Week 2 - Momentum

After a brief stopover in Sydney where we attended the charming wedding of two of our uni friends (even the rain looked good as it ghosted the Harbour Bridge in a greyscale photo tone) we picked up our friend C (my pseudo ex-wife*) and hopped on a plane to Hong Kong.

We got an overnight flight so we would maximise our time in HK and be able to sleep on the plane. But C and I ended up watching movies all night long and poor B didn't fare much better. When we walked out of the airport the humidity smacked us like a wall of hot air coming out of some invisible giant hair dryer. We grabbed a cab and arrived at our hotel which is supposedly 3 star only but when we arrived we found concierges and marble floored bathrooms which was a welcome relief after a long flight. We cranked on the air con and grabbed a quick nap before donning our tourist backpacks and cameras and setting off to explore the "Pearl of the East"

Our first meal was Yum Cha in a really tall building overlooking the city. It was a taste of more to come... quantity, variety and not a hint of Westerness. With chopsticks in hand we devoured our way thru countless dishes and worked our way thru a few pots of tea.

The first night we trekked up to Soho to check out the night life. A rather upmarket trendy place full of bars and restaurants, we saw more guilos** there than Asians and ended up settling on Thai for our first dinner. C invited her friend along who turned out to be a rather attractive Hongkee doctor who proceeded to tell us all about HK and what was good to see etc. We then went with our local guide to a dessert place to have some sweets and the owner there saw the profuse sweat on my face (due to the humidity) and concluded we needed something 'cold' and began to potter around and babble on about how she was such a great restuarant owner cos she invited some new dessert (it was very cute).

We arrived back late at night to our room and pulled out Bohnanza. The Bean Game holds a special place in my heart after playing it 2 months non-stop in Taiwan on my elective so it was only fitting that whilst in Asia we played. So each night would conclude with a sometimes nice sometimes vicious game of bean trading and planting. Occasionally this was accompanied by a very cheap beer from 7-11 (costing $2 AUS for a Heineken longneck) to cap the evening.

The next day we arose a bit later than planned to catch a ferry across to Lantau Island to see the Giant Buddha. The day before we went, the famous cable cars that take you to the top had been closed down because one of the cable cars had derailed and plummeted into the ground. So we took a bus instead.

After climbing to the top we were drenched in sweat and joined the throngs of tourists running inside the Buddhist museum to find refuge in the air-conditioning. We ate a vegetarian lunch and saw 2 flakes of Buddha's ashes (not that impressive) then headed back to the Peak to have dinner and see the night skyline of HK. We caught the world's steepest tram ride (almost 45 degrees) and reached the top where we went to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum (and had my photo taken with John Howard and others). We had way too much fun acting like 4 yr olds and posing with stars. Although it was raining we managed to have a period of clear skies where we took our standard touristy shots of the city blanketed in neon and light.

Wednesday we took a ferry across to Kowloon and as it was "Free Museum Day" we went to the Space Museum and Museum of HK history. After being thoroughly educated in the Chinese space program and the evils of the Opium Wars and British imperialism, we bolted to the harbour to see the laser light show where the office towers were transformed into a quasi-video game. Afterwards as we were wlaking along the foreshore we came across a free pop concert to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the British handover of HK so we grabbed a seat and clapped along to random people singing in Cantonese and Mandarin until it began to bucket down rain and we had to bolt off to cover.

We then decided to go to the Ladies Market (and no that's not a place where you pick up a mail-order bride***) in Mongkok to shop around. Reminiscent of the night markets in Taiwan, we were assualted with cries of "Copy watches... copy T-shirts" as the hawkers attempted to pry our Western dollars from us.

