea would be the same mix.
Having decided that this was another wasted journey, I started to make my way back towards to centre of the city. On the way I found myself passing lots of Americans going in the opposite direction. I got even more suspicious as the sides of the roads started filling up with big American cars until, eventually, I came to leafy little lane with enormous barbed wire fences and huge gates with concrete bollards blocking the entrance.
It was as I was looking at the uniformed armed guards that I finally twigged where all the Americans were from. If you live on a small island off the south coast of Korea, in other words, a long way from the demilitarised zone, you tend to forget that by far the largest contingent of foreigners in the country is the US Army.
One of the guards noticed me staring at him, at which point I scarpered before the notoriously trigger happy Americans decided to take a dislike to me.
Time was getting on by now, so I made my way in the vague direction of the centre of town and the nearest subway back to the airport clock-watching all the way.
I told you in the first instalment that I make a habit of being the last person on the plane so that I don't have to wait around in queues. For those of you who worry that the aircraft might go without you I should explain the trick for not being left behind.
It's quite simple really. Airlines always ask people to check in hours before their flight is due to leave. This means that they can start loading the baggage onto the plane without having to rush. The check in people always seem pleased that I'm a conscientious chap in getting my bags to them early. Little do they know that I'll happily sit drinking coffee and reading the papers while ignoring their calls to board the aircraft including their multitude of so called 'Last Calls'. I'll only bother to get on the plane when they call me by name.
You're probably still wondering why the airline would be so keen to have Mr. P Ward Esq. on their aeroplane. It comes down to one word. Terrorism.
An old trick of terrorists, at least the non-suicidal type, was to book a flight, check a bomb laden suitcase onto the plane and then walk away. These days, airlines will not fly with unaccompanied baggage in their hold. They will go to great lengths to make sure that all their passengers make the flight. The only alternative is to unload said baggage which is obviously a hassle for the airline and could mean the aircraft missing its precious airport take-off slot. It's even more of a hassle if the particular piece of baggage was one of the first to be checked in since it's going to be behind all the other baggage that's been loaded since.
So long as you don't cause the aircraft to miss it's allotted take-off slot then you're OK.
On my Hong Kong trip, however, I decided that I'd take hand luggage only. This was particularly fortunate since I arrived at the airport with only 10 minutes to spare. Although 10 minutes is the latest I've ever turned up for a plane I know it's a huge margin compared to the 30 seconds that one of you has had due to my tardiness.
Without hold baggage, the check-in was particularly efficient until it came to allocation of a seat. I'd heard that the Hong Kong skyline was a superb sight coming into Kai Tak airport and with the new airport due to open in 1998, I'd never get the chance to see it again so I requested a window seat in the no-smoking area.
The check-in assistant apologised and said that there were no window seats available in the middle of the aircraft but there were some right at the back. I had a quick think about this and realised that every time I'd been given a window seat in the middle of the aircraft, I'd not been able to see anything because the wing had been in the way.
If you have to fly cargo class on a 747 in future, I'd recommend the last three window seats on the aircraft. You don't get any more space between you and the seat in front but because the aircraft tapers towards the tail, you get a bit more room at the side in which to stretch out.
If you're a bloke, there's another reason to be at the back of the plane, but because the Sunday flight was quite busy it didn't become apparent to me at the time.
The flight over was quite pleasant and as we neared Hong Kong, the captain suggested we look out of the windows to see the late evening skyline. It's well known that the approach to Kai Tak brings the aircraft down between the skyscrapers close enough for you to be able to see people watching television in their apartments. Some people find the ride a hair-raising experience but it does provide an absolutely stunning view.
The new Chek Lap Kok airport is being built about 20 miles from the city so if any of you are planning to visit Hong Kong, I'd suggest going while Kai Tak is still open and make sure you get a decent window seat. You've got about a year.
I'd been so busy in the weeks leading up to my trip that I hadn't had time to read my guide book to Hong Kong but I managed to get through a little bit of it on the plane. One thing I noticed was the fact that there was no MTR (Mass Transit Railway - Hong Kong's underground system) anywhere near Kai Tak. I found this odd since I had been given an MTR ticket with my airline ticket to get me from the airport into town. However, there will be an MTR station at the new airport so it's obvious that every one's gearing up to the new airport.
I arrived at Kai Tak airport with only Korean won in my wallet so the first order of the day was to get some local currency. In the airport concourse I found, glory of glories, a cash machine and with great trepidation I used my credit card for the first time in four months to successfully withdraw some cash.
I wandered outside the airport building and got hit by the humidity. Although I'd had to get used to humidity in the height of the Korean summer, it was nothing compared to the autumn humidity of Hong Kong. It was something I'd have to get used to for the next week. However, at that point I just wanted to find some air conditioning and looking at the huge queue for taxies I decided the bus would be a quicker option.
I didn't have a clue which bus I should take but I knew the hotel was vaguely near the Tsim Sha Tsui area of Kowloon, so I chose one going there. My first problem was buying the ticket. The ticket cost 19 Hong Kong dollars, about 2 pounds, but the smallest note that I'd just got from the machine was 500 Hong Kong dollars, about 50 quid. I doubt if any of you have tried to pay a bus fare in the UK with a 50 pound note, it's bad enough trying it on with a fiver, but I got the same sort of reaction. Eventually, the ticket attendant collected enough change from his fellow traders to make up my change and I was onto the bus.
My second problem was that I didn't know where I was going, so as soon as I saw the Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station I jumped off. A quick look at the map in my guide book showed that I was just a few blocks from the hotel, so within a few minutes I was enjoying a hot bath and, since I'd been up since 5 o'clock in the morning in another time zone, an early night to bed.
I decided that the fastest way to find out about Hong Kong would be to take a visit to the Hong Kong Museum in Kowloon Park, so on Monday morning, I got up bright and early and set off.
Rather like New York, Hong Kong has a reputation for being awake 24 hours a day, days a week. However, it needs to go a little further to live up to that reputation. Although most places are alive and kicking 7 days of the week there are quite a few places that close on Mondays. And so it was with the Museum.
Having failed to get into the museum, I sat down on a park bench to read my guide book and decide where I should go next. I found it an odd feeling to be sat in the morning humidity surrounded by elderly Hong Kong citizens doing their Tai Chi exercise. I knew Tai Chi was supposed to be calming for those who practice it but I didn't realise that it could be so relaxing just watching other people do it.
Some of you might know of my pseudo-Taoist tendencies and although the vast majority of people in Hong Kong are either Buddhist or Confucian in their outlook, there are quite a few Taoist temples around the area. Wong Tai Sin Temple is the largest Taoist temple in Hong Kong and since I'd never been to a Taoist temple before I thought I'd give it a look.
I jumped on the MTR and within minutes I arrived at Wong Tai Sin station near the temple. The station was surrounded by the ubiquitous high rise tenement buildings half of which were falling down and the other half were being rebuilt.
In the major cities of the world like London, Tokyo, New York, Singapore, Paris, etc., the price of land is huge compared to the cost of building anything on it and so these place share a tendency to put buildings up, knock them down when they get bored of them and put something else up instead. It's much the case in Hong Kong where there are site works all over the place.
These sites are almost identical the world over and despite Hong Kong being one of the most sophisticated and technologically advanced places in the world, their building sites have one thing that marks them out as being particularly Far Eastern and that's the use of bamboo scaffolding. While you would think it's probably all right to use bamboo scaffolding if you're working on a two or three storey building you might balk at the prospect of 40 storeys of stuff but not in Hong Kong.
Apparently, there are a few fatalities every year from collapsed bamboo scaffolding but the Hong Kong builders seem to think of it as a hazard of the job. I'm not quite sure what the Chinese pedestrians walking underneath think of it but I always felt little unsafe.
The temple is not far from the station but with the station being completely surrounded by building sites, it was difficult to work out which direction I should go. It was then that I caught a whiff of incense and looking around I noticed a thin pall of white smoke on the other side of a works area.
The entrance to the temple was surrounded by stalls piled high with bundles of incense sticks and cones. Inside I could have done with a gas mask.
Most of the people in the temple were old women making offerings of fruit and incense. I've been to Buddhist temples here in Korea where the smell of incense is complemented with the low chants of mantras but in this Taoist temple the sound was the constant clicking of divining sticks being thrown. I don't know if it was the constant roar of nearby traffic or the noise of the sticks but I found the place to be far less peaceful than I'd expected.
