In Hong Kong

Kim and I got into Hong Kong last night. We flew in from Nagoya, arrived at the airport and took a shuttle and a bus to our hostel in Kowloon. I did my research so we were looking forward to a double room with bath for 3 days. The luxury here is that the room was private, the bathroom was private and the best part - we would be in the same location for 3 days which makes everything easier.

Coming into Kowloon was a bit of a shock. The driver seemed to be going in circles as he zigzagged down the one way streets. It was a free shuttle (or at least free in the sense that it came with the passes we bought) so he wouldn't be doing this to increase our fare.

But we were more shocked by how multi cultural Hong Kong and especially Kowloon is. Remeber we are coming from Japan where we were often the only non-Japanese in sight (not an exaggeration). The first thing we did was walk by a group of about 20 Africans (speaking in their language), then we walked through a gauntlet of East Indians selling watches, then an English beggar who was spewing insults at pretty much everyone (our 'insult' was "oh, ok you are white", so I guess you can go)". Persians, Chinese, Americans, Canadians are here too. Last night we ate near some people from Spain who were incredibly rude. Of course I could be wrong about exactly where these people were coming from, my point is that there are lots of different people. But I guess that's not my only point. I suspect that there is alot of illegal immigration as well.

Our hostel is in the Miramar Mansion on Nathan St. (the hostel is called New Garden Hostel.). But it's not a mansion in the richy rich sense of the word. Maybe it is a mansion in the 'it's big' sense of the word. It was a 'souk' style building, 16 stories high, with maybe 100 rooms on each floor, with a big central open area. You need to picture a building that used to be white, but is now obscured with mold, dripping water, and wires - some with laundry some without. I'm sure I've seen this sort of thing in some modern action movies. Or possibly the idea of the 'projects' might have the same vibe. To add to the image you, you need to add that each floor had only one elevator to service it - so there were often lines, monitored on the main floor by security guards.

Anywhoo, we decided this morning to bail on our booking. I had already paid, but really we weren't going to be comfortable here or enjoy staying. From a security sense the place is a fire trap plus there are enough sketchy characters loitering around the place that it wouldn't be too hard to imagine someone (not in our secured area, but in the general area) being knifed. Not only that, but the beds were really really hard.

We are now happy at the Central Park Hotel. In the matter of hours, tripadvisor.com and a visa card we have gone from a grotty, hope I live through the night place to a nice executive room on the 22nd floor with tinted glass showers, designer bowl sink overlooking the park with a view of the harbour.

Tonight we going to ride a gondola up to the 'peak' which is the highest point in hong kong to have a look at the city. Tomorrow we are going to watch Batman at the
super modern AMC pacific place theatre