Hong Kong Blog Day 2

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Day 2 – Exploring on My Own

 Woke up after only 4 hours sleep, but at least it was the first fully horizontal sleep in over 48 hours.  I was groggy as hell and wondered if I was going to be jet-lagged.  To be on the safe side, I decided on a day of sightseeing that would be easy on the feet.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day—clear, sunny and cool, with low humidity and highs in the upper sixties.  (It was only later that I realized how rare this type of day was in Hong Kong, especially the good visibility and low pollution.)After a breakfast of jook with shredded beef at a jook stall in the food court of the adjacent shopping mall, I was fortified and ready for action.  First stop—the Star Ferry.

This was the first time I would be navigating the  MTR.  I have traveled by subway in Paris, Madrid, New York and Washington, DC, so there wasn’t anything terribly alien about the concept of the MTR.  It was just the particulars that sometimes were a bit hard to grasp.  I noticed right off this strange phenomenon about the MTR—for lack of a better term, I would like to christen it the disappearing destination.  You alight from the train and see signs posted on the wall with the various exits from the station and the streets, buildings, shopping malls, parks, etc. that are in closest proximity to each stop.  Some MTR stations can have as many as 8 exits!  So, you check the board and determine that you want, say, Exit C.  All well and good, as you follow the arrows to Exit C.  Upon arriving at Exit C, however, something rather surreal occurs.  The street or building that you were aiming for, that was clearly labeled on the signs inside of the station is suddenly no where to be found and Exit C suddenly is C1, C2 and C3.  Where to go?  Basically, it is a crap shoot and you have a less than 50% chance of ending up where you want to go.In Hong Kong, this can lead to serious trouble as there are few places to cross busy streets.  On more than one occasion, I would come out of an exit and realize that I really needed to be across the road, so back into the tunnel and under the street to try again!   Especially in Central, the maps are no help letting you know how to get across the streets.  Sometimes you do so underground, at other times, there are overpasses and bridges between buildings.  It is probably possible to travel to most parts of Kowloon and North Hong Kong Island without ever setting foot on street level.  I’m surprised someone hasn’t made about movie about a roving band that lives in the MTR tunnels, overpasses and underpasses.  Any scriptwriters out there in search of an original idea for a film?

Well, eventually I got oriented, crossed under Salisbury Rd. and got to the Star Ferry.  I then had my first experience with the S. Asian hawkers and their insistent and intrusive comments.  After hearing “You very pretty lady, want handbag or watch?” one time too many, I was unpleasantly reminded of my time in France when I was the target of the North Africans.  The Chinese men on the street, whatever they might have thought about me (if they had any thought at all), they kept it to themselves.  At times I felt like a translucent ghost passing thought their midst, a creature of no substance passing within centimeters of them on the street and MTR, within a hair’s breadth, but never touching, and so we were able to maintain our insularity intact.  We were there in the same space and yet it felt like we were miles apart.  You minded your business, and I minded mine, despite the fact that we were so close that our electrico-magnetic fields were overlapping and interacting at a vibrational and electro-chemical level.

Learning to navigate in the dense crowds that populate the MTR, both stations and trains, and the sidewalks was something of a challenge.  I am not petit and I was lugging around a sizable tote bag that never seemed to take up much space in the US, but seemed gargantuan in Hong Kong.  I realized almost immediately that I was going to have to perfect my “slippery eel” move to navigate these crowds and not bump into people, which seemed the height of rudeness and the fastest way to brand myself as an ignorant tourist.  Hong Kong works, at least in part, because people can co-exist in such close proximity, yet never make physical contact.

The ride on the Star Ferry from Kowloon to Central was quite lovely.  I sat in the front on the upper deck and snapped a few pictures as the ferry made its way quite quickly across the bay.  I was very impressed by how the mountains come right down to the sea and the tall buildings of Hong Kong Island cling to the narrowest strip of land, backing up tight against the mountains.  This makes for a dramatic and impressive cityscape.

From the Star Ferry, I went to catch the tram that runs across the entire length of North Hong Kong Island.  The “Ding-Ding”, so-called one assumes for the sound of the tram bell, is a cute fleet of double-decker trams that runs along tracks.  Sitting on the upper deck, if you are in the front, gives you a lovely view of the streets of Central, Wan Chai, Causeway Bay, Happy Valley, etc.  I had great luck after only a stop or two, the seat in the front window became available, so I sat down and enjoyed the ride.  I even remembered to take out my camera and snap a few pictures along the way.