I decided to leave the women to their deliberations and go to see Stanley Bay over on the south side of Hong Kong Island. To get there I'd have to cross Victoria Harbour and what better way than the world famous Star Ferry.
Once again, I negotiated the maze of building sites and disappeared into the bowels of the MTR bound for Tsim Sha Tsui. Finding the ferry terminal was no problem since the whole way was littered with tourist signs pointing the direction and having paid my HK$1.75 I gathered with my fellow passengers to await the arrival of one of these famous vessels.
I passed the few minutes by reading my guide book which told the story of how the Star Ferry company was failing to make any money from their operations. Considering that I'd just handed over a paltry 15p I wasn't surprised. A few months before I visited Hong Kong I'd seen a segment on CNN that said the company was about to go bust so I thought I'd never get the chance to do the trip. My book said that a few years back, the company had tried to increase the fares by just a few pence and there had been near riots in the streets. The government had to step in and agree to subsidise the whole thing just to keep the peace.
Quite frankly, I was disappointed. As I got on the ferry, I wondered what all the fuss over a dirty, uncomfortable old boat was about.
The attraction became obvious as soon as the boat pulled out of it's berth and although I did use the MTR and the bus a couple of times to go under the bay, I always preferred to go on the Star Ferry. If you want to get across the water by boat then there are many modern, fast craft that'll do the trip in a couple of minutes all in air conditioned comfort and charge you ten times as much for the privilege.
The Star Ferry, however, gives you ten minutes to take in the truly amazing Hong Kong skyline without it being cut off from you by sheets of glass and I suggest you experience it before the Star Ferry Company really does go bust.
Once on the other side, I made my way the short distance to the bus station to catch the bus to Stanley. One of the things my guide book mentioned was the sheer madness of Hong Kong bus drivers. The ride to Stanley was billed as the second most frightening. It started off with some seat-of-the-pants stuff just through the traffic laden financial district but once through the Aberdeen tunnel we got on to the narrow country roads and the driver went completely bonkers driving at insane speeds taking the bus within inches of the cliff sides with tree branches slapping against the windows. In all, it was quite as good as any fairground roller coaster but at about 80p it's a lot cheaper and lasts about 10 times longer.
Stanley is a nice little town which is being developed with new houses and apartments for Hong Kong's well to do. It's other draw is a street market that takes over most of the place. It's aimed at the tourists who swarm about buying up cheap clothing and souvenirs but I'd gone over to see a temple on the outskirts of the town.
I wandered down past the end of the beach to find an enormous building site with the poor little temple stuck in the middle of it surrounded piles of bricks and cement mixers. Unfortunately, the temple was locked up so I had a wander round the market instead.
Many of you know that I love to eat cheese. Back in the UK I used to do my shopping on a Sunday morning with all the other hung-over single people. I always bought a couple of big pieces of cheese to last me the week but I'd also buy a big chunk of smoked cheddar. Then it'd be back home to do the cooking for the week and eat the cheddar for my Sunday lunch before taking the Sunday papers down the pub for a Guinness.
While it's still the case here in Korea to wake up foggy headed on a Sunday morning, there is a singular lack of cheese, Sunday papers and Guinness. Well, okay, you can get cheese but only the processed slice variety. I've tried to make an omelette with the stuff but once it gets hot it takes on a strange gooey consistency that sticks to your teeth with the power of super glue.
Back to Stanley. As I was wandering through the market alleyways, I came across a little supermarket and couldn't resist a quick scout to see if they had any cheese and, joy of joys, they did. As I was standing in the queue waiting to pay I noticed a Chinese fashion magazine on the paper rack called Amoeba. It's generally accepted, probably incorrectly, that models are not the most intelligent of people but to see the woman on the cover with the word amoeba written across her forehead was a little too ironic.
I started scanning the rest of the rack to see if there were any other entertainingly named journals and then my eyes alighted on a copy of the Daily Telegraph. On average, we get new people or visitors out to Korea from the UK about once a month and they usually bring a selection of quality journals such as the Daily Mail, The Sun, The Mirror, FHM and Loaded. The list sometimes includes the Telegraph and the FT so I do get to read some quality newsprint occasionally even if it is a few days out of date by the time it gets here.
I checked the date of the Telegraph and found that it was marked with that days date which I found a bit odd since it was still only 8am UK time. Later on in the week, I bought a correctly dated copy of the Telegraph at 9 o'clock in the morning. For the paper to be in the newsagents at that time of the morning it would have to leave the UK twelve hours before at about 9pm the previous day. Even living in London, I've never been able to get a Telegraph before two in the morning so I was quite impressed.
I checked the rest of the papers but couldn't find a Guardian. Never mind, I thought, at least I had both cheese and a Telegraph. Having paid for my purchases, I set off again through the narrow streets of Stanley. I hadn't gone more than 20 yards when I passed one of the many little bars that inhabit the town and noticed a John Smiths Bitter pump on the bar. Though not quite Guinness, it was close enough given the circumstances and what better place to eat my cheese and read the paper.
A couple of pints, a chunk of cheese and one newspaper later it was time to set off back towards Kowloon.
On the way back to the hotel, I stopped off at Hong Kong's answer to Superdrug for some deodorant. You may think it strange that the only item on my shopping list from Hong Kong would be deodorant but with even the simplest items unavailable in Korea you have to take every chance that presents itself.
Once I'd had a shower and was again smelling of roses, I set off back to Hong Kong Island in search of a curry. You would have thought that my first dinner in Hong Kong would be some wonderful Chinese concoction rather than an Indian one, but since I can get Chinese food here in Okpo and haven't had a curry since I left the UK, I knew which one I needed first.
I went to a superb curry house in the Lan Kwai Fong area just behind the financial district. It's an area full of trendy bars and restaurants which were jammed full of suits, almost all of them British. Hong Kong may be Chinese now but the Brits are still out in force.
Having had my fill, what better way to finish off a good curry than with a pint of Guinness and so it was back across the bay on the Star Ferry to Delaney's in Kowloon. Delaney's is just another pseudo-Irish bar but it's great pulling power for me was that it sold Guinness.
Having had a Guinness I thought I'd try a rather unique brew. The South China Brewing Company makes a pale ale called Delaney's which is sold only at the two Delaney's bars in Hong Kong. It's a rather pleasant tipple and I thoroughly recommend it to you if you're ever in the neighbourhood.
However, having had to get used to the rather light and ineffectual Korean beers I found that I had to give up after a couple of pints which were starting to feel very heavy in my stomach so it was back to the hotel for another early night.
I mentioned at the beginning of this report that my R&R break officially consists of just a few nights and that I'd extended for a few days more because of Chusok holiday. The company had basically bought me a package deal which included flights and 2 nights in one of a selection of hotels in Hong Kong.
The bizarre thing was that I couldn't extend my stay in the hotel for the rest of the week even though the hotel was obviously not full. So I awoke on Tuesday morning, had breakfast, packed my bag, checked out and walked 200 yards down the road to check in at another hotel where I'd made a reservation before I'd left Korea. Having thrown my bag into my new hotel room, I was off into the Hong Kong melee again.
Some people go to museums and spend just a few minutes browsing through the display cases. I'm at the other extreme. Thus I spent the whole of the morning reading every information card in every display case in the Hong Kong Museum.
It was all very educational but I did notice that there seemed to be a bias towards the Western view of Hong Kong rather than that of the majority Chinese population. I can imagine that the situation will change soon especially since the Chinese authorities are very adept revisionist historians.
Having read all about the various areas of Hong Kong in the museum, I thought it about time to go out and explore so it was across to Central on the Star Ferry.
It always intrigues me that big corporations, especially banks, spend absolute fortunes building extravagant flagship offices in concrete, stainless steel and glass and then nobody takes the time to actually look at them. Prince Charles has described such buildings as monstrous carbuncles. I don't know what a carbuncle is but it doesn't sound very pleasant. Perhaps for the first time in his life, The Wingnut may actually be in touch with the thoughts of the common man. It might explain why nobody takes an interest in them.
This is not to say that Charles and I don't share common ground. There are some really beautiful old buildings which are a delight to look at but I think he should remember that once, a long time ago, they were brand new too.
