Hong Kong*

25 March 2010
It would be so easy to be completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of Hong Kong but we managed not to be and instead immersed ourselves in its sights, sounds, smells, tastes and experiences but there are so many of them we cannot possibly tell you about them all. On opening the curtains in the morning we were amazed to see two huge sea eagles hunting their prey over the harbour. On a surprisingly cool and overcast day we took a ferry across the harbour, a tram along Des Voeux Road Central, lifts to the observation decks on the 55th floor of the Two International Finance Centre and the 43rd floor of the Bank of China Tower and looked out over acres of high-rise buildings including Jardine House, which was HK’s first skyscraper and has 1750 port-hole windows which makes it known locally as the house of a thousand arse-holes!


We ate dim sum for lunch at the Luk Yu Tea House (described by our guide-book as a “museum piece in more ways than one with most of the staff having been there since the Ming dynasty” – it was wonderfully old-fashioned but one of the Ming dynasty waiters took us under his wing and helped us (just as well otherwise we would have starved – the menu was a piece of paper covered in Chinese characters on which diners tick the items they want) the food was good, the tea was good.
We walked through Wing Lok Street, a street lined with speciality shops selling only ginseng and bird’s nests – both essential items for longevity, energy and a good complexion; on to Des Voeux Road West, a street specialising in dried seafood (much of it, thankfully, unidentifiable); then along Ko Shing Street, a street full of shops selling Chinese herbal medicine shops. Fascinating, bewildering, intriguing and at times repulsive – as well as the bird nests, dried lizards, shark fins, deer horn, tail and penises were just a few of the items on sale.

We wandered through the Sheung Wan district and among the high rise and densely populated streets we came across the Man Mo Temple, a building with three sanctuaries where gods are venerated and prayers are sent heavenward by the faithful burning a vast quantities of incense – some in the form of huge incense cones hung from the ceiling – many of which will burn for a month. Elsewhere people offered plates of fruit and other foodstuffs to the Taoist gods of literature (Man) and war (Mo) – Man with his calligraphy brush and Mo with his sword. There were also statues of Pau Kung, the god of justice and one of Shing Wong, the god of the city in front of which people murmured prayers and waved huge bunches of incense. We wandered on and came to another temple, this one was equally strange, here the people just sat very quietly and looked up, with very sad eyes to a huge statue of their god – a man wearing just a loin cloth who was fixed to a huge wooden structure by nails through his hands and feet, this temple was called the cathedral of St John (who seemed to be some sort of bird-god as he was in the form of an eagle) this building was and was constructed in a strange style called ‘gothic’ which harks back to 13th century Europe but was not actually built until 1849.

We also shopped (there are millions of places to do this in Hong Kong) and among other things bought some wonderful mountain grown oolong tea and some 12 year old Pu Erh tea, even though they were both considerably cheaper than that we buy at home from the wonderful East Teas in Borough Market (knew we’d manage to get a plug in for you Alex) we could not afford the 26 year-old green Pu Erh. It’s also a great places for small knick-knacks from small (and large) arts and crafts shops – inevitably the shops you see all over the world are here but there are two which are distinctly British – M&S and Harvey Nic!


At eight o’clock on the dot the Guinness World Record “Symphony Of Lights” began. From our lounge window we were able to watch the light show which happens every evening and covers numerous buildings on Hong Kong island creating a spectacular show of changing coloured lights and light patters, laser beams and searchlights performing in time to music (if you are indoors – as we were – just tune the radio to FM 103.4 MHz. How fiendishly clever, Holmes).
After the light show we went to dinner; we had planned to go to a restaurant on the 28th floor of a skyscraper around the corner (guidebook recommended), when we arrived there we were amazed that every floor from about the sixth was a different restaurant and on our way to the 28th we found one that was Szechuan Buddhist vegetarian so went there instead. Like all Buddhist vegetarian restaurants its meals imitate meat dishes and as we took the easy way out and chose a set meal we had vegetarian fish (flat white flaky tofu), vegetarian chicken (creamy colour chunks of tofu), vegetarian pork (chewy pieces of tofu), vegetarian beef (dark strongly flavoured mushrooms – makes a change from tofu) and vegetarian ham (pink strips of unidentifiable origin but tasting of peanuts) all with heaps of (mostly identifiable) vegetables – the huge bowl of snow pea shoots was wonderful.
Exhausted and not quite overwhelmed, back in our room we sat with a glass of wine and looked out of the window at the comings and goings across the harbour and the lights of the skyscrapers opposite. What fortunate people we are.