26.10.05, Hong Kong: a fucking huge Chinatown

I wake up in the plane, go to the window that's near the toilet and look down at Russia. Contrary to all expectations the sight of the old fatherland does not evoke particularly strong emotions: seeing it from 10 kilometers in the air is sort of like seeing a spider under some glass.

Later comes the Central Asia, which looks like some lunar landscape, and China with some high mountains. Finally the plane starts descending towards the Hong Kong airport, which is nicely named Chek Lap Kok. For some reason the pilot does not mention the name.

After a lot of walking I get outside where the airport buses are. This city surely has the best connections to and from the airport ever, but why does the whole place feel like a giant sauna?

The bus goes straight to the hotel. All the stops are announced in Cantonese, English and Mandarin, and numbered to make keeping track easier.

I have heard many times the words "so many neon lights that it's as light at night as during the daytime" applied to many places. On Nathan road in Monk Kok it's actually true. The street is incredibly crowded, too. It's 7 pm.

The hotel (Tatami Hampton) makes me fill out some paper, takes 100 $HK (about 10 euros) as a deposit for the key and the air conditioner remote control, and warns me that they are rather spartan.

The room is most surely the smallest hotel room in the world. There is no remote control for the TV because you can reach it from everywhere by hand. There is a water heater, which is nice, and even a cup. The TV has a "no photographing" sign on it, which of course prompts me to take a picture of it.

I go out and south down Nathan road. It's very light there and very crowded all the way. Lots of stores selling a lot of dried something - I am not sure I want to know what. Also lots of Indian-looking people who follow you (any white person, I assume) in the streets and try to sell you watches and purses. They are quite annoying.

At Tsim Sha Tsui the stores become fancier but the watch peddlers are still there. There is also a mosque and a lot of men with beards there. Looks like some holiday.

There is a Häagen-Dazs cafe that sell green tea ice cream. Yummy.

Finally I reach the Star Ferry pier, and see that they are having fireworks. Nice of them. The ferry looks ancient, has different prices for upper and lower decks (about 22 and 17 euro cents respectively), has air conditioning in some parts of it and weird benches that can be flipped to face either way. The view is great.

Central is as full of light as Kowloon but has a lot fewer people. There is a lot of police on the waterfront, almost half of them women. They don't look like they are expecting a lot of action.

I walk to Lan Kwai Fong, which is supposed to be some restaurant place. It's beautiful but a bit disappointing because most restaurants there are western and I want Cantonese. Finally I find some restaurant of the Tsui Wah chain. Against all my expectations they have a whole floor for non-smokers. They also have beef tongue with fried noodles that has a lot more tongue in it than one would expect. Delicious meal, five euros, and i manage to eat with chopsticks for the first time in my life.

Walk back to the Star Ferry and Mong Kok. A strong rain comes and scares away all the watch peddlers.