You may think it strange but back in the UK I really enjoyed spending Sunday mornings, when I wasn't shopping or eating cheese, just wandering round the deserted streets of the City of London or Canary Wharf taking photographs of all the buildings. And so it was that I spent a pleasant few hours strolling around the Central financial district. Unfortunately, it was a busy Tuesday afternoon so I didn't have the place myself.
Right in the middle of Central is the Legislative Council, or LegCo as the locals call it. In the run up to the handover of Hong Kong to China, I'd seen lots of news footage about how the democratic reforms may or may not be overturned by the new Chinese authorities much of it featuring some demonstration or other in front of the LegCo building. All this footage eventually showed a picture of the Union Jack flying over the LegCo so it was very strange to be there in the flesh and see a blooming red flag in its place.
Not all the changes are so obvious. There are still frequent demonstrations taking place in the square outside but they are now carefully watched over by plain clothes police who you can spot only by their surreptitious use of walkie-talkies.
A little way up the hill behind Central's skyscrapers is Government House which used to be the official residence of the Governor when Hong Kong still had one. It's now deserted apart from the couple of bored looking policemen who guard the entrance.
It was late afternoon by now so I made my way the short distance from Government House to the tram station that would take me up the steep slope to Victoria Peak.
The two most photographed views of Hong Kong, both in the day and at night, are the skyscapers of Central and Wan Chai from Victoria Peak and the same area but seen from Kowloon on the other side of the harbour. I was determined to have a go at getting a few pictures as Hong Kong day turned into Hong Kong night. All right, I admit it. It was going to be more than a few since I'd made sure that I had at least two rolls of fast film before I'd caught the tram.
I arrived at the top about an hour before sunset to find it remarkably deserted and having scouted around for the best vantage point, settled myself down for a long wait on a walkway balcony overlooking the city. I started taking a set of bracketed photos every few minutes as the light began to fade while the other tourists tried their best with their point-and-shoot compact cameras.
About twenty minutes after I arrived, a photographer turned up with a large equipment case and a huge tripod having decided on the same lookout point as myself. He set himself up and within minutes was going through as much film as myself. As it got darker my exposure times were getting so long that I had to give up trying to hand hold my camera and since I had no tripod with me, I rested it on the wall of the balcony. The photographer noticed my predicament and despite speaking only Chinese managed to indicate that I could use his tripod instead, an offer which I gratefully accepted.
By this time, it was almost completely dark and there were many more people on The Peak taking in the spectacular night time vista. The Chinese photographer and I shared knowing looks as all around us there were bright flashes as people tried to capture the image on their little cameras without realising that all they would get when they developed their film would be a series of non-descript greyish-brown photos featuring an odd white streak from street lights. We weren't sneering at them, we were just concerned that we'd get unsightly third party camera flashes appearing in our pictures.
Eventually it became so dark that it wasn't worth me taking any more pictures and having taken fifty-odd already I decided to call it a day. With a nod of thanks to my fellow photographer, I made my way towards the bus station.
I've already told you about the second most frightening bus ride to Stanley but I can confirm that the ride down from Victoria Peak is even more of a white knuckle ride because the road so much steeper and a hell of a lot narrower. I'm convinced that we spent more time on the wrong side of the road than the right. It's the first time I've been on a bus where I've actually heard fellow passengers screaming in terror.
We arrived relatively unscathed at the Central bus station and within minutes I was across the harbour in Kowloon via the Star Ferry.
After my first night curry, I'd decided that each of the following nights I'd sample a different style of Chinese cooking. I thought I'd start with something easy like you usually get in the UK so I stopped off at the Canton Court restaurant in the Guangdong Hotel which, fairly obviously, serves Cantonese style food.
My guide book had said that the place is frequented by people from mainland China and judging from the other customers, all Chinese, they did look rather dowdy and sombre in comparison to the Hong Kongers I'd seen so far. My book had also mentioned that the staff didn't speak much English but my months in Korea had got me well used to just pointing at the relevant menu entry and indicating quantities using my fingers so ordering was quite swift.
I ate a hearty and satisfying meal and provided entertainment for the rest of the patrons who spent most of their meals staring at me between mouthfuls. I not sure why they were so interested. In Korea, I get stared at because I'm a lesser spotted foreigner but I doubt this was the reason in Hong Kong since the street outside was teeming with them. I may have been committing some horrendous faux pas in the way I was eating but I prefer to think that they were just admiring the style and dexterity with which I was wielding my chopsticks.
With dinner over I wandered the couple of hundred yards to Delaney's for Guinness or two before heading back to my hotel.
I've just looked up 'carbuncle' on the word processor thesaurus and it says 'sore', 'boil', 'abscess', 'pustule', 'excrescence', 'gathering'. You learn something new every day.
I got up late the next day and since it was a public holiday in Hong Kong and many places were closed, I decided to just spend the day wandering around the city.
I thought there was something strange going on as I got on the Star Ferry to Central amongst several dozen Filipino girls. It got even stranger at the terminal on the other side where there were several hundred Filipino girls and as I walked over towards the LegCo building there were at least a thousand others milling around chatting to each other.
These Filipino girls generally work as servants for wealthy Hong Kongers and cleaners and maids in offices and hotels. They get very little time off so a public holiday was a great opportunity for them to gather and spend time together.
I left them to it and spent the next few hours slowly wandering through Central and Wan Chai to Causeway Bay taking in the sights. I came back to Central on top of one of Hong Kong's rickety old trams. Although it felt like the thing was about to jump off its tracks at any moment it did provide a nice sedate journey through downtown Hong Kong with views over the traffic and bustling crowds.
When I got back to Central towards the end of the afternoon there appeared to another couple of thousand Filipino girls milling around and generally having a good time. In fact, there were so many of them that the police had closed off some of the roads around the main square outside the LegCo. I know it's a cliche about the amount of noise generated by gossiping women but the Filipino girls made more of a racket than the average Guns & Roses concert.
I got back on the ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui and headed for the promenade so I could take some pictures of the Central skyline from the other side of the harbour.
The promenade was also crowded with several hundred Filipino girls enjoying their day off so I wandered a bit further down trying to find a less crowded spot only to come across the Chinese photographer from the previous night setting up his kit. In a place as big as Hong Kong with so many people it's pretty unlikely that you'd meet a complete stranger twice in two different places within two days so he seemed as surprised to see me as I was to see him. We nodded an acknowledgement and I went on to find my own spot further down the front.
Over the course of the next couple of hours I shot another couple of rolls of film and then went back to my hotel for a much needed shower.
For dinner that night I'd decided to try some Peking style food so I headed off to the Peking Garden in the basement of one of Central's office towers. It was still quite early in the evening when I arrived but the place was starting to get busy, mostly with Western tourists. The waiter gave me a menu but I'd already decided to have Peking cuisine's most famous dish, Peking Duck.
The only problem was that I was eating alone so I wanted half a duck but the waiter said that only whole ducks could be served. Just at that moment an lone American man walked in so the waiter suggested that I wait to see if he also wanted the duck in which case we could share it.
The waiter seated the American at a table behind me and he duly ordered the duck at which point the waiter indicated me and asked if he would be amenable to sharing the duck with me. The man agreed and the waiter went off to give the order to the kitchen.
The American, as I will continue to call him since I can't remember his name, and I started a little chit-chat as we waited for our food. After a while, I started to get a very sore neck with having to talk behind me so I suggested that since we were going to share the duck we might as well sit at the same table. He agreed and I moved to sit with him.
During our meal it transpired that the American worked for a furniture company and spent much of his time travelling, mostly around the US but also around various other bits of the world, mainly in South-East Asia. Although the company makes all sorts of furniture he said he spent most of time trying to talk hotels into buying the companies range of hotel furniture.
In the weeks leading up to my visit to Hong Kong, the financial markets of the region had virtually collapsed and he said that it would badly affect his business. He jokingly begged me if I could do him a favour to drum up some more business by filling in the suggestion slips at each of the hotels I stayed in asking them to buy new furniture for their rooms. I would have done too but there didn't seem to be much point since a lot of the hotels I stay in are Korean yogwans where the rooms don't have any furniture at all.
With dinner over, and an excellent duck it was too, I strolled back towards the ferry terminal through the now thinning crowd of Filipinos and caught a ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui where I stopped off for my regular pint of Guinness at Delaney's before going back to the hotel.
I'd decided to that today was going to be spent on a trip to the soon-to-be returned Portuguese colonial outpost of Macau so I set off early to catch one of the numerous ferries that run between there and Hong Kong.
