As I mentioned the other day, I was recently in Hong Kong. It was my first visit (not counting various transits through the airport) so I thought I’d share some first impressions.
The first thing you notice is that it’s growing. You notice this first as you land at the airport as it is on reclaimed land. Over the years I have heard many stories about the old airport, where on final approach you could make eye contact with the old ladies hanging their washing outside their high rise apartments. I’d like to have experienced that. Maybe just once. It’s certainly not just the airport that’s on new land- along many bits of the shoreline you can see how building work is expanding the space available. For example, the Royal Yacht Club was once on an island but now forms part of a large peninsula. I wonder when they will stop.
That said, there’s still a lot of water. In fact the Bay completely dominates the city. And just like other cities dominated by water, it is fairly laid back. People work long hours, but the vibe of the place is a lot closer to Sydney than New York. Maybe it’s also the weather – maybe you need some real cold to generate real uptightness.
One area that was particularly laid back was Lamma Island. We took a ferry from downtown and 20 minutes later we were on the island – which was a world away – full of organic veg and people on bicycles. I bet the Birkenstock index is through the roof there too. Actually I love the fact that it’s a major international city with seven or so million people packed in, mostly vertically, but take a ferry for 20 minutes, or take a short drive out of town and it gets jungle-y really quickly, complete with monkeys and a completely different atmosphere.
I’ve heard it is slowly diminishing but you really can still and feel the English influence. It’s mostly in little things – buildings have a ground floor, there are many places to have afternoon tea and people queue (that’s probably the weirdest part – people wait for others to get off a train before piling on and the queue for Starbucks was an actual, organised LINE!). Most people speak English – even the taxi drivers – hallelujah! People drive on the left in right hand drive cars and the plugs are the three point UK ones. However one thing that stands out in its distinct un-Englishness is the public transport system which seems to be extremely efficient.
One thing I didn’t experience is the local favourite pastime which appears to be shopping. Everyone seems to go mad for it. There are many, many, many shops – an interesting mixture of European, Asian, Austrialian and US brands. Even Marks and Spencers! I didn’t check if they carried anything larger than a SMALL not least of all because I was at least twice the size of anyone I saw shopping and it’s never good to feel like a heffalump. It’s so much easier to shop in the US where heffalumps are far more common 😉
All that shopping stimulates the appetite though, which explains the second favourite pastime of locals – which is eating. There are soooo many places to eat and the ones I tries were really rather good. We managed to sample a real cross section from a mad Chinese diner where we had breakfast to a really rather chi-chi international restaurant where we had one of the most beautifully presented meals I’ve ever had.
So now I understand why everybody goes to Hong Kong to shop, but actually it’s a great city to just hang out it. It’s not as packed with “must see” locations as for example, London, but it’s still a great place. I’m sure I’ll be back.