You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Hong Kong' category.
Eating out and Chinese food is all the rage for me these days. I intend to get so sick of Chinese food by the time I leave that I will not crave food from home in London.
Awwww…just by saying that, I miss home already.
This great restaurant serves beer in frozen bowls. Those 3 characters say “battle bowl”. Beer wars?
In Hong Kong, you can rent an open-top tram for $2000 – $3000 for a private moving party all over town.
So, after dinner, we decided to create our own by paying $2 each for a public tram ride and bringing up beer and snacks from 7-11 to set up camp at the back of the upper-deck.
For the most part, we owned the tram!
View from the back windows.
A tram station.
The trams have been serving Hong Kong since 1904. Cheapest form of transport these days. And a good way to see the city from one end to the other.
Either my friends find me an absolute bore, or they’re drunk.
Maybe it’s just a bad photo.
I’ll definitely miss nights like these.
Continuing my new-found nostalgia for all things Hong Kong…
This sign seems to make Club 71 out to be some humping night-club in some gritty backstreet, but it’s not.
Yes, it’s in a backstreet. And yes, the street is gritty. But that’s it. It’s actually a small, bright, clean pub/bar covered in political slogans for democracy; brochures and leaflets for various movements ranging from environmental to aid for political prisoners; and a messy mural of sorts on the back wall with guitars, banjos and drums hanging about.
This place doesn’t serve food, but patrons are welcome to bring in or order take-out from nearby restaurants.
It’s known as a gathering place for the LGBT, artists, political ativists, environmentalists, and whatever other forms of “alternative” thoughts out there.
Tables are low, music is soft, lighting is bright. It’s a place for conversations, discussions, debates and plots.
The “71″ in the name refers to the annual protest rally held every July 1st that first started in 2003 against the legislation of an anti-subversion law. It was the biggest protest in Hong Kong since the handover in 1997. Only the 1989 pro-democracy march over the Tiannamen Square incident drew larger crowds.
On busy nights, people spill out onto the back street on foldable rickety tables and chairs and hang-out with the many street cats.
I go there from time to time, put my feet up, play a boardgame, and pretend to be “alternative”.
Part of last Saturday was spent cavorting about Stanley with my crazy-arse friend Emily.
As time comes closer for me to leave, the more I’m getting all nostalgic about this place called Hong Kong.
Forgive me, but this is the longest I’ve ever stayed in one place.
8 years.
As time passes, the more facination I find in places that I’ve always taken for granted.
In an attempt to preserve memories to bring with me, I’ve been snapping a lot of pictures lately. Like this one of crazy-arse Emily.
*
I’ve even been snapping pictures of the same bus and same high-way on which I’ve been travelling through for the past 8 years of school, first job, second job, and third job (I don’t know why they’re all located in the same area!). But I doubt you’d be interested in photos of a highway. But wait, who knows? You just might be!
We originally planned a weekend away, going up north to Shenzhen for some cheap R&R of massages, free buffets, pirated goods and coffin-sized hostel bunks. But since we are girls and were long overdue for some girlie cry-fest drama, alas, the trip didn’t materialize, and Cora and I were left consoling each other with a trip to a “remote” beach we’ve never been to before.
We usually go to Stanley to satisfy our beach cravings, since it’s got a cool market, even cooler (read: expensive) bars and restaurants, plus, we know our way around.
But to satisfy our (or rather, probably just my) taste for adventure, we decided to venture out to Shek O.
Before we went, I did a Google search to see what it looks like. Wiki showed me this:
Ah…looks good right?
So we traveled to Central. Realized the Central to Shek O bus has been scrapped. So we did the MTR.
We emerged at a bus stop, queuing with countless school girls, moms and screaming kids, teenage boys trying to be cool and chattering Filipino workers under the not-so-cool sun. Some dumb woman managed to cut in front of me. (Who’s dumber now?!)
We hopped on the bus, found separate seats coz the bus was so full, and proceeded to endure what felt like a teeth-clattering mobile market on the verge of collapse from the sound.
Cora had to endure inane teenage boy sex-talk-swearing behind her, while I had to put up with high-pitched teenage girlie gossip about farting boys.
The bus weaved in and out of steep narrow bends up and down South HK Island….and for a moment, up on a hill, we got a glimpse at what awaited us at the end of the torturous ride….and it made my mouth go dry.
When the bus finally stopped, flustered and half-deaf, we fell out of the bus to be greeted with something not unlike a train station in India. Masses of people mulling about, waiting for transport, screaming at kids, and old men and women badgering you to buy second-hand bamboo mats and rent umbrellas.
We thought we’d arrived at a different country altogether.
We pushed through the people and stumbled onto the beach, and this is the scene that greeted us.
We dropped our jaws.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a packed beach in my entire life.
You look left….
And you look right….
It’s like the umbrellas just keep on going.
These two photos don’t show it very well, coz it looks like there is still ample amount of sand just in front of me. But really, you wouldn’t set your towel down there. There’s somehow a collectively acknowledged but unspoken rule that that stretch of sand is to be left devoid of ray-sucking humans and is to remain as a thruway.
Unable to find space, Cora and I eventually trodded to the front of the umbrella-mass, and decided to set up camp at just the high tide mark, where the soft dry sand starts disappearing, where the sand is still matted and damp, basically where few others want to be.
It sort of felt like walking to the very front of an open-air concert in a park and decide to sit at the very very front, in front of everyone else’s who’s been comfortably set, blocking their views.
The beach was a cacophony of noise and people. It seemed like, ever since hopping onto the MTR and riding the bus, there’s been this non-stop buzzing noise in the background.
It was actually quite a stressful beach experience. You can’t really swim in the waters without bumping into someone.
The only time we felt relaxed was when we laid down on our backs and people-watched….
….played around with the camera (and no, I didn’t take this picture)…..read bits of a book….
….and basically tried to adjust our field of vision to any space that does not contain people.
The showers and toilets facilities were horrid, and the bus ride home just as noisy. We both concluded that it was probably our worse beach experience ever and we’ve come away traumatized.
Ironically, it could also be our last beach-escape together for a long time to come, if her plan to go to the US comes through, and my runaway trip to London succeeds.
But strangely enough, despite of everything we say about the beach that day, we are actually missing it. Missing the few moments we forgot that there were people around. Missing the few moments when we were engrossed in the bright blue sky, forgetting work, our jobs, responsibilities, and whatever plans we have for the future.
It’s true. Sometimes, all you really need is a good friend, a bit of sun, and some clear blue skies.
Recent Comments