I got a seat on one of the fast catamaran ferries that got me to Macau in just over an hour. Once there and through customs and immigration, I picked up a tourist map of Macau to decide what I would spend the day doing.
One thing that immediately confused me was the names of all the roads. In Hong Kong, the road names are a mixture of English and Chinese but in Macau they are all Portuguese. Not surprising you may think but the problem was that many of the road names are so long that I couldn't remember them, things like "Avenida do Governador Jaime Silver Marques" and "Rue de Luis Gonzaga Gomes Eof".
The first place I decided to visit was the old Guia Fort and it's accompanying lighthouse on the hill not far from the ferry terminal. The bottom of the hill used to be the shoreline but this has been extended by land reclamation to provide an area for modern high rise office blocks, expensive hotels and casinos.
Walking through this area, it became obvious just how different the pace of life between Macau and Hong Kong is. There wasn't a great deal of traffic so the air felt much cleaner and there were no crowds of jostling pedestrians. The pedestrians that I did see moved at a relaxed amble rather than the marathon sprint of the Hong Kongers.
I made the short trek up the hill to find the tiny, dilapidated fort surrounded by jogging trails complete with lycra clad health nuts. I've never really understood the appeal of jogging. Even at school when I was a member of the athletics and cross country running teams I couldn't be bothered training.
The view from the top wasn't all that spectacular. All the new buildings on the reclaimed land were much like each other and since the area was so new, the city planners had opted for a boring grid pattern of streets.
I carried on down the other side of the hill towards the old part of the city. Along the way I passed many of the old colonial buildings which were uninhabited and rotting away. It seemed such a shame to let them go to ruin especially since on the same road you'd often find an equally dismal high rise tenement that was at least 10 times younger. There were many of the old buildings that, given enough money and the desire to live in Macau, I would quite happily have made my home.
The old part of town was much more interesting. Most of the area consisted of tiny alleyways sided with 3 or 4 storey houses and apartment blocks. Even the main roads could only just allow two-way traffic. This probably explains why most of the cars in Macau are small ones, like Fiat Cinquecentos (is that spelled correctly?), Nissan Micras, Renault 5s and, joy of joys, Minis. I was so happy to see a Mini that I took a picture of it.
As you would expect of an enclave of a good catholic country like Portugal, every other block had a church so when I went off in search of St. Pauls I kept thinking I'd found it only to discover that the church in front of me was named something entirely different. There were several whose names I didn't discover but I'm fairly well convinced that I found St. Pauls even if I'm not sure which one it was.
I also managed to find the main St. Michaels Cemetery in Macau. Despite being hemmed in on all sides by apartments and office blocks and surrounded by busy roads, it did have a certain serenity about it.
A little further up the road from the cemetery on top of the hill was the Monte Fort. Although not the oldest, it is the largest in Macau. However, it didn't actually have any buildings inside it. In fact, there wasn't really an inside to it at all, it had more of a top than anything else. The outside walls are about 20 to 30 feet high with the ground inside level with the top of them. There were a few cannon scattered around the wall but the entire central area was taken up with a building site. The sign outside the site announced in Portuguese and Chinese, and I'll let you guess which one I translated from, that this was to be the location of the new National Museum of Macau.
I found this a bit odd since Macau has never been sovereign country under Portugal and will not be when it reverts to Chinese rule in 1998. Perhaps the people of Macau are planning a revolution which I suspect would probably stand a chance against the Portuguese but I doubt the Chinese leadership would find it very entertaining.
After Monte Fort I stopped off at Mung-Ha Fortress which has got to be one of the smallest castles in the world. If you imagine a modestly large garden of a detached house and then put a sturdy granite wall around it to a height of about 12 feet you get the general idea. The gate was locked and looked as though it had remained that way for some time.
The fort was atop a small hill which I would otherwise have described as a grassy knoll except that it was covered in buildings. The group of buildings just below the fort turned out to be the Macau College of Tourism. The immediate thought was how it was possible for such a small city to have such a big tourism school but upon reflection decided that it probably wasn't big enough for it's purpose.
Many years ago, the Portuguese used to be the sole merchants for the very insular China of the day and almost all Chinese goods used to go through Macau. Then along came the British in Hong Kong which usurped Macau as the gateway for Chinese trade with the rest of the world. In order to survive, Macau has had to look to other sources of income and recently has reinvented itself as tourist Mecca for Hong Kongers.
You might rightly think that a small place like Macau wouldn't have a great deal to offer the average Joe from Hong Kong in the way of things to see. I managed to see many of the sights in just one day. However, betting on the Hong Kong horse races is the only legal way for the gambling mad Hong Kongers to place a wager so Macau sells itself as a gambling haven with dozens of casinos and a race course to boot. I went to Macau during the week but at the weekend the population more than doubles with Hong Kongers dreaming of untold wealth although many of them just end up losing their shirts.
I've got to say that the Macau College of Tourism is one of the prettiest schools for bookies that I've ever seen.
I was intending to go and see the border with China while I was in Hong Kong but I found out that people are not allowed near it unless they intend to actually cross the boundary and have all the travel permits required. The border with China is also deep in the New Territories and takes a special effort to get to.
Here in Macau it was a lot easier. The border is at the northern end of the city and I enjoyed a pleasant stroll up to see it stopping off at a small Buddhist temple. The border post itself had all the charm of a motorway service station which is not surprising since that was exactly what it looked like. It was very busy with heavily laden lorries constantly trundling in both directions across the boundary but for the tourist it was a dull affair.
Although I'd already spent a few days in what was officially China, albeit the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, I did get a bit of a thrill by sticking my foot through one of the gates and placing it on the soil of the bona-fide Peoples Republic of China.
With that done I jumped on a bus bound for the ferry terminal. I wasn't even worried as the bus set off in completely the wrong direction. As far as I could tell, there was only one bus route in the main part of Macau which all the buses followed. It appears to be a circuit that randomly criss-crosses the city districts.
I'd been the only one to get on the bus at the terminal by the border post so I'd obviously got a seat. The next stop the bus made was to pick up a whole horde of old ladies so I gave up my seat to them. A couple of stops later, a load of school children got on and I was wedged in next to the exit door. The bus travelled another few hundred yards and came to a halt. Although I hadn't planned to get off there, I was prematurely ejaculated from the bus on a tidal wave of bodies as everyone else made a beeline for the door.
I'd actually ended up in the middle of the city in the main shopping and administrative area. The bus had stopped at the square right outside the Leal Senado which his the home to Macau's government offices. All around the square are recently renovated Portuguese colonial buildings each painted in a different colour of what I'd describe as the brighter side of pastel. I don't why the Portuguese paint their houses this colour. Maybe one day, a Portuguese painter had a job to do but not enough paint to do it with so he chucked half a bucket of red paint into half a bucket of white so he'd be able to paint the house. Whatever the reason, old Portuguese towns are certainly colourful with buildings painted in different hues of pink, green and yellow.
I stopped long enough to take a few pictures before getting on the next bus to the ferry terminal.
I decided to make the trip back to Hong Kong on one of the hydrofoil ferries simply because I'd never been on one before. The hydrofoils are a bit more expensive but their selling point is that they're faster and less bouncy than normal boats and hover craft. I can confirm that the journey was faster and more importantly for those of you who are more prone to bouts of motion sickness, a lot more stable although you always know how rough the sea is by the amount of noise that's generated from the waves splashing against the bottom of the hull.
I arrived back in Central in the early evening and feeling rather hungry, I set off immediately for a place called Aberdeen on the other side of Hong Kong island. The are two main attractions in Aberdeen for sightseers. One is the harbour which is one of the few remaining places that the boat dwelling Tanka people still live and work. The other crowd pullers are the three famous floating restaurants that sit in the harbour.
The bus I caught to Aberdeen dropped me off at the side of the harbour much to the delight of the old women lined up along the harbour wall next to their sampans. They immediately started badgering me and my fellow sightseers to come for a ride round the harbour in the sampans, all for a modest fee, of course.
All my companions were more interested in getting on one of the boats that ferry people to the floating restaurants but I succumbed to a little old lady who dragged me down a set of slimy stone steps to her sampan. She gave me a tour up and around the restaurants and back through the harbour between the rows of junks on which people lived and worked.
