Getting comfortable

I admit, the first two days were pretty weird. Not so much the culture shock, or the language barrier, but just kind of accepting the distance between me and everyone else that I know. I recall looking at the magazine on the plane, and it was something like 7000 miles between where I am now and where I was on Tuesday. This morning I woke up at something like 6am since I'm still kind of jetlagged, and I took a walk down to Kowloon park where I heard people practice Tai-chi and sometimes Kung-fu in the early morning. I saw about 30 senior citizens doing group calisthenics, which was kind of novel, but only two people practicing with those fake swords in slow motion. There were a few loose Tai-chi cannons floating around the place, and all in all it is a pretty relaxing time to walk around here, contrasted with pretty much any other time.

So yesterday I got out at a fairly reasonable hour and took the Star Ferry from Kowloon to Hong Kong side. I sort of expected more tourist hassle at the ferry, but it was really easy and only cost $2.2HK which is really cheap. I have been trading $1USD for $7.5HKD, so the exchange rate is pretty good. I floated across the water and enjoyed some decent views of the impressive Hong Kong skyline, although still a bit smoggy/foggy/cloudy. It looks pretty clear today, I may give it another try. There are some pretty interesting looking buildings over there, and the Northern coast of that island is so built up that you can barely see anything else except skyscrapers up and down the entire stretch visible from Kowloon. Stepping off the ferry, I elected to just walk around aimlessly and see what I found. The one thing I kind of made a point to find was a series of 20 escalators that ride up the side of the giant hills in the middle of Hong Kong island. It's kind of crazy, as you ride up each escalator there are side streets with shops, bars, markets, etc, and a very busy and active scene around the main stretch through which the escalators pass. The elevators pass through what is apparently a trendy scene of and in itself, called (wait for it) Soho. At the top of the escalators is a residential area called the Mid-Levels. Once I got up there, there wasn't much to do but walk down though there are things like a botanical garden and a look at some of the smaller less insanely crowded streets on HK island. Speaking of insanely crowded, walking around pretty much the whole island was very tight. In certain neighborhoods it reminded me of walking back from watching the July 4th Fireworks on the FDR. There are a lot of different neighborhoods over there. One part I walked through was a very active Chinese market, which consists of several narrow streets, made even more narrow by the zillions of vendors selling fruits, vegetables, fish, and pretty much whatever else. Thankfully I have yet to see a live chicken beheaded, maybe I'll have to wait til China for that. I was in numerous areas where it was close to shoulder to shoulder traffic. In other places there are giant shiny shopping centers with every brand name clothing shop and whatever else you can imagine. The buildings are pretty high on all sides and the traffic on the streets pretty busy, so rather than walk on the sidewalks (although you can do that) there are elevated walkways connecting buildings and bridging streets. It's pretty impressive actually. I did take some pictures but I haven't figured out a great way to upload them yet. I will do it soon, before I leave HK anyway.

So I ended up taking the MTR, HK's subway back to Kowloon, under the water this time. Last night I went out with someone from couchsurfing who lives in the New Territories here, a suburban neighborhood north of Kowloon. She took me out to a kind of bar/restaurant where we met up with 3 of her friends. It was pretty fun, but I was fairly tired still at that hour, and I had my hands full trying to juggle English and Mandarin, and they all prefer to speak Cantonese of course. Interesting, the CS girl (whose name is Fifi) is learning Spanish and loves Spanish music, so we ended up even chatting in Spanish a little bit. I got a Tsingtao on draft which made me happy, and some sauteed veggies in a spicy sauce which was enough since after my long walk around HK island I decided to stop for an earlier dinner at the same Chinese vegetarian buffet. Did I mention I also had fast food Indian earlier in the day at the Chungking Mansions, which is anything but a mansion. It's a giant building filled with the cheapest and sketchiest hostels in town, and tons of small foodstands, shops, and other weird things and people. Apparently according to someone I met here, the police did not "control" the building until recently. Despite incredibly low costs to stay there, it was not a close call to find somewhere else to stay at a slightly higher cost. Speaking of which, I'm going to stay one more night in my current hostel and then try to move to a hostel in Causeway Bay, a neighborhood on HK Island. It might be nice to be over there for a few days and enjoy a change of scenery.

I'm going to go, I tried free internet at a coffee house today and although it seems to work Ok although I can't log on MSN, there are a zillion people eyeballing me to get the hell of the computer. I'm probably going up to Victoria Peak today since the view looks maybe clear, and then perhaps to Lantau Island to check out the giant buddha I keep hearing about, the monastery, and what is apparently a decent vegetarian restaurant. Perhaps I will include a supplemental update later when I do not have people burning holes in the back of my head.