Hong Kong

Back!

Managed to fulfil the wish of going Hong Kong for a 6 days (4th to 9th July) trip which was fortunately not disrupted by the call from the man in green.

It was a first to venture over to Hong Kong. I always wanted to see the street scenes as seen on the numerous Hong Kong TVB dramas on tv and in the movies. To see the high rise buildings, to see the streets packed with people, to see "leng noi" (pretty girl in Cantonese), basically to experience living in some place totally different, some where out of the typical, i-know-whats-gonna-happen-next, with ugly people of Sillypore.



Cries of worries of rainy weather prior to the trip were immediately lifted at the sight of clear blue skies as we soar thousand of feet above South China Sea on our flight to HK. It was a first attempt at flying on a budget airline as most of the flights I have flown on were SQ, all thanks to the almighty guys in green. Sitting at the rear of the miniature Airbus, allowed me to see how violently the wings on the plane shook at the moment of take off. That is one scene I can relate to how life can be so vulnerable at times.

Vulnerabilities of humanity coincided with my vacation for a second time. In December last year, tsunami struck one day prior to my intended trip to KL and Penang. This time the subway bombing in London occurred amidst the trip to HK. I just hope these were just mere coincidences to my vacations, or else I will not go on anymore overseas trip in order to have World Peace!

It was a well spent six days, touring Kowloon to Hong Kong Island. Taking the expensive and long trip to Macau. We even ventured to Shenzhen, the “Johor Bahru” for residents of Hongkong. The food in Shenzhen was extremely cheap, not forgetting the high piracy level which allowed us to “import” many dvds back home.



买东西，吃东西，买东西，吃东西…



Yup, shopping is really zu zu in HK. The latest trends and good customer services could be found in most shops all over the country. The weekday night crowd in Mong Kok was a least a few times the size of weekend Orchard Road. It was an easy task to find leng zai and leng noi within the crowds.



Most of my expenses went to food and travel. The cost of food was almost twice that of our local meals. The portions were however much more and we were definitely willing to splurge more on it.

We took all the possible public transport available in HK. I personally find that the MTR was the best choice to get around anywhere. It was even possible to cross the sea from Kowloon to HK island. The frequency of the MTR was fast, the directions were clear, the lights of the map in the train cabin itself made commuters know which stations to change lines, what stations were on this line. After a few trips, we were all pro in getting around HK via MTR.





Bold and adventurous attempts of taking the public bus, the electric tram, the 16 seat bus, the taxi and the ferry should not be forgotten. These were quick and great opportunities to see the sights of HK. Cruising on the less populated streets made me feel closer to the life of the HK people. Especially on occasions where we got lost from taking the wrong bus to the wrong place.



Although it took me about a day of sleeping to get back the life of Singapore, images of HK momentarily still lingers at times.

On the local MRT at home, I felt the unusual emptiness and quietness in the cabin. The HK MTR cabins were really packed most of the time, and the level of chattiness of communters was really high. HK people are really talkative, at least that is what I felt. Sometimes their level of talking sounds really like someone nagging non-stop at you, especially when my understanding of Cantonese is only at the kinder-garden level.



I naturally stood on the right aisle of the escalator after I alighted the MRT today. It was such a distinctive phenomena to witness in HK, where most of the commuters taking the MTR were disciplined enough to stand at the right hand side of the escalator while the left hand aisle were left to commuters who were on the rush to walk up or down the escalator. This was especially true at the Central Station (similar to the local City Hall or Raffles Place Station). This made us Sillyporeans in HK look like a twerp on the escalator hogging the left lane. This made me recall the posters on our local MRT where commuters are encouraged to use the left aisle and leave the right aisle for those on the rush on the escalator many years back. After this many years, that poster seems to be extinct and still Sillyporeans fail to have this thoughtful habit. I just feel the urge to laugh at the silly ways of Sillyporeans. Silly you silly me.



I am missing leng nois already.

My vacation buddies and I came up with the 3 big traits of HK leng nois:

1. Big feet.
2. Thick eyebrows.
3. Xiu bo bo (小波波, small boobs in Cantonese?)



Trait number 3 was the most common among HK girls. Even the local guys that we met told us that fact, comparing HK girls and Singapore girls. This was one way for us to distinguish between the local girls in Hong Kong with the other tourists and the China girls in Shenzhen without talking with them. To a certain extent it was accurate wor.

After the six days trip, I returned with:

567 photos on my digital camera, not counting those from 2 other cams of my traveling buddies.

Smelly and dirty clothes from walking up and down HK.

1 x huge hole in the pocket.

One happy smile on the face.

And many wonderful memories in the head.