One woman I saw was washing clothes in the harbour from her junk but took time every few seconds to look up at her television. Given the choice between a labour saving washing machine and a TV I know which I'd choose but I doubt the woman's junk had any plumbing at all never mind that required to sustain a washing machine.
The people on the boats paid no attention to my intrusions into their everyday lives but I did wonder what they thought of hoards of voyeuristic foreigners milling around their neighbourhood. I thought how I would feel about strangers who came round to look at my house and then I remembered that there is, in fact, one of those London guided walks that goes down the road in Docklands that I used to live on. It can't be very popular because I've never seen groups of people wandering round after a leader carrying an umbrella, or whatever, raised aloft speaking in learned tones about which year bad pirate what's-its-face was drowned for his crimes at the site of the Grapes pub.
For those of you who think I made that last bit up I can confirm that the site of the Grapes pub in Narrow Street was the place for the demise of many a pirate. The punishment metered out was in the form of a cage which was lowered so that it was just above the river at it's low tide mark. The cage would be raised again after three tides had passed. I always thought that three tides was a little excessive since I can't imagine any of the pirates lasting long into the first one but I guess you have to leave a margin for error.
The really weird thing about all this is that only a few weeks after I got back from Hong Kong I was watching the Japanese movie channel during it's Chinese film season when Enter The Dragon starring Bruce Lee came on. I've seen this film before but for those of you who haven't it basically comes down to this megalomaniac criminal who invites a group of Kung Fu masters to a competition on his private island where most of them get killed off and Bruce Lee kills the boss before his dastardly plan comes to fruition, the details of which I can't recall.
Enough off this rubbish. The point is that the megalomaniac picks up all the contestants in Hong Kong and transports them to his island aboard his junk but I noticed that the crowded harbour they set off from was Aberdeen. The reason I recognised it was the three high rise apartment blocks on the other side of the harbour from the town although when I was there all thirty-odd floors of each of them we covered in bamboo scaffolding.
I only realised once the old woman had dropped me off back at town side of the harbour that I was some distance from the restaurants and food at the other side. Rather than go for another boat trip on one of the ferries to the restaurants I decided that I'd walk round.
At the end the town side of the harbour wall is a huge bridge over the harbour carrying a multi-lane highway and having negotiated the subway under the accompanying roundabout I set off along a path that appeared to go under the bridge towards the restaurants.
I realised I was on the wrong path by the way it petered out to a dirt track and then gave out completely as it reach the wide expanse of gravel directly under the bridge. There was a motley collection of junk and an abandoned car under there as well as a down and out old tramp who eyed me with suspicion as I walked past. Not much further on I reached the waters edge and rather than turning back to start again, I clambered over a grassy bank roughly in my intended direction.
On the other side of the bank was a collection of rotting old planks that seemed to have a well worn wooden path across them so I followed it round the corner to find the whole of one side of the harbour covered in similar rotting planks with the skeletons of the odd junk sitting next to the water. What I'd actually stumbled upon was on of the few remaining boatyards in Hong Kong.
It was well into the evening by now so it was quiet as I walked through the area. The exceptions were the few mangy guard dogs which were on thankfully short leads and one guy who seemed very surprised to see a tourist wandering through his workshop.
The boatyard suddenly petered out and before me stood a rather plush set of tennis courts next to the luxurious yacht marina with the floating restaurants at one end and another restaurant ferry quay at the other. I walked over to the ferry quay past the white clad bourgeoisie who seemed more uneasy at my appearance out of the gloom than the old tramp I'd met underneath the bridge and from there I caught a ferry to take me the few hundred yards across the water to the restaurants.
Those of you who've heard of the famous floating restaurant of Hong Kong might be confused by the fact that I keep referring to it in the plural. There are actually three gaudy, neon infested restaurants side-by-side in Aberdeen but by far the most famous and the largest of the three is the Jumbo and it was here that I went for dinner that night. I don't think it matters which of the three you go to since it had appeared to me on my earlier sampan trip that all of them are serviced by the same kitchen.
The Jumbo has been visited by many foreign dignitaries and celebrities, photographs of whose visits are proudly displayed in the entrance. But the Jumbo's chief claim to fame is the fact that it has appeared in more films than many of its star patrons including a James Bond film but I can't remember which one although I think it was Live And Let Die. I know it's sad but if any of you can find out or remember which one it was can you get back to me to let me know if I'm right just to put me out of my misery.
The restaurant itself is huge with acres of seating on it's three storeys. The lower floors were already buzzing but being a lone diner, I was sent upstairs to have almost an entire floor to myself but at least I had some attentive service from the waiters.
I ordered up roast goose in orange sauce, chicken with cashew nuts and some rice and then sat back watching new guests arrive as my food was prepared. By far the most diners were fellow tourists but there were quite a few Chinese families as well and I've no doubt that these were also tourists.
Just as my food arrived so did a group of five Chinese men who were seated at a table nearby. They spent quite a few minutes arguing heatedly about the items on the menu with a lot of questioning of their waiter before finally making their decision.
About half way through my meal, just as I was beginning to get pissed off about the Asian way of just cleaving on-the-bone meat into small bony portions that skewer your tongue, the meal arrived for the Chinese blokes next to me. It was opulently tacky to say the least. I don't know what the food was but it looked like large portions raw white fish meat covered in KY-Jelly and there was a lot of it. It was served in a 2 foot long bowl in the shape of a boat. When I say boat you might think of something mundane like a gravy boat but I actually mean a boat, right down to the ornamental oars sticking out of the sides. It wasn't on the menu I looked at so it must have specially ordered and was probably the most expensive thing in the restaurant.
The men tucked into the food, whatever it was, but after about a minute one of the men started to gesticulate at it and within seconds was loudly berating one of the waiters. The head waiter turned up for his tongue lashing and after about ten minutes of abuse, took the food away looking particularly unhappy about the whole situation.
By the time I'd finished my meal, the men had not received any more food but had spent the time insulting all the waiters who passed their table and although all this was done in Chinese, I could tell that particular venom was directed at the head waiter whenever he was nearby. After a while the head waiter was conspicuously absent, preferring to keep himself safely at the other end of the enormous room.
I settled my bill and caught the next ferry which dropped me off by the main quay at Aberdeen. After about 30 minutes of literally wandering around in circles I found the bus station and caught a bus which took me round the west side of the island to Central and onto my hotel via the Star Ferry and Delaney's.
I joined the early morning commuters on the ferry to Central the following day and a short tram ride later arrived in Shueng Wan. My guide book had said that the steep narrow alleyways of the area had once been jammed full of stalls and street vendors but it was still possible to get a feel for how Hong Kong had been at the turn of the century. While it's true that there are still some stalls and tiny workshops in the narrow streets, most of them have been replaced by sparkly new apartment blocks and wine bars.
I then made my way down Possession Street to Hollywood Road past a quite famous coffin makers. If I ever die, an indignity that I'm only just beginning to admit might come to pass, I want to be buried in a traditional Chinese coffin. It may seem odd if not downright morbid to enthuse about coffins but these things are beautiful. Each is made from four halves of a tree trunk, each half forming a side of the box with the rounded part outwards so that it has wonderfully smooth lines.
After spending an hour wandering the still quiet streets I caught a tram back towards Central to the imaginatively named Central Market.
It's from the Central Market that the worlds longest escalator begins its ascent into what is known as the Mid-Levels. Strangely enough, the Mid-Levels is the area half way up Victoria Peak from Central. It consists of expensive high-rise apartment buildings which are home to the well-to-do people who generally work in Central's banking and finance industry below.
The roads through the Mid-Levels are steep and very narrow and to ease the aching legs of it's elite classes who had to walk up and down the hill to work each day, the Government built the 800 metre long Hillside Escalator Link. The escalator actually only runs in one direction, down in the morning and up during the rest of the day because the Government balked at the cost of installing parallel walkways.
My guide book had described it as being similar to the Pompidou Centre in Paris with elevated, glass-covered walkways which it does to a certain extent. I'd expected a single long walkway but it actually consists of a series of small escalators linked by pedestrian walkways.
The book had also warned me that there was not much to see in the Mid-Levels but I decided to give the escalator a whirl anyway. It was a nice easy journey up but the walk down all the steps made my knees ache for the rest of the day.
Once back sea level I wondered what I should do next. I had a quick look at my guide book and the New Territories section jumped out at me, in particular the Ten Thousand Buddha Monastery. With that I hopped onto the MTR round to Kowloon Tong Station and from their caught a train up to Shatin.
