Back in the Australian heat again, this post will basically be a
wrap up of my time in HK, hence it will be a long post. Be don't despair - it'll be full of pics
. You'll have to excuse me for the crappy quality - my
atom tried.
So I started my near annual trip to HK at the start of this month - its basically a big family shopping trip, and to visit some rellos. Didn't buy much though - got a drink bottle, shoes, some lights for my car, a few gifts and some requests from friends. My sister got a funky new
macbook (which is neat, but not as revolutionary as many claim - why don't apps close after I close the last window?), and dad got his usual swag of electronic stuff. Things aren't so cheap anymore - the exchange rate is still good, but I reckon prices have risen.
Anyway, on to the highlights - The flight there was pretty much a non-event, except for the fact that we didn't get one with the cool on-demand stuff and personal screens
. So instead I listened to some podcasts and slept - hadn't slept for around 35 hours by then.
On arrival at HK airport, they had new
automated immigration clearance lanes now - just stick your ID card in, press your thumb in the reader, wait for the beep and you're done. No need to stand around in long queues and have the guy behind the counter stare at you.
Our ride to the apartment was thanks to this Indian guy who owned a delivery van. He delivers goods during the day, then uses his van as a taxi as night to make some money on the side - smart guy. Spoke decent canto too.
The apartments were pretty good, except for the fact that between 9-6 everyday, the reno people would
start drilling holes downstairs. This was partly a holiday remember, so none of us thought we'd be waking at 9 every morning. Slowly though, we all became used to the headache-inducing hammering and continued to sleep through it - there's adaptation for ya!
In between shopping and eating (mmm... chocolate ice cream fondue),
I caught up with Simon, a mate from Wesley who came down from Shanghai. We chilled out in his apartment,
watching episodes of The Unit - not a bad show once you get into it.
As with many of my HK trips,
I managed to get sick on this trip for a few days, with vomiting and a fever. Try having that as well as the constant hammering in the background. Turned out though, that Simon was sick too - we put it down to the plain chinese bread rolls we were trying to cook that night. Keyword:
trying. They turned out hard as a rock after out failed attempts at steaming them in the microwave.
Shopping was back on the list after I got better. I helped Simon
get his new, slim Sony VAIO notebook (you should've seen the crap they threw in in the end - there was literally two big bags of stuff plus the computer). Dad and I went to check out high-end hifi systems too at Harbour City -
damn B&O equipment sounds nice. Coming out of 2 tiny speakers was this awesome enveloping sound - words can't describe it. Its clear why they're so highly regarded. On a more affordable scale however,
Bose has some very nice sounding stuff too.
I also found out something about myself I didn't know -
I'm the editor of the twice-weekly free job magazine, Jiu Jik (transliterated from Cantonese).
HK's got a new cable car ride,
the Ngong Ping 360, which goes from Tung Chung all the way up to the
Big Buddha, aka the
Po Lin Monastery. Its quite an awesome ride, great view, although it has been suffering issues with the strong winds in the area (see the photo and you'll know what I mean). It stopped for a few minutes while I was on it - and it was near the highest point too
.
The area up there's been transformed too -
there's a new tourist village and much better infrastructure. Going up to see the Big Buddha involved additional money though, plus a couple hundred steps up the mountain. Ironically, you get a better view of it from the bottom than the top - that's how big he is. I did notice an interesting symbol though:
Further research showed that the
swastika was actually a symbol used by the Buddhists among others way before Hitler hijacked it. Both the left-facing (above) and the right-facing (Hitler's version) were used, but nowadays only the left-facing one is used to avoid confusion.
Wikipedia.
Couple more photos from there in the galleries
here.
Anthony, a mate from uni, also happened to be there so
we caught up and checked out the HK World Carnival on at Admiralty until March 2007. Think the
Royal Melbourne Show, but much smaller. Was still a lot of fun - the ferris wheel provided awesome vistas, the Destructor left us both dizzy (think spinning in every direction possible), Pirate River & River Rafting got us both wet, Drop Zone told us why no one screams on it (there's no chance when freefalling) and the carnival games drained us of our money (well mine anyway; Anthony had more restraint). My whinging sister got a bit jealous when I got home, so I had to go a 2nd time with her - got to try out the G-Force this time (basically a big, open, two carriage ferris wheel). She won the damn soft toy I wanted and was trying so hard to get though
.
