There’s such a lot of world to see

‘High expectations are disappointments under construction’. So wrote the fabulous Marian Keyes. Sometimes it’s true, other times I find that things that are hugely hyped-up (such as the Taj Mahal and Terracotta Warriors) are popular for a very good reason indeed. I had high hopes for Hong Kong, and hoped that it wouldn’t let me down.

And boy, did it not let me down. I fell in love with it immediately. It reminded me of the time I went to Venice. The best thing about Venice, and I think now the best thing about Hong Kong, is that they are exactly like you imagine they will be. Hong Kong is completely crazy, it’s China meets London meets New York, meets Crazy Town, but it’s wonderful. It’s jumped right in there into my ‘Cities I would love to live in – quick, pass me the Vacancies section from the local paper’ category. FYI, other cities in this category include Paris, Prague, Rome, New York, Miami, Udaipur. Other categories I have are ‘Cities I would be happy to live in if someone offered me a fabulous job’ – London, Mumbai, Bangalore, Colombo (though, sadly, not at the moment as it seems to have kicked off big-time in Sri Lanka – here’s hoping it doesn’t last), Beijing, Shanghai; down through various combinations of possibilities to the lowest, ‘Cities I would not live in even if Jimmy Choo was run from there and they offered me the top job and they offered to pay my salary in shoes’ – Delhi, Dundee, Chengdu. (Apologies to all inhabitants of these cities, I probably don’t appreciate them or something).

Honestly, were it not for the fact that it’s insanely overcrowded already, I would recommend that everyone gets up right now and moves here.  It has everything you could ever want from a city.  (Including 100% humidity – I’ve given up on the hair, and I’m wandering around looking like Sideshow Bob).  It has fabulous shops, cheap markets, amazing food (I had the best Dim Sum ever on Saturday morning, including these little spinach dumpling things that actually made me say “Oh, yum” out loud, forgetting that I was at a big table with lots of other people.  Still, at least they gave me a wide berth with the soy sauce), and it’s literally the city that never sleeps – step outside at any time of night or day and there’s so much going on, including the avalanche of people who surround you with their offers of “copy watches, copy bags”.

I was staying in Kowloon, which is the 4km strip of land actually on the mainland across from HK island, which was ceded to the British along with the island and so forms part of HK.  I was in Cosmic Guest House (far out, man), in Mirador Mansions.  Mirador and Chungking Mansions are two famous (or rather, infamous) big blocks on Nathan Road, both are about 20 storeys high, and both contain a mish-mash of market stalls, restaurants, and cheap guest houses.  It’s a tad wierd, granted, but the people here are friendly, and the room feels safe and clean, the main thing in a city.  Actually, overall, HK feels like a safe place to be – another reason to come here.

On the first morning, I wanted to get my bearings, so, after aforementioned Dim Sum, I caught the famous Star Ferry across to HK island to go up The Peak.  The highest point on the island, it’s famed for its fabulous views across HK bay and the surrounding islands.  I got the Peak Tram up, which in actual fact is a furnicular railway, and oh my goodness that’s a steep track.  At times it felt as if I was lying vertical in my seat.  Any steeper, and I would have got to know the guy in the seat behind me a little better than either of us would have been comfortable with.  Unfortunately, the HUGE guy in the seat in front wasn’t bothered with such considerations.  Stepping out of his chair to let his lumbering girlfriend take some photos, he stepped with real precision on my toe.  He was as heavy as he looked.  (EA, I took a photo just for you).  Rubbing my toe and grimacing, I was distracted from my pain at the sheer angle at which we were passing nearby skyscrapers.  It’s so completely odd, and throws your perspective all out.

In about 8 minutes, we were at the top, and I was greeted with a stunning view right down the harbour.  Well, I would have been, had the blanket of fog that appears to be following me not swamped the peak.  I could see precisely nothing.  Still, I took some photos, more for amusement than anything else, and had a delish hot chocolate at the old, colonial-built Peak Lookout bar.  It’s strange, when I was inside, I looked out to the swirling mist, felt the absolutely fierce aircon that seems to be mandatory here in HK, and felt almost wintery.  That is, until I stepped outside and the humidity hit me like a warm, wet flannel.

The rest of my time here I’ve spent wandering about, I bought a weekly museum pass so have visited quite a few of the good standard of museums they have here.  I loved the HK Museum of History, it started way back in the prehistoric age and showed the development of the city, through the British and Japanese times, right up to the handover back to the mainland.  I also had such good fun in the HK Space museum.  It’s very ‘hands-on’, and I did a moonwalk (just call me Neil), flew a glider, and worked a rocket backpack.  OK, they were simulations, but still, it was great fun.

