I'm staying in Kowloon, in a clean and well-equipped but miniscule room (literally about 10ft x 10ft for bed and toilet/shower combined) on the 10th floor of Chungking Mansions, a complex of buildings which is, as the saying goes, 'vibrant'. You can buy or sell anything here, and whatever your business is, you'll be doing it with people from literally all over the world. London is a pallid monoculture compared to Chungking Mansions. I suppose I could have shelled out a few extra quid and got myself a proper hotel, but that would have just been...dull.
I got here on Sunday evening. On Monday I had a good long wander and took the tram up the mountain (see photo below), and then today - Tuesday - I took the slow ferry to Lantau island, which looks like it'll be a nice place just as soon as it stops raining. My visit to the gents toilet was enlivened by an encounter with a centipede, or millipede, or whatever, of about the same dimensions as a full-size Toblerone bar. The toilet attendant seemed unperturbed and just pushed it into a gutter with his broom. After a walk along a drizzly beach I took refuge from the rain by getting myself a beer, only to find a St Mirren banner in pride of place above the bar. It's less than two weeks since I left Paisley. Small world.
More importantly, I'd pencilled in tonight for my first proper gastronomic experience of this trip. The question was, where? When you're exploring unfamiliar parts of the world, it's good to talk to the locals, to get a feel for how they live, to get beneath the skin of a place's external reputation, and to unearth the hidden treasures which most tourists unknowingly pass by.
At least, that's one approach. But an easier one is to go on TripAdvisor and see what's rated #1 by reviews in the Restaurants section. For Hong Kong it's a place called Din Tai Fung, only a couple of blocks from my room. So that's where I went. Lovely grub. Again, see photo.
After dinner I went to the famous Temple Street Night Bazaar. It's good, but not a patch on the night markets in Bangkok. Nonetheless I still bought a couple of T-shirts.
I don't think I could live here. Hong Kong suffers in comparison to Tokyo, which has gone straight into the list of places that I really want to go back to. This place is more like London, or Las Vegas, or New York: it's somewhere to turn up, see the sights, and then leave. But I'm glad I came.
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| Central by night, from Kowloon |
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| Central by day, from the top of the Peak Tram |
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| You smoke, you pay fine. You no want pay, you call number. We send you mainland for trial. You not come back. |
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| Edd vs Food |
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| There's no place like home |
