Rome Around the World

Had a wonderful last day in Hong Kong. One of the interesting aspects of this trip is that my wife is on a business trip around China (hence the inspiration for my trip) and her itinerary continually interweaves with mine. What that meant was that she and her PhD advisor met up with me for lunch at the City Hall Maxim for some great Dim Sum. It’s like an Ala Carte that is actually on a cart, each woman hawking her various dishes to you.

We then wandered SoHo through the food and curio markets before I had to run to do some last minute errands and figure out how to get up to Shenzhen.

The errands essentially involved dealing with the fact that it is 4 days into my trip and I still haven’t received my luggage. Not sure when it will actually catch up to me now, so I picked up another bag and some socks. While you can laugh at the silliness that accompanies travel, it’s also not always fun to deal with packing logistics on the actual trip.

Shenzen

I discovered that flying out of Shenzen, the city just inside the actual Chinese border – whereas Hong Kong is a SAR (not SARS) – is much cheaper for flying within China. How to get to Shenzen is a point of much confusion. There are a lot of signs and offers for the bus or services to get to the local Hong Kong airport – and Lonely Planet keeps mentioning it, but their information is slightly conflicting. Luckily the locals are very helpful and pointed me – albeit after much running about – to the MTR, or subway system, that would take me to the border.

The border itself is like any international border, which is interesting considering that Hong Kong is becoming part of China proper.

Arriving within China itself was a night and day change – literally. It was daytime on one side, then night when I exited but there is also an large cultural shift. There is little to no English on signs, and the ‘design’ of everything has a different aesthetic, from billboards to shop layouts.

There is a harried tale of actually getting from Shenzen, to the airport, to Guilin that I’ll leave for another post or day – I’m still figuring it all out in my head. As a teaser, it involves ATMS distributing funny money, sketchy taxis and chinese roads.

Preamble: Arrived in Hong Kong yesterday after approximately 36 hours traveling. Unfortunately, my luggage is still traveling and I have yet to receive it. Fortunately, nothing really important is in the luggage except for clean clothes and essential items like shampoo and razor – all things that can be simply acquired.

There is a lot I’ve heard about China that amazes tourists the first time they arrive: huge numbers of people, constant smog, etc. But that’s not what strikes me about Hong Kong. The overwhelming impression I’ve had here has been the smell.

Hong Kong is a city awash in smells. Food, spices, fish, dirt, and diesel are all present in some mixture. And in a pleasing way. The city isn’t a sterile concrete jungle, but a living city.

And Hong Kong is a city that is very alive. I don’t mean by the number of people or construction, I mean by the way the actual people function within the city and the city functions around them. There is a much tighter cohesion between the infrastructure and the population. Stores spill out from their building into the sidewalk and street.

Food vendors such as bakeries, noodles, herbal medicines all have open stalls. Restaurants never have closed doors and often may be cooking and serving directly to pedestrians as they come by.

This is in contrast to at least US life where almost everything is kept sterile and behind a glass case. One comparison of a US city may be New Orleans, where it has a more open feel to it. There are “western” stores coming in: malls, retail chains, Starbucks – that are bringing the “customer experience” and sterility to the city.

Hong Kong is a dichotomy of old and new. From cellphone wielding monks, to using bamboo for scaffolding in renovating buildings, it has the feel of a city that has grown more organically. Every hole in the wall is a restaurant or vendor. A building may be crumbling and peeling, but have a new facade or be adjacent to a beautiful office building.

Overall, the architecture almost seems like a SimCity game. There are several iconic buildings that are unique and stretch into the sky. But then they are surrounded by ‘cookie-cutter’ generic buildings for residential or commercial, almost seemingly copied & pasted.

Just some thoughts on the first day. Unfortunately, I started falling asleep on the Victorian Bay waterfront watching the “building light show” – so called it an early night.