I came out of Shatin Station through what I thought was the right exit only to find myself in the middle of a huge new shopping centre. I had a quick look round for some Buddhas but could only find an HMV, a Marks and Spencers and a Disney shop so I retraced my steps back to the station. I found a map of the local area in the station and then followed the hidden signs to the temple across a dingy bridge over the railway. Once across, the hidden signs became even more well hidden and I ended going up the hill on a narrow path through peoples back gardens. The path got so overgrown that I had to duck under the bushes but by the time I reach a tree that had fallen across the path I'd decided this was definitely the wrong way.
Arriving back at the station I noticed a group of camera laden tourists and decided to follow them instead. Perhaps they'd been there before and knew where they were going because just around the corner was the bottom of the hill with the temple on it. Unfortunately for me, the temple had been closed to the public because a landslide had destroyed the path so I had a wander around the shrines below the temple for a while before setting off back to Kowloon.
During my time in Hong Kong, I'd seen a few people walking round holding small caged birds. Apparently the Chinese consider them to be good luck so it's not surprising that I'd seen most of them around the Happy Valley race track. Apart from the fact that they keep them caged up, these people treat their birds with great care quite often taking them for walks. Since it was on my way, I stopped off at Mongkok to visit the famous bird market.
The market itself is a maze of narrow alleyways crammed full of stalls piled high with small cages containing different kinds of birds and a few parrots sat on their open perches. I already knew that parrots can be quite vicious so I gave their strong beaks a wide berth as best I could in the crowded gangways. I found the most interesting thing was the food for the birds that the market also sells. We are not talking about a few packets of dried bird seed here. The lavish treatment of the birds also extends to their food which consists of live grasshoppers sold in plastic bags a meal which had remarkable similarities to several that I'd eaten in Korea.
After a quick wash and brush up at the hotel, I headed out for a Shanghai dinner in Central which in comparison to the rest of my eating experiences that week was a fairly dull affair providing no surprises at all.
For a change, I decided to catch a bus back to Kowloon rather than the ferry. I managed to get the right bus route but going the wrong way and ended up at the bus station on the other side of Causeway Bay. After having my stupidity pointed out to me in halting English by a kindly bus conductor, I got the same bus back through Central and then down through the road tunnel underneath the harbour from Admiralty to Tsim Sha Tsui.
I was feeling pretty tired by this point so I called it a day and headed for the hotel and a nice relaxing bath to ease my aching knees.
Since it was the weekend, I had a long lie in on Saturday morning and then took the MTR subway from Kowloon under the harbour to Causeway Bay. My intention was to go and see another of those strangely famous colonial traditions, the firing of the Noon Day Gun.
Before that, however, I had time for a quick breakfast at the local MacDonalds, the first since my ill-fated trip to Pusan a couple of months earlier. The place actually looked over the yacht marina where the Noon Day Gun stood but between me and it stood a couple of hideous multi-lane highways complete with intersections and roundabouts which somebody had attempted to make a little bit more presentable by plonking small grassy knolls on and between.
After breakfast I went to the hotel next door where there was supposedly a pedestrian tunnel under the highways. I walked all the round it but couldn't see anything to give away it's entrance so I asked the doorman. She pointed me at the alley between her hotel and the one next door so I went round that as well. I ended up near one of the pedestrian bridges over the highways so I thought sod it and went that way.
I regretted it soon after. The bridge took me as far as the central reservation between the two highways. From there I guessed at one of the two bridges that led from there and it took me to a large traffic island. What I'd seen as grassy knolls actually turned out to be small bowls in which the different bridges met. I assume the idea was to make pedestrians feel as though they weren't really surrounded by ugly roads but the actual effect is to totally disorientate since if your standing in one of these bowls you can't see over the top to your destination and thus work out which bridge you take next. I had to climb to the top of a bridge to survey the area and work out a suitable route across the remaining bridges before setting off again. I felt like I'd been trapped inside one of those bizarre games that you see on the Crystal Maze. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Richard O'Brien had designed the whole thing himself.
I eventually made it to the small fenced off area containing the gun where a small group of sightseers had already started to gather. A few minutes later, a man in an immaculate white, gold-braided uniform complete with white cap came out and loaded a shell into the gun. He spent the next two minutes looking at his watch and finally reached up and pulled the trigger cord.
I'd actually spent quite some time finding myself a good spot and setting up my camera so that I could get a dramatic picture of the gun being fired with some of Hong Kong's skyscrapers in the background. You can imagine that without some sort of automatic shutter release linked to the gun trigger it was going to be difficult to get the picture but I thought I'd give it a go. However, the sound of the gun going off was so loud that I literally jumped in the air and by the time I actually pressed the shutter release the smoke cloud from the gun muzzle had almost completely dispersed and I was shaking so much that the entire shot was blurred anyway.
Actually, the whole thing was a bit of an anticlimax anyway so I left soon after. I found the entrance to the tunnel which was well sign posted at this side of the road. The tunnel turned out not to be designed specifically for people to cross the road to the Noon Day Gun at all. I had to squeeze past the large pipes for which the tunnel was built. I assume that they carried something like cooling water for the hotel's air conditioning system. The tunnel ended at a set of nondescript concrete stairs which came out in the hotel's underground car park from where I had to go up another set of stairs to a door to the outside which didn't indicate that this was the way into the tunnel so it's no wonder I hadn't found it.
Hong Kong has a reputation for being the shopping capital of the world based on having whatever you want cheaper than anywhere else so I decided to see what the stores of Hong Kong had on offer.
The answer turned out to be not very much or rather everything that every other major city at comparable prices but this didn't stop me enjoying the two mile walk from Causeway Bay, through Wan Chai and Admiralty to Central stopping off at all the different shops along the way.
One thing I did find in Wan Chai just as I was beginning to feel a little bit peckish was a branch of Harry Ramsden's and I just couldn't stop myself going in for a late lunch. Amazingly, the first thing I noticed when I walked in was a Boddingtons Bitter pump on the small bar near the door. It was obviously too good an opportunity to miss so I had a pint with my fish, chips and mushy peas together with a big slab of bread and butter. In fact, the place was so like any Harry Ramsden's in the UK that you would think that you were back there. The only things that would bring you back to reality are the humidity and the customer comment cards on each table which are written in English on one side and Chinese on the other.
I caught the ferry from Central back to the Kowloon and had a look round the immense new shopping mall next the ocean liner terminal but didn't see anything worth buying, not for me at least. As the shops started to shut for the night I made my way over to my now regular watering hole.
As usual, I sat at the bar within sight of the Guinness taps and also within easy ordering distance on what was a busy Saturday night. Soon after I arrived, another youngish guy dressed in a suit and sporting a shaved head similar to mine turned up and sat next to me at the bar with a wordless nod of the head in acknowledgement. Having ordered his drink he sat reading his newspaper while I read my newly purchased Telegraph. After a few minutes he seemed to get bored and began a conversation with the opening gambit, "Are you Australian?", spoken in a distinctive Ozzy twang.
My stock reply to this is, "No. I'm South African.", which always illicits confusion and questions over why I've got an English accent. And so it was tonight which led on to what I was doing in Hong Kong, what he was doing in Hong Kong, etc, etc. It turned out that the was waiting for his new girlfriend to meet him and little while later she duly turned up with apologies for being late. She was a very pleasant English girl who chatted away with us amiably until the two of them had to disappear off to an engagement party they'd been invited to, not their own presumably.
The vacant seat next to me was immediately taken by a Chinese girl who'd walked in as the other pair were walking out. She ordered one of those appalling Mexican lagers (hint - the name given to sun's halo) and as she took a first swig from the bottle she looked around the bar. Her eyes alighted on me and given my now ebullient state of mind I engaged her in conversation not knowing whether she spoke English or not.
It turned out that she was actually Malaysian-Chinese from the Penang area. She had arrived three weeks before to work in Hong Kong for a year with the diamond company she worked for in Malaysia. We chatted away about what she did, what I did, her family, my family, what England was like and particularly what Malaysia was like since at that stage I was still planning to be in that country in a couple of months time. We got through a few more rounds of drinks which we each bought individually since she absolutely refused to let me buy her one.
