HONG KONG
THE BEGINNING
It all started upon entering that first AirChina flight from Zurich to Beijing. From Beijing then, I flew on to Hong Kong.
In the first plane there was this guy that looked like the main actor in Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift, with sweatpants, sleeping over 3 empty seats and two Chinese babies next to him, clearly, random kids, until a Chinese woman comes to interact with him and they all start speaking Chinese to each other. Yes, he was a Western with a Chinese family.
That was my first impression of Asia.
arriving in the city
As soon as the plane landed, I went to the center and met Mario a Chinese friend of mine who I’ve met by chance a week before, in an event in Lisbon. The world is small!
a culinary experience
He was supposed to have lunch with me but because the traffic in Hong Kong was chaotic and I was some time stuck in the security check at the airport we postponed it to dinner time. So there I was alone in the middle of this massive city with no one known around me and with a cold.
Got some fried scallops and pork on a stick, a bottle of water, from a street food stand, passed by a minimarket to buy a padlock for the locker of the dormitory and got back to the hostel. Put all my values inside the locker and went to rest a couple of hours until he would pick me up.
For my surprise when he arrived and saw me with a cold he told me “well I have the perfect place where we can go”.
Since this was a self-discovery journey one of my main goals was to try everything that was difficult or impossible to get in my culture. With this said, he took me to “She Wang Shen” in Whu Chai. She Wang Shen literally means Snake King Shen… Yes, SNAKE!
We got ourselves 4 different dishes and a special drink for my cold. The dishes went by this description:
Snake thick soup – which tasted like chicken,
Fried snake with rice dried scallops and vegetables – my favorite, very tasty, probably because it looked similar to some Chinese restaurant dishes I had already tried in Europe.
Snakeskin with rice and dry tofu – tasted like chestnuts!
Snake soup and turtle soup – well they had it in the menu and Mario ordered it so I ate it..poor turtle. Anyway, it was good, a bit too salty.
The special drink for my cold was exactly a green semi-thick liquid which had 5 different types of SNAKE BILE and Chinese rice wine. That was something. It kind of could be compared with Schnapps or Aguardente with some thick and bitter touch. I was healed after that ahah.
exploring
hong kong
We then went to Lan Kwai Fong (LKF) for a beer, the main night out spot of Hong Kong and wandered around the one million luxurious shops, from Prada to whatever you can imagine, in every corner of this part of the city.
Got into my hostel and the next day the culinary shock continued with a roasted goose for lunch.
After that we went to the most touristic viewpoint of Hong Kong, The Peak, by bus, the cheapest way to get up there and you can enjoy the half junglish way.
Totally worth it, what a view! A city full of futuristic skyscrapers. A must see for an Architect!
For the afternoon we went to Mongkok, or as I call it the shoe neighborhood since there are hundreds of shoe shops with brands like Nike, Adidas, etc, repeated through all the shops. Couldn’t understand the logic of it but very interesting, probably fake copies of the original models, who knows?
At the evening I met my friend Madalena (I’ll keep saying the names of my friends otherwise it will just look that I’m talking about the same friend all the time), that was the reason I started the trip in Hong Kong. She lives in Macau and met me for the weekend in Hong Kong.
The next day we visited the Big Buddha and the Chinese monastery on its compounds, unbelievable. First time seeing the Buddhism culture face to face.
The first thing that surprised me was that the Buddha had a big rotated swastica cross on its chest! Yes, the Nazi symbol it’s a twisted variation of the swastika symbol that already existed many centuries ago. Among all it’s possible origins, in Buddhism, it means auspiciousness and good fortune!
The monastery with all its dragons statues and Chinese emperor looking buddhas and the main hall with incense and very calm environment made me wonder what else I would see on this trip if only in 3 days I had seen and experienced so many beautiful new things.
At the evening we went to dinner in the cheapest, 3 Michelin stars dim sum restaurant and went to the harbor to see an incredible sound-light show on the business district of Hong Kong with all its buildings lighted up, including the bank designed by I.M. Pei the architect of the Louvre museum (pyramid).
The light show was beautiful but not everything about it was, it was completely crowded with Chinese people just trying to get the best video of the show, but well what can you expect. Even though you are in a place who wasn’t administrated by China for a long time, now it is…
the last day in
hong kong
The next day we did a small tour in the historic part of Hong Kong. An old town full of temples and huge repetitive apartment buildings, connected by a massive escalator from the harbor until a great height of the city. Literally, you can escalate at least 10 escalators in a row non-stop… commodities!
At the beginning of this “climb”, in the harbor, was a massive amount of Filipinas dancing video clip choreographies or just chilling on cardboards doing picnics with the entire family. They were literally on every corner of the sidewalk, shopping malls or wherever a free spot was available on the floor. As I heard, since they work 6 days per week and Sundays are their off day, that’s how they enjoy their free time.
You have to understand that spending the time in a café in Hong Kong it’s too expensive and that Filipinos have that latin blood that can’t keep them still and not partying for long! Things I got to know at the end of this trip to the Philippines.
After that, we headed to the port and boarded a ferry that took us to my next destination!
Hope you enjoyed the beginning of my trip and see you in Macau!
Sorry for the waiting time but it was quite hard restart writing, the intense South America life didn’t give me a break until now.
Between night’outs after amazing Asados, not sleeping in order to get the shuttle between Buenos Aires and Uruguay, a 20 hours bus from Buenos Aires to Puerto Madryn and getting sick with a cold, fever and anginas, finally got some time, on the way to El Calafate glacier, in a 17 hours bus, where I am now, to write a little more.
Also got in mind the requests of not making this blog post’s frequency like a Game of Thrones in between seasons interval.
Hope you enjoyed the post and until then,
The Portuguese Traveler