More photos from the carnival
here.
The Peak Tower also underwent a renovation, building in a Madame Tssaud's museum and a range of new restaurants and shops. Access to the rooftop was again possible, giving amazing views. This is HK on a good day btw
.
While we were coming down from the rooftop, my sister caught eye of a actual flying toy helicopter and started playing with it. We all got dragged along, but when we wanted to leave without buying it, the sales lady followed us, knocking down the price gradually. How much I hear you ask? Well, it started off at 700 HKD, and we got it down to 200 HKD all by simply walking away -
no bargaining whatsoever. We ended up buying it - I feel sorry for the people who bought it at the original price though; our price was over
two-thirds off the original.
The Peak Tower also had a new thing called the
EA Experience - essentially a place filled with Xbox 360s, PCs, PSPs, PS2s, and Nintendo DSs (no PS3s unfortunately
) for you to try out the latest EA creations, and buy them too. Interesting concept, but I think people just spent the day playing there (there's no time limits) - is that enough to make them want to buy the game and continue at home? (very confusing front though - the two staircases [only one visible here] are both blocked; see if you can spot the entrance in the picture below.)
More pictures from The Peak
here.
With not much to buy,
I ended up spending a fair bit of time at Jumpin Gym USA. No its not a gym (fact: never stepped inside a workout gym ever). Its actually a kiddie amusement place, but the focus is on physical games like basketball & bowling and various token games that depend on how you use your token. No Initial D or Time Crisis here. For example, on one machine, there's a table full of coins, and a moving sweeper - your aim is to get your token in the right position so that when the sweeper comes along, it'll push your token so that it'll push other tokens that'll push tokens at the other end off the table. The more you knock off the better.
This makes it very easy to spend your money quickly, even when they're 1 HKD per token (that's like 16 cents here). I did hit some sort of jackpot on a machine though - ended up with enough tickets to redeem some toys.
I also got a chance to
see the PS3 in the flesh - there was a kiosk on the street in Mong Kok. I must say, I'm very impressed with the graphics. Some greedy 8 yr old kid was hogging the damn thing though, and the was a big line so I cbf waiting - I've got a 360 anyway. (I can't remember what that 3000+ price in the photo was for - seems too cheap though.)
While in Mong Kok, I checked out Langham Place as well. There's a
cool shop in there called Unusually that creates lifelike clay models of you and/or someone else in a particular setting. Think 3D caricatures.
More pics
here.
Oh, and somewhere in between
I got my hair dyed too. I'll leave the colour for you to work out, but hint: I'm Asian.
I was mighty pissed
I missed Big Day Out 07 too - all by 3 frickin days! The line up was awesome - including My Chemical Romance, The Killers, Evermore, Muse & Bob Evans among others! Yes J, Dave, Matt and co - you can start rubbing more salt in the wound now...
The trip back was better than the trip there -
no transiting, and Qantas's content-on-demand was available. I managed to watch
The Departed (alright movie, the canto actors had crappy accents though),
Borat (cringeworthy in parts, but funny) and most of
Beerfest (better than your average teen flick, but I didn't get time to see the end!). It was nice to see that the pilots had some humour too, "We'll be turning the cabin lights down before takeoff. This enhances the appearance of our cabin crew."
Going through Melbourne Airport, I noticed that
we have cool electronic immigration clearance gates too, named SmartGate. Didn't have an e-passport though, so couldn't check it out.
I did notice that
all my checked bags had RFIDs on them, courtesy of HK International Airport. Guess barcodes just didn't cut it for them anymore, with the amount of people travelling through their airport. Let's see what the RFID doomsdayers say about this...will they refuse to travel through HK?
All these photos and some more I've uploaded from this trip can be found
here.
Well that's basically my trip to HK summarised. I'll be following this post up with another about funny and interesting tidbits, including some engrish examples. After all, what is a trip to HK without some laughing at the funny english signs there?