She said that she had been to Hong Kong before for a short period but was only just beginning to explore so we compared notes on where we'd been. I mentioned that the next day would be my last full day in Hong Kong and I was planning to go to Lantau Island to see the Po Lin Monastery which is the home of the world's largest, seated, outdoor bronze Buddha, a fairly specific claim to fame I thought. She said that she had already been there and had really enjoyed it particularly since she was a Buddhist herself. I asked her if she'd like to come with me and she said she would. She scribbled her name and phone number on a Guinness beer mat and we agreed that I'd phone in the morning to sort out where to meet. Her name was Lee Lena and she gained my immediate admiration as would any other women who gives out her phone number on a Guinness beer mat! The bar was closing up by this time so we left and went our separate ways.
In the morning I phoned Lena, who sounded as though I'd just woken her up to a mild hangover, and agreed to meet a little later at the Clock Tower by the Star Ferry terminal.
I picked up a Sunday Telegraph along the way arriving at the appointed time. I sat there reading for another twenty minutes thinking I'd been stood up and was just about to leave when she turned up with many apologies for being late.
Neither of us had breakfast so we decided the first order of the day was food. Of all the types of Chinese food that were available in Hong Kong the one that I most wanted to try was proper Dim Sum. However, my guide book had said that it's probably not worth doing alone since the idea is to pick a random selection of bowls and share them out amongst your fellow diners so that each person gets a little bit of many different dishes. Now that I had someone to eat with I suggested having Dim Sum for brunch a suggestion which was readily accepted so we repaired to a restaurant in the nearby Hong Kong Cultural Centre.
Unlike the UK where Dim Sum is usually eaten as the first course of dinner, for the Chinese it is a meal in itself usually breakfast and occasionally lunch. It's particularly popular on Sunday mornings as we found out when we got to the Cultural Centre. The restaurant had set up a waiting area complete with chairs where people could sit after taking a number. Although it was pretty crowded with about 30 people it took only about 20 minutes for our number to be called and for us to be seated in the dining room upstairs.
The restaurant was packed out and very noisy. Lena said that whole families go for Dim Sum on Sunday mornings to eat and then spend several hours just talking, reading the papers or playing cards. This certainly seemed to be the case with tables of up to ten people ranging in age from babes in arms up to little old grannies and small children running around the restaurant playing games of hide-and-seek.
It was probably a good thing that Lena was with me for my Dim Sum experience since there is usually no menu at a Dim Sum restaurant. The waitresses push trolleys around the tables and if you want something to eat you just stop them as they pass and ask for one or more bowls from the different selections that they have. I didn't recognise most of the things but Lena was on hand to explain and where she didn't recognise the food she was able to ask the waitress and translate for me.
I found it a little odd that although Lena had refused all offers of a drink the night before and had not offered any herself, it was she who insisted on paying for the meal but with that done we headed out for the Star Ferry across to Central.
Since Lena had been to Lantau Island before and I didn't have a clue where I was going, I just followed her to the outlying island ferry terminal next to the Star Ferry one. The timetable boards were written almost entirely in Chinese so I had to trust to Lena as we dashed down the quay to jump on a ferry that was just about to leave.
The journey took about an hour which we spent chatting and reading the paper but it wasn't until the boat pulled into the harbour that Lena realised that we'd actually washed up at Cheung Chau island instead of Lantau.
We got off the ferry and checked the times for the Cheung Chau to Lantau boat. It wasn't due to leave for couple of hours but we decided that we'd be able to make it to Lantau in time to get to the monastery before it closed.
For some reason that I couldn't figure out, Cheung Chau appeared to be quite a popular weekend destination for Hong Kongers. Apparently they all come for the seafood that is freshly landed from Cheung Chau's small fleet of fishing junks which could be seen in the harbour.
The island is pretty small and there is no motorised transport. Instead, you have to get around by bicycle which considering the crowded little alleys that made up the town, is slower than walking which itself is relatively slow. Despite this, there were quite a few day trippers who had hired bikes at the harbour so Lena and I and all the other pedestrians spent most of the time just trying not to get run over as we walked round town.
It didn't take long for us to walk round the town even with stopping off at a Buddhist temple and several clothes shops for Lena to try and find clothes for her friends baby daughter. So for want of anything better to do we wandered into a bar for a drink before catching the ferry to Lantau.
Lena said she had have the same lager as had been drinking the night before but as I was scanning the bar to see what I would choose I noticed a blackboard announcing that Erdinger was available. For those of you who don't know, Erdinger is a German Weissbier (white beer) that I occasionally drink at one of my favourite London watering holes, The Round Table. The reason they call it white, I think, is the fact that some yeast is left in the bottom of the bottle and when poured, clouds the beer a yellowy white colour.
I was so enthusiastic about my new find that Lena decided she would try one as well. However, I was slightly disappointed when it actually arrived since it seemed to be a different kind of Erdinger without the yeast. It was still pretty good for a lager though and Lena enjoyed it too admitting that she didn't actually like drinking the aforementioned Mexican gnat's urine but had never thought of trying anything else.
We spent a pleasant hour chatting with a group of four Brits at the table next to us who lived on the island and commuted to work Hong Kong and then it was back to the ferry pier to get the boat to Lantau. As we got on the boat, a very fine drizzle began to fall which turned in to a torrential downpour by the time we sailed out of the harbour.
The trip to Lantau was only about half an hour but by the time we arrived it was the early evening and there was only about an hour and a half until the monastery closed at seven.
The first thing we did when we got off the boat was buy an umbrella, a stylish blue and black check which you know would not be my first choice but was better than the alternative red and orange ones.
We dashed or rather waded across the car park which seemed to doubling up as a swimming pool for the afternoon to the bus stop were we huddled under the brolly as we checked the timetable for the next bus. We worked out that the next one wouldn't get us to the monastery in time so we decided to get a taxi.
The problem now was finding a taxi. When we'd arrived, there had been a row of taxies waiting to pick up the ferry passengers but they had all dispersed as soon as the last person had walked off and the taxi rank was now completely bereft of cabs. We went over to the main road by the car park just as a taxi was coming down the street. Much to Lena's dismay, I hurled myself in front of the car which stopped only a couple of feet short of me which considering the wet conditions, was rather lucky for me. We got in and Lena gave instructions to the driver to get us to the monastery.
The monastery is set in the hilly interior of Lantau Island and I'm sure the scenery on the way is quite marvellous but considering that visibility at the sea level was only about 300 yards, there was absolutely no way to see anything once the road went up into the cloud layer.
The journey took about 30 minutes and we arrived at a large almost completely deserted car park at the top of the hill. It was so misty that I couldn't even see where the monastery was as I got out of the taxi.
Since we'd let the taxi go we checked the times of the buses back to town. There was already a bus in the car park waiting for it's scheduled departure which we discovered would be in about 15 minutes but the next bus wasn't due to go for an hour after that. We decided that we'd just have a quick run around the monastery to see the Buddha and then be back within quarter of an hour so with that we dashed off towards a large wrought iron gate that could just about be discerned through the gloom.
Unfortunately, the gates were locked. A man walking past told Lena that the monastery had closed early, only a few minutes previously, because of the bad weather.
We stared forlornly through the gate to the bottom of a set of steps which disappeared into the cloud within a few yards. Lena told me that the Buddha was at the top of the steps which was only about a hundred yards away but try as I might I couldnąt see it through the impenetrable mist.
Just then we heard the engine of the bus start and made another dash through the hurling rain back to the bus stop. We neednąt have worried though. The driver was either warming the engine or himself since it was distinctly chilly up there now. He had no intention of going yet and although he was due to leave very soon, he wouldnąt let any of the five bedraggled people at the stop into the bus out of the cold rain.
Eventually he let us on and took us back down to the ferry terminal. We arrived there about 20 minutes before the ferry was due so all five of us trooped into the nearby MacDonalds to have a warming cup of coffee.
Lena spent most of the trip back to Central apologising for the fact that I hadnąt seen the Buddha but I reassured her it would probably still be there the next time I came to Hong Kong although I had no idea when that might be.
Back in Central, I stopped off in one of the numerous tourist shops around the ferry terminal to buy a postcard of the Buddha so now at least I know what it looks like even if I didnąt quite see it in the flesh.
It was mid-evening by now and it had been some time since our Dim Sum brunch so we were feeling quite hungry. Since I was leaving the following day and this was to be my last night of experimenting with the delights of Chinese food, I suggested we have Szechuan style because I'd never tried it before. Lena said that although she enjoyed Szechuan food she thought it would be a little too spicy for my tastes and anyway she didn't know any Szechuan restaurants in Central.