I had another slumming day, when I went for afternoon tea in the Peninsula Hotel (I’m still sticking to the budget, though – afternoon tea is one of my favourite treats, plus if you time it right you don’t need to – or won’t want to – eat again all day.  The Peninsula was ace, the cakes were most fabulous, but the tea itself let them down.  Look alive, people!).  This is attached to a veh, veh upmarket shopping arcade, so I had fun going into expensive shops and trying on clothes I can’t afford.  Well, it was fun until I tried on a too-small dress in Prada, and heard that sickening ‘rrip’ sound of a seam that has stretched a bit too far.  Did I ‘fess up, or did I run?  You decide!

For cheaper versions, I headed to the Ladies Market (it should be called the Missy Market, as that’s what you hear everywhere you go – “Hello, Missy”.  Although I was sorely tempted by the ‘original’, I’m sure, Chloe and Hermes bags (I want a Kelly!  I want a Kelly!  Maybe if I repeat it enough and click my heels like Dorothy, it will happen).  I even turned away from gorgous ‘Gucci’ sandals at 3 quid.  Wow, how strong am I?  I consoled myself with some lovely hair accessories, two cheapo vest tops, and a belt to go with my too-long jeans (tell me people, would it look terrible if I took some scissors to them myself?  I don’t trust my own judgement on this one).

On June 4th, it was the 17th anniversary on the Tian’anmen Square massacre, and, every year since then, the people of Hong Kong have held a candlelight vigil in Victoria Park.  They remember and honour those who died, and they show their determination to have a completely democratic system, not only in HK, but throughout mainland China.  Of this I will write more when I get to another country, but enough for now to say I went to the vigil, along with about 20,000 other people, and it was incredibly moving and dignified.  It’s something I’m grateful to have had the chance to be involved in.

Another strange thing about HK is how many people I’ve met here who I met elsewhere in China.  For a big country, it seems awfully strange at times.  I met one guy from Beijing, two from Xi’an, two from Chengdu, one from the Yangtze river cruise, and one from Shanghai.  And I think this encapsulates what I love best about this place.  It’s a big city, a world player, but still is small enough to feel like home.  So pass me that newspaper with the job ads.

Those of you who have been following this blog for any length of time – first of all, thanks, it can’t have been easy – and secondly, will know that most journeys I undergo seem to be a bit wierd.  Well, the journey from Xiamen to Guangzhou tops them all in terms of surprises.

Train journeys in Fuijian, the province in which Xiamen sits, are depressingly circuitous, and you board any train in the area knowing you are definitely in it for the long haul.  So the first surprise – a pleasant one, I’ll grant you – was the state of the train.  I got into the hard sleeper carriage, where I had booked a bed, and thought I was in the soft sleeper carriage, it was so plush.  OK, maybe I’ve just been on the backpacker circuit a bit too long, as I was impressed by a bit of carpet on the train floor, but after a few months of travelling round Asia by train, this was pretty top-notch and put me in a good mood immediately.  A nice guy helped me get my ever-weighty backpack up to the luggage compartment at the top, and we got chatting once the train moved on.

He spoke really good English, compared to a lot of Chinese people we met.  He is a (mature) student at Xiamen University, and was returning home to Shenzen for a short trip to see his wife and 6 month old son, and he was telling me of his ambition to become a univeristy lecturer when he’d finished his studies.  He had to read a lot of reports in English, which I think is why his language skills were so impressive.  We were talking about all sorts, politics, schools, football (we talked at length about the World Cup, I think I bored him on this one but he was too polite to say), and finally, places in China I’ve been to.  When I mentioned Shanghai, he said he liked it and he used to live there.  However, the next thing he said nearly made me fall out of my bunk.  He asked me,

“Do you know the English company Pilkington?”

(FYI to those of you who don’t know my history, I used to work for them – of which I will say no more, except for the fact that I got voluntary redundancy from them, without which I would not be here). (In a nutshell).

I confirmed that he did, wondering if he was a spy, a mindreader, or both.  The next thing was even more surprising:

“I used to work for them in Shanghai”.

Now imagine – I’m on a slow train in the middle of a lesser-visited Chinese province, speaking to a random guy on a train, and it turns out not only did we work for the same company (our time overlapped a bit), but some of the same names were familiar to both of us.   I was well and truly freaked. The ultimate ‘small world’ experience?