On the way back to the Central MTR Station, I stopped at Ying Kee Tea House, which, at least at the branch I visited, is a tea shop and not really a Tea House.  I bought a nice yixing teapot and some thimble-sized cups for performing a gongfu-style traditional Chinese tea ceremony.  I also bought 4 kinds of tea—Ti Kwan Yin, fancy oolong (an “everyday” tea), select (but not premium) pu-erh and a mid-grade Dragonwell (Luhng-jing).  All of this set me back some money, but one of the things I wanted to buy in Hong Kong was some tea, since I am a connoisseur of tea and tea ware.  www.yingkeetea.com/index.php?cat=main&lang=eng

I ended up at Pacific Place Mall for lunch.  It was late and I was on my own, so I just stopped at the Metropolitan Café for a quick sandwich.  I was amazed at what a good deal the sandwich was—about $10 US for lunch.  I would never have been able to buy a comparable sandwich, even in a less well-appointed café, in the US.

I traveled back to Tsim Sha Tsui to do a little shopping at the HMV for CD’s and DVD’s.  There was a very nice display of Leslie Cheung merchandise as you walked in the front door.  I found a double-CD of the 96/97 Concert that I didn’t own and found some classic HK movies (not featuring Leslie Cheung) from the 80s and 90s that looked enjoyable.  Not surprisingly, I had all of the Leslie Cheung films for sale and some, like Happy Together, I had in a superior edition.  Nothing can beat that Kino remastered edition with Buenos Aires Zero Degree as an extra.  But I did pick up some Chow Yun Fat and Stephen Chow discs.  Next, it was back to the hotel to meet AnD’s own Sean Tierny.

I came down to the lobby at the appointed time and wondered if I had wandered into a science fiction movie.  There was someone I assumed must be Sean, he was tall enough and had light-colored hair, so I knew he wasn’t Asian, but his face was covered from the eyes down by a surgical mask.  His first words to me were:  “Don’t worry, I’m not contagious,.  At least, I don’t think I am.”  I felt like I was meeting someone wearing a burqa.  It took a few minutes, but the voice emanating from behind the mask had all the hallmarks of Sean’s blogs on AnD, so I was sure I had the right person.

Sean took me to an elevated walkway in Mongkok that was featured in a scene from Viva Erotica, a film featuring Leslie Cheung.  I wish I could tell you exactly where it was, but this was only my second foray into Mongkok on foot, so I couldn’t tell you for sure.  Sean, if you read this, send me a message with the exact location and I will share it with other Leslie fans.  Apparently, it is not one of the official stations of the cross, so to speak, that fans follow when retracing Leslie’s life and work in Hong Kong.

Sean then directed me to a little restaurant in Mongkok that specializes in Shangahi-style cuisine.  I still had no appetite and every time I tried to eat, I felt slightly sick to my stomach (probably a form of jet lag), so I was perfectly happy eating a tofu dish that was mildly spicy, just giving my mouth a nice buzz.  By this time, the surgical mask came off and I was able to see that Sean’s pictures on AnD don’t do him justice.  He is quite good-looking, as well as easy and fun to be with.  Those of us who are regular readers of his blogs know this man could use some (unpaid and totally voluntary) female companionship.  Nowhere in evidence were the misanthropic fits and starts that pepper his funnier blogs (provided for effect?).  Don’t kill me for this, Sean, but I think you sell yourself short in your blogs.  Yeah, you have a more colorful past than your average Joe, but some ladies are bored to tears by said average Joe. 

Now it was time to go down to the Hong Kong Cultural Center to pick up a ticket for the next night’s performance of an experimental theater piece “Flee By Night”.  Trying to buy tickets from Urbtix overseas was too complicated to detail here and was really beyond what I was able to work out my last days in the States.  So, Cathy, the marketing and PR person with Zuni was holding a ticket for me that I had to pick up and pay for at 7:30 pm that night.  Cathy was also working helping me meet with some of the folks at People Mountain People Sea (the music collective headlined by Anthony Wong Yiu Ming—Ming Gor to his fans), but everyone was busy or out of the country, so it was no dice there.  The Cultural Center is a beautiful building inside (despite its lack of windows looking out onto the bay) and had numerous theater spaces and concert halls inside.  It is, among other things, the permanent home of the Hong Kong Philharmonic.www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/CulturalService/HKCC/en/about/pano_small.html

Then it was time to say good-bye to Sean, who had a date for the screening of his film.  After my first full day in Hong Kong I could honestly say that Hong Kong and its people definitely seem to agree with me.

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