Today was set aside for sleeping, then wandering around the city with no sense of purpose & I managed to nail both of these aims with admirable precision. After waking up at like, 11, which was the best thing ever, I had a bowl of musili & a pot of coffe. An espisode that took a good 90 minutes out of my life moving at the glacial pace I'd set myself up for. But eventually, I got dressed & prettied up & I headed outside to finally tackle my horrid sense of bearings. My goal: To get lost, then get found again & to repeat this as many times as necessary until I was bored, overexcited, found the perfect shop/restaurant/pub, or actually lost. Sadly, it was the former that won out. Although it kind of didn't end with anythig exciting, it was an excellent four hour walk right through the heart of Hong Kong checking out all the glitzyass stores on the high streets, through the even glitzier shopping centres, down crappy little alleys that billow more steam that you'd think was possible from such tiny collections of doorways, up along the pier & ferry terminals, & then kind of back again on a much wonkier route. But oddly, it's remarkably difficult to get lost in Hong Kong. No doubt, that's a function of the narrowness of the city & the fact that it's flanked right along one side by a huge bloody great mountain. Word to the wise: Ignoring a mountain is exhausting.
I did a good job of planting a large number of landmarks in my mind & getting a much better lay of the land, which was one checkbox solidly ticked. Didn't do so well at finding anything remarkable though, which was a tad disappointing. This is probably just as much to do with everything being down side streets & signed in Chinese as it is with my enormous lack of the spirit of adverture. I effectively became a scowling cardigan scowling its way right through one of the world's major cities & back again. Just the iPod, a very quiet public holiday, some actual sunshine (albiet filtered through a cloud of sloooowly clearing skypoo - see last post), & the scowl I kept catching myself wearing.
So that was fun. End of that day, I decided to check out the roof 'garden' at the top of the complex I'm staying in. It's basically just a roof that's swept clean & has some outdoor furniture, which is nice enough I guess. So I dragged my book up & sat down for an after-dinner chill session. About three minutes into my chapter, I hear this almighty KABLAMMO which echoed like crazy off all the buildings around me. 'Gah Christ! We're under attack! Duck & cover!'. As I pitched out of my chair in some sort of spaz hybrid of a high speed one-legged stand & a dive almost hurling my book off the 32nd floor, I suddenly realised these were the Chinese New Year fireworks over Victoria Harbour. Lucky, as I really didn't want my last thoughts to be 'thanks for being on a roof during a bombing, dumbarse'. So for the next 20 full minutes, as my heart began to slow down again, I had front row seats to one of the best fireworks displays I've seen for years. Most city skylines look pretty at night with all the glass & lights & whatnot, but Honkers went bonkers tonight. There were lasers, there were fixed lights flashing up & down the skyscrapers, & over it all a constant dazzle of fireworks...Guess that shows how important the environment is to the SAR authorities... But seriously, this was really, really pretty. This display could have made Tennant Creek look beautiful. Although it probably also would have set it on fire & bankrupted the NT government. Would've looked great though.
Sorry everyone, I didn't get any video or photos as I didn't want to leave my vantage point to get my camera, but just believe me when I say you missed out & I didn't. But, being that this is the 21st century, it's been a whole half hour already, & technology has gone mad, there's already YouTube videos up. This one only captures the beginning of the show & it looks like it was taken from the Kowloon side, but it's still pretty cool. Also, shows how Chinese people really have a thing for the number 8. Enjoy.
Rad.
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