Get Down, Get Out

Hi everyone.
This piece contains events that took place at the very start of mine and Ger’s journey around the world, and although I didn’t write it in the last week of August 2004, it can be viewed as the first installment. Kind of like George Lucas re-writing cinematic history only without the inclusion of jive-talkin, floppy-eared giraffe men. Enjoy…
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Hi Everyone.
I hope none of you are offended at getting a group e-mail, but time is
money and this is the shape of things to come and so on. Let me take
this opportunity to apologize to each and every one of you at the same
time.
Sorry.
The trip has been going well. Our first port of call was Heathrow – the world’s busiest airport. It is also enormous. How nice it was being reacquainted with this enormity on the ten mile walk through its scenic glass tubes and walkways. I suppose it helps if you think of the distance in football pitches. I don’t find that helpful. Owing to my thorough crapness at all sports, I have been to more airports than football pitches. I’ll be in the mile-high club long before I own a club jersey. Sadly the rushed meal in the little restaurant under the Tap and Spile pub would be my last taste of Europe. There was time for a look in the Duty Free shop. Ger and I both resisted the temptation to stock up on mags, Toblerones, Chanel, Vodka and all the other things one simply must have on a long haul flight (That’s a lie. No one can resist a Toblerone). I still think it borders on the ridiculous what they sell in airports. I mean, when have you needed an X-box or a Gucci suit on a two week sun holiday in Playa del Santa Booz? Needless to say, Ger and I found our gate after a mere hour’s journey through the citadel of dutiful spending. Strapped in. Forms filled in. Books and inflatable pillows at the ready and off we set into the friendly skies. Next stop – Hong Kong.
Upon arriving we passed through the usual rubber stamp entry formalities with a relative ease that would become a distant memory. A quick update on the political situation. As punishment for defending their territory from drug trafficking Europeans, China agreed to hand over Hong Kong to the British government for 100 years. It may have sounded harsh at the time but really it was quite beneficial. The combination of the Chinese work ethic with a bit of old fashioned colonial culture mixing turned the city into the international trade and travel hub. The Peoples Republic of China happily took possession in 1997 of a veritable money factory (I know these are actually called mints but I’m trying to be flamboyant so just go with it). Kind of like inheriting a Ferrari made out of diamonds with a gold robot chauffeur. Many in Hong Kong feared that their vast assets and prosperity would be rapidly siphoned off as soon as the deeds changed hands. Thankfully the new owners have had the sense to heed the gold robot chauffeur and haven’t wrapped Hong Kong around any telephone poles or sold the engine to slick talking con men. Yet. The region forms one of China’s Special Economic Zones. The SEZ is one of the clever ways China’s government gets capitalism on its own terms – patiently and without the rapid changes and corruption that hit poor Russia like a hurricane. No one could say that life or the economy is exactly the same as before in Hong Kong but development and trade have continued. The airport I arrived in is an excellent example of this.
In recent decades, the guys running things (Hong Kong has a Managing Director, not a mayor. How’s that for corporate?) could see that their main airport was too damn small and rather badly located. I think it was in between two blocks of flats, tucked away at the back of a noisy café. Pilots were having a hard time landing and the vast numbers of passengers were getting tired of spending two weeks queuing to get out the front door. They could agree on the food at the café – it was top notch. But where does one put a major international airport? Large open spaces were not all that abundant. So – and this really typifies their can-do / we-have-loads-of-cash attitude – Hong Kong made space. And I don’t mean making space, the way one does on a couch when Predator starts. They made their own island. This was no half-assed Thunderbirds job, like sticking a few hinges on a mountain. They demolished a mountain on one island, scooped it into the sea and joined it up with the neighboring island. Thus creating (no giggling) Chek Lap Kok Airport. It is situated 24 miles from downtown but fear not. Planners included a high speed train and new motorway, inadvertently building the world’s longest bridge in the process. The train ticket cost us $100 each. My heart began beating again when I noted the 1:9 exchange rate of Euro to HKD.
We were at our hotel before we knew it and sipping cold beer not too long after that. The lady we sat next to on the plane recommended we hit Wan Chai. One of Hong Kong’s many British ex-pats, she’d had fun in the bars and restaurants there. The only problem was that it was Monday night and everywhere we went was rather empty. Not easily discouraged, this was still our first night traveling after all, we soldiered on and finally found a bar with atmosphere. I can’t tell you the name of the place because I don’t think it had one. The front door was a curtain. Inside was a small collection of regulars (more ex-pats), a large selection of booze and a delightful bartender/DJ.
Firsts, especially when they coincide, are always memorable. Such was my first Chinese hangover coupled with my first real experience of humidity. Like most fools my age, my attitude was that I’d seen it in films and wondered what all the fuss was about. It’s about the worst surprise I could have had. Strolling calmly from the hotel, we exited the lobby and on passing through the curtain of air conditioning, collapsed. Well our plans of exploring the city did. Constant pit stops for cold drinks and dry clothes were required. We became rather indiscriminate. I think our first meal in China was in an Aussie theme pub. I’ve nothing against the blokes and their kangaroo milkshakes but we found ourselves thinking “Are we in China yet?”.
The answer was yes…and no. Hong Kong is host to peoples from all over the world. You can get just about any kind of food or clothing you want there. What might appear on the surface like an identity crisis is really just a city that’s embraced all of the cultures that made it, even if they do eat kangaroos. The more time you spend there you start to see things that are distinctly Hong Kong. Like the MTR. The city’s train system is spotless, air conditioned (thank God) and even lets you pay with a wrist watch (you can recharge the credit in your watch’s Octopus chip online – well smart). It will take you any where you need to go – even across the harbour to Kowloon. This journey is better done on the Star Ferry. The super-cheap, super-reliable, super-slow ferry service has been plying these waters since the Stone Age. To be honest a tourist like me would rather have it as slow as possible – more time to enjoy the sky line as the sun sets and the lights in a sea of skyscrapers flicker to life. On reaching the Kowloon side, Ger and I were rewarded with the most singular light show we’ve ever seen. A series of lasers and coloured spotlights began to light up and turn off again in perfect time to a piece of music being played over out door speakers to the spellbound crowd. It’s really something to watch razor sharp beams of light slice the night sky half a mile away and office towers appear and disappear in different colours as if by magic and all in time to the music. Breathtaking – another first. Are we in China yet? Yes, thank God, we are.
Fred.