Thursday to break the rhythm we deided to do a day trip to Macau. On our way thru immigration we got asked to be in some tourism survey and scored a free HK tourism pin (yay!) however as we got there we realised our friend T (one of B's friends from church who was in HK too) had left his passport at home. So B and I forged ahead on the ferry and met him when he arrived. Macau would best be described as the Las Vegas of Asia. Casinos on every corner and light up like a Christmas treee. It was Portugese ruled until recently and so we went to visit an old fort (with canons still intact) and the ruins of a church and monastery. The church overlooked a long flights of European steps that had Western lamposts on either side and if you looked briefly at the scene you would think you were in Europe with the cobblestone roads. However either side of this European architecture were Chinese houses and shops creating a fusion of Eastern and Western culture. After seeing the sights we decided to eat in a casino and decided that in order to avoid exorbant prices we shoudl eat on the lowest floor possible. And so we rocked up in shorts and joggers with our backpaks on to a place called '8'. We asked if we coudl see a menu but somehow found ourselves being ushered into a door and then walking through a dark corridor with fountinas to find ourselves in a black marbled restaurant. The entire place was black except for the chandelier that hung from the roof and touched the pool of water near our table. Even the table and the waitresses Asian dresses were pitch black giving the place a very cool feel. As we were the first to arrive we were given a nice table and we had one waitress for each of us guys and they would put our napkins in our lap and take away your dirty chopsticks and plates whilst you weren't looking or whilst eating out of your bowl. The service was amazing and the waitresses even more amazing (we still refer to "Yumiko, Sandy and Pink" as our best memories of HK even though they were in Macau). After eating 5 Asian courses and polishing off a bottle of red we still only ended up paying $30 Australian each so it turned out to be a lot cheaper than we thought. We caught the ferry back to HK and cruised over to meet C and some more of her doctor friends and had a few drinks at a very chilled bar. it was great just to sit down, drink and chat to fellow medics about the similarities and differences and just chew the cud with them for a bit. It was good to just reflect and realise that it's good to be young and just go out and have fun. After that evening C concluded we need to go out more in Sydney to which B and I heartily agreed.

Friday involved a trip to Stanley to do some heavy duty shopping. Managed to score 2 pairs of jeans for $25 each and a pair of Nikes and another pair of shoes for $25 each too. We then headed back to the city to do some electronic shopping and after much deliberation I decided to get that HD digital video camera and managed to save myself $800 and bargain enough to get a free tripod, carry bag and 6 free cassettes. In the evening C was catching up with other people so B and T and I went and tried some local KFC (with waffle shaped fries, rice and mushroom sauce?)

Saturday was spent doing some last minute shopping and B bought 14 shirts for work and I managed to finally find a HMV and made a beeline for the section entitled "Mandarin Pop". 30 minutes later I was walking out the door with more Jolin Tsai, Stefanie Sun, Anglea Zhang, Cyndi Wang and Leehom Wang to annoy my poor flatmates with. We check our bags in at the train terminal and then raced over to the airport on the MTR (why can't Sydney get this?) and flew back home (again watching too many films and not sleeping enough).

It was such a densely packed week and yet was so much fun. It made me realise why I love Asia. The food, the people, the buzz, the noise.

I found myself overwhelmed and disorientated and I loved it. Silence is not desired and restaurant are full of the bustling and chatting of people from all walks of life. The cities that never sleep and the characters that inhabit them. I came back completely exhausted but loved every second of it.

One week of tranquility, one week of over-stimulation.

I came back a happy egg; and of course no trip to Asia would be complete without at least one bout of gastro. And so I finish this looong post cos I need to dash off to the loo again (still sick) and step back into the mundane ebb and flow of life, refreshed and alive again.

* For those of you who haven't read my earlier blog posts here's how it works. In my 4th year of med school I was shafted out to the country for 6 weeks with one of the girls in my year named C. She and I used to argue about stuff all the time and another friend said that we fought like an old married couple. So we joked that our trip to the country was our 'honeymoon'. Anyways to cut a long story short we ended up being referred to as the 'husband and wife' team in our hospital. The whole time though she had a boyfriend and so I decided that she had been 'cheating' on me by having a boyfriend on the side when she got married. And so I divorced her. And hence I now have a pseudo-ex-wife named C.

** Derogatory term for white people.

*** Although a certain Jap-Korean guy I know will argue for the validity of Christian mail order brides