She suggested that we go to a Cantonese restaurant and if I wanted to, I could have a spicy Cantonese dish. And then she remembered that she didn't know any Cantonese restaurants in Central either. She said that we should just jump in a taxi and ask the driver to take us somewhere.
We got in a taxi at the rank next to the ferry terminal and it immediately set off into the night at a cracking pace. Lena asked the driver to suggest a restaurant in the area and then informed me that he didn't know one either.
I've already told you about the mad Hong Kong bus drivers but the taxi drivers are even worse. I spent the next 15 minutes being thrown around the back of a Hong Kong taxi as it careered around Central and Wan Chai, apparently in circles. Lena and the driver were jabbering away in Cantonese the whole time with the driver spending more time turned round to face us than watching the road ahead.
Eventually we were deposited outside a building with a restaurant just a short ride up in the glass elevator. It was a quiet place with mainly Chinese clientelle and one table of Swedish men.
If you're wondering how I knew they were Swedish without asking them it's because one of them was wearing a baseball cap with the Swedish flag emblazoned on the front of it. You might think this was jumping to conclusions but it's not often that you see people wearing the Swedish flag as a fashion item. The American flag probably, the Union Flag maybe but not the Swedish flag. And anyway, I heard them speak and although I don't speak any Swedish, there are enough Swedes, Norwegians and Finns in Okpo for me to recognise a Scandinavian language when I hear one.
Actually, one thing I've noticed, particularly here in Korea, is that many people have there national flags on display when they're in a foreign country. This is particularly the case for continental Europeans, Americans and Canadians who have little stickers on the boots of their cars or patches on their bags or sewn on their clothes. It's noticable that the British don't go in for this conspicuous display of patriotism but I don't suppose that will come as a surprise to any one.
Lena and I looked at the menu as she tried to explain each of the foods but in the end I got so confused that I gave up and trusted her to order for us. She ordered up some spicy food to make up for not going to a Szechuan restaurant but it affected her much more than it did me and she soon had a very sniffily nose.
The food was excellent and if I could tell you what I ate you might one day be able to order it yourselves. However, I can't even begin to describe what it contained or what it looked like and the Chinese name is completely beyond me.
After dinner, Lena suggested we go for a drink in Lan Kwai Fong. Although, I'd been to Lan Kwai Fong for my curry, I hadn't been in any of the bars so I thought I'd give it a try.
Having paid the bill, which was my turn, we jumped on one of the rickety old Hong Kong trams outside the restaurant which took us through the rain sodden streets of downtown Hong Kong.
Lena took me to her favourite bar which I'd seen on my previous foray into the area. It was a trendy little thing with an small oval bar that jutted almost into the street. Even though it was Sunday, there were quite a few suits in the place who had obviously been at the International Banking Conference that was being held that week. For those of you who haven't experienced City of London pubs and bars, a merchant banker stands out a mile by the way he talks, dresses and gesticulates and once you've seen and heard it you won't be surprised that many people refer to them as merchant wankers.
Lena and I looked at the drinks menu although I don't know why she bothered since she immediately chose her usual Mexican lager. I scanned down the list of imported beers and near the bottom I found Boddingtons. Another success I thought and immediately ordered one only to find that they no longer stocked it.
Just as I was about to give up and have something mundane like a Becks, I noticed a Hoegaarden pump at the end of the bar. For those who don't know, Hoegaarden is a beer made from wheat which comes out as a pale yellow colour. I'd first tried it on a work trip to Brussels where I'd taken to drinking it from a one litre chevalier. By the way a chevalier is a glass shaped like a yard of ale but about half the length and containing about half the amount and because it has a rounded bottom it comes with a wooden stand to hold it upright.
For the second time that day, I enthused so much about a beer that Lena decided that she'd try one as well which she thoroughly enjoyed.
We spent most of the time chatting to the very camp bartender who, despite first impressions that he was gay, was obviously knocking off the woman who owned the bar much to the disgruntlement of the waitresses in the place who got all the really bad jobs like washing up while he swanned around playing with the music system and whiling away the hours talking to the customers.
We were both pretty tired as it got towards midnight and decided to call it a day. We caught the MTR back to Tsim Sha Tsui and I walked Lena home to the guest house she was staying.
It had been a nice day in which we'd gone from being complete strangers to friends in just a matter of hours and it was odd to bid farewell to each other knowing that we'd never meet again.
A couple of weeks after returning to Korea I saw a film on the satellite movie channel whose name I can't remember but know that at least two of you have seen it so you can probably remind me.
An American student meets a French student on a train while he is inter-railing and she is travelling back home to Paris from, I think, Italy. He convinces her to get off the train with him at Vienna, from where he is due to fly back to the States, and continue her journey the next day.
The entire film is about the 24 hours they spend wandering around Vienna and how they go from being strangers to friends in that time before having to go their separate ways.
It's good to now that such a pleasant fiction can become a pleasant reality even if it doesn't happen very often.
My flight back to Korea wasn't due to leave until midday so I allowed myself a generous lie in before I checked out and caught a taxi to the airport.
I checked in remarkably early considering I only had hand baggage and asked specifically for a seat on the second row from the back of the aircraft.
I then had a wander through the duty free looking to pick up a few cans of Guinness to take back to Korea. Unfortunately, there only seemed to be large selections of expensive wine and whiskey.
As the last call was being made for my flight, I nipped into the newsagent stand to pick up a Financial Times to take back with me. I also had a quick look through the book shelves to see if there was anything to read on the flight back and found the new novel by Michael Crichton, Airplane, which is all about air crashes. Perfect air travel reading for an aeronautical engineer like myself, I thought.
I got on the plane to find that it was an Airbus and I wasnąt going to get the extra leg room that I got on the 747. The plane was almost empty with most of the passengers in the middle of the aircraft and me sat all alone at the back. This did mean that the three stewardesses at the rear were able to pay particular attention to me since they had no other passengers to look after. I spent the next few hours chatting to them while they literally forced gin and tonics at me, never letting my glass become empty.
I had seen from the Cathay Pacific advertisements on CNN that the airlineąs catchphrase was that it was the airline of Asia and reading the inflight magazine on the way to Hong Kong I had found out that, although it was based in Hong Kong, it recruited itąs staff from all over the region. This certainly brings an interesting ethnic mix as it turned out that the three girls looking after me came from as far apart as Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and Singapore.
Throughout this instalment, I have been referring to people from Hong Kong as Hong Kongers and while this is the official term for them, I found out from the Hong Kong stewardess that Hong Kongers usually refer to themselves as Hongese. I initially misheard her and thought she said honkies as in the slang term for white people and it took me a while to work out what sheąd actually said.
We landed at Kimpo airport and as we were collecting our things to get off the plane the three girls told me that they had an overnight rest in Seoul and asked if I would like to go out with them that evening. It must be every mans dream to be invited out by three beautiful Asian stewardesses and I must say that I was certainly very tempted to stay in Seoul that night and get back to Okpo the following day. The problem was that I was due to go out on an important sea trial the next day for which my presence had been specifically requested so I had to decline their generous offer and bid them farewell.
The rest of the trip to Okpo was fairly uneventful with my catching a plane down to Chinju, a bus to Tongyong, another bus the Gohyon and finally a taxi to Okpo.
Well, OK thatąs not quite true. I stupidly assumed that the bus from Chinju would pull in at Tongyong bus station and although I had never been to Tongyong bus station before I thought it would be an easy matter to recognise it.
However, I could see no sign of the station as we drove through the town and as most of the other passengers got off at subsequent stops, the driver started to eye me more and more regularly. Eventually, he stopped the bus and in halting English, asked me where I was going. I told him that I wanted to go to the bus station and he indicated that weąd already passed it a couple of miles down the road.
He grabbed my hand and dragged me off the bus into the middle of the road where he flagged down a taxi. He said something to the taxi driver which must have been along the lines of łTake this incompetent foreign buffoon to the bus station˛ and then handed over several thousand won to pay for the trip which was more than Iąd originally paid for the whole bus journey.
Koreans treat visitors to their country as though they are visitors to their own homes and I really appreciate their acts of kindness towards dazed foreigners such as myself. It must make it one of the most pleasant places in the world to live and despite the lack of Guinness, cheese and Daily Telegraph, it was nice to come home to Okpo.
HGS
RSIII