On the Star Ferry

Hi everybody,
This one was written and sent on January 10th 2005 and read by a small group of my friends as a favour to me. None of them have talked to me since, so I have added a few adjustments and ‘funnied-up’ some of the descriptions. Please read on and leave a comment if you like. Although I have the internet equivalent of a bin with a tiny basket ball hoop over it, I promise to read and consider all your comments.
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Hi everybody.
It turns out that Christmas and New Years were just what I needed to settle me into life in Auckland. One or two celebratory pub crawls have taught me which places serve the lager that gives you liver damage (that’s why it’s so deliciously cheap). Bargain hunting for presents has acquainted me with much of the city’s retail district. Handy because that’s where I now work. No I don’t sell perfume or over sized jeans or toasters that play DVD’s. I work in a Belgian Beer Cafe (BBC) called The Occidental. Those of you who ate in Temple Bar’s ill-fated Belgo restaurant can use that as a reference. The Occi doesn’t have a hundred beers though. The 20 odd beers we have are the real thing – as Belgian as Van Damme – and as tasty. Hoegaarden White is my favourite, though Jean Claude prefers something with more of a kick (yellow card for that one). The food I serve is pretty authentic too – or so the Belgian customers tell me. I have reason to believe them as they will often arrive drooling and wide-eyed chanting “Moule et Frites” or “Whitloef Gratin”. It’s as close to the real thing as you’re likely to get here at the end of the world (without using shrink wrap and a Concorde) and may even taste better.
Not the cleverest career move, however – I decided to be a waiter again in a country where tipping is as popular as Christian rock is in Saudi Arabia (or most countries for that matter). With near religious conviction tipping is not only ignored but actively discouraged. I have witnessed one friend reprimand another for leaving extra money with the bill. To be honest, it’s me who isn’t considering the facts. I’m expecting tips from them after they’ve paid anything up to $25 for a bottle of beer. I should have caught on when the customs official said ” no flora or fauna and don’t tip anybody”. So I depend mostly on foreign tourists for my trinkgeld (German for tips –literally “drink money”).
Thankfully a whole ship full of them arrived the other day. It was aboard the Sapphire Princess. She is the world’s 7th largest cruise ship and carries a nice mixture of retired couples and families whose parents thought it a clever idea to pile all their kids into a tiny room for six weeks. At a colossal 18 storeys, she dwarfed the apartments and hotels next to her on the wharf. Even my old bosses at the Hilton had to send a reminder to all their guests to put on clothes before opening the curtains. I wonder how many Life of Brian moments there were before they decided to send the note (this was later the subject of a local ad for the Yellow Pages, the tagline being “Need Curtains?”). Luckily for me a good few of the jolly old coffin dodgers and swash buckling families came to the BBC and my jar was singing all day long. That’s not the only piece of good fortune I had recently. MTV’s Zane Loe paid me a visit and after a few beers with his mates did the old handshake-with-money-in-it-thing. Clearly his time in Europe has affected him very deeply. The next day I served a nice guy from Rathfarnam. A quick glance at his credit card revealed he was none other than Charles Dickens. I debated with myself whether or not to say “Please sir, I want some more” when he paid. Best not to push one’s luck, I decided.

More laughs followed when a few days later a bunch of us went paint balling for Ger’s birthday. Auckland’s buses are so shit that it was strangely easier to take a ferry over to an island and shoot each other there than it would have been to take the two buses out to some other place on the mainland. It turned out well though. Waiheke Island has beautiful landscape and the weather is always slightly better than that of Auckland. It is home to several wineries and for decades artists have found inspiration in its rolling hills and the relative solitude they offer. This is all rather hard to appreciate when you’re pinned down by enemy fire paint-fighting for your paint-life. We decided to make it a battle of the sexes and pit the boys against the girls. I hate getting philosophical about it but paint-war is paint -hell. And just to dispel any
rumors you may have heard about it, getting shot hurts. The only thing that eases the pain is to inflict it on others – and what a release that is. As a birthday present to Ger I let her team win. Yes it takes a real man or group of men to lose to a team of girls. I think that one’s in The Art of War. I’ll have to check it and get back to you.
I hope you all had a good Christmas and New Years wherever you are and I hope you manage to stay off the fags or the chocos or whatever it was that gave your life meaning. You’ll be hearing from me soon. It’s time for me to break into the music scene here and see what’s worth swiping.
Fred.

Hello to all. This piece on Dalian, although posted on June 20th 2005, was written and e-mailed to a select few with nothing better to read on September 1st 2004. Please read on. *** Hello to all You may resume your envy. We’re ... [Continue reading this entry]