chalk and cheese
by Rach
Guangzhou, China to Hong Kong
We went from Chinese rice porridge for breakfast (just like they’ve been eating for centuries) to the most modern of cuisines – if you can call it that – for the first time in five months we ate fast food. What’s worse, is it was McDonalds!! This modern city seemed a pertinent place to break the fast…..but we’d really prefer dumplings or noodle soup tomorrow!
In morning peak hour traffic we watched bus after bus pass our stop – all of them filled to almost overflowing. The one we needed to catch did not have room for ten extra people and backpacks, but we were pushed on anyway! Such a contrast to the almost empty luxurious coach that took us from the border through the New Territories and down into Kowloon.
We left behind a serviced apartment**….and moved into the cheapest of Hong Kong’s none-too-budget offerings, rat cages they try to pass off as rooms. This also means a switch from quiet suburbia to the bustle of Nathan Road – we’re in the middle of the dazzling neon-light action!
** advertisement for the company to be inserted here when we get the details!
We went from rows of apartment blocks (which had seemed impressive a week ago!) to a city of towers – the apartment complexes here are so tall they dwarf massive power pylons – and they make the Chinese ones look like a toddler’s sandpit construction next to his older sibling’s Technical Lego City.
a day of contrasts
Tags: food, housing, postcard: China, postcard: Hong Kong, transport
rayres
how long will you be in the city? and isn’t it amazing how many different definitions there are for ‘city’
only a week and a half – and even that is longer than we had planned – it’s just too pricey!! Yesterday we were buying complete meals for just over a dollar – today we pay five times that and only get a snack!