The next surprise came in the form of a seranade. As we chatted, we heard a loud and tuneful voice singing ‘My Heart Will Go On’, absolutely word-perfect. Fortunately, Celine Dion hadn’t joined the train (fortunately for her, that is – I don’t know if I could restrain myself), but we were in fact listening to the precocious warblings of Logan, aged 3. He was so cute, in that ‘I’m glad I’m only with this child for a few hours max as he’s a bit too full-on’ sort of way, but he was very entertaining. (And, Elephant Apple, rest happily – I got his photo, as per your request).

We drifted off to sleep, listening to Logan and the heavy rain outside performing a duet.
I woke up a few times during the night, vaguely aware that we had, at various times, either stopped, were going very slowly, or were shunting about vigorously on poorly-joined-up* tracks. None of these prove for happy and peaceful slumbers.
*technical term

So it was with my grumpy, not-enough-sleep head that I faced the world the next morning. This was not helped in the slightest when Gerry, my Pilkington colleague, turned to me after listening to one of the announcements and said “We are 8 hours delayed”.
“Pardon me?”
“We are 8 hours delayed. The train is 8 hours late”. God love him, I don’t think he could have put it any simpler if he tried, but I have this theory that if you refuse to believe bad news, it doesn’t really happen. I tried one last tack, hoping that the translation was somehow breaking down:
“So, what time will we get to Guangzhou?” (We should have been arriving at 7am, I was hoping that “8 hours” was somehow meant to be “8am”.)
“Umm, about 3pm, if not later”.
“Ah”.

Believe me guys, I was not prepared for that. I’d never done 24+ hour train journeys before this trip, and I’ve learned it takes a certain amount of preparation, both physical and mental. Physical – you need food, for a start. The Chinese are big, big fans of their versions of pot noodles, and I have joined in with gusto. In actual fact, it may surprise you to hear I don’t think pot noodles are as bad as they are made out to be, so when I saw the food-obsessed Chinese slurping away out of these huge tubs of noodles, I thought, hey, when in Xiamen. In addition to a few tubs of noodles (there is a constant supply of hot water at the end of each carriage, and indeed everywhere you go here), you add a couple of bags of Lays crisps (very good and tasty, I can recommend the roast drumstick flavour), the greasy-yet-strangely-delicious vac packs of peanuts, some chocolate (the Chinese brand, Dove, is again surprisingly good), and some other random treat – my favourite so far being a big bag of marshmallows I bought in Wuhan. You also need drinks, obviously, so throw in a big bottle of water and – get this – my old-Chinese-lady style tea flask. Everywhere you go you see people (mainly of the older generation, although a good proportion of the younger ones as well) drinking strange concoctions out of these glass double-insulated jar-type flasks with screw top lids. Mainly it’s for tea, but occasionally you see something that looks a teeny bit scary, like they’ve stolen a test-tube from Frankenstein’s laboratory. So, a few weeks back, I bought one, and a bag of delicious jasmine tea, and have been slurping away happily ever since. The slurp, incidentally, is one of the major sounds you hear in China (along with the big rasping sound of someone hawking up a greenie. All. The. Time. Bad enough outside, but when they start inside… shudder…). Apparently, slurping the food makes it taste better. It’s also a great chance to revert to childhood without being looked at funny.

Like an athlete about to run a marathon, you also need mental preparation for such a long journey (including going to the loo – I’m sure Paula Radcliffe can back me up on this one – Chinese loos at the best of times are grim, and at the worst of times, can resemble that scene in ‘Trainspotting’). You know you’re in it for the long haul. You accept that the next 24 hours will be spent under a duvet. You need to charge your ipod, stock up on Sudoku puzzles and books and, my latest trick, I bought the world’s most tackiest object, a ‘Hello Kitty’ Rubicks cube. It’s actually quite difficult, before you point and laugh, because now I have mixed it up, all the Hello Kittys are facing different directions, and now I’m thinking I might give it to a little Cambodian child, a la Angelina Jolie, rather than face the fact that I will NEVER be able to complete it. It’s got to the stage where I’m having nightmares about Hello Kittys laughing at my incompetence.

Anyway, to pass the time, I found myself helping Logan’s half-sister with her Immigration application for the USA. As you do. And as I heard myself explaining the concept of half-brothers and sisters, and how they are distinct from step-brothers and sisters (she did ask, by the way, I didn’t just launch into it), I thought what a very strange journey this had been.

We pulled into Guangzhou station, only 7 hours late, and I was actually delighted that we had made up one hour, rather than angry at being 7 hours late, which is the strangest thing of all.

PS As an end note, actually the best surprise of all came in a phone call from Caroline and Michael, asking me to be their bridesmaid next year. I’m completely honoured, guys, and can’t wait. I think my squeals and laughing woke up the rest of the carriage but hey, it was worth it.

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