Tuesday, March 31, 2009

The First Bit – Hong Kong

Hey folks, we've been gone a bit over 6weeks so far, and had a kinda interesting time of it already...

From Sydney we went to Hong Kong, where we'd planned to spend a while working to raise a bit of much-needed cash - well, that was the plan anyway... We hopped from one hotel to the next, found on el cheapo last-minute type websites, finally moving for two weeks to a host family's home in the far NW (Ha Che Village, near the Chinese border). Brit Neil and Filipina Marjorie are very nice, but have a fairly spoilt, shitty 2 1/2 year old little primadonna named Charlotte. While it is a good bit cheaper than the hotels, the kid's ranting tanties drove us crazy.

The only place we got any respite from the maddening crowd was on the side of a wild ridge facing the woop-woop village we found ourselves in towards then end of our stay. From our spot an hour's walk up the track we could just make out the house, and really enjoy 'the serenity'.

Finding work and somewhere to live turned out a bit harder than imagined, and of course the day after we finally gave up and booked a flight to Bangkok, I was offered a few interviews – bloody Murphy... Anyway, most of them aren't hiring until Sept, and one of them sounded rather promising so maybe after Beijing in August....

The shopping in HK proved quite adequate. I'm a ruthless haggler when the need arises, so Gaby picked up a great digital SLR Camera kit for a reasonable price, and I got funky new toy computer on which to write my book, watch films, and maybe run the GPS. On each occasion we left the salesman kinda bewildered and almost relieved that we were about to leave him alone...

Rather bravely, only a day or two after we got there, Gaby one day took a trip out into town on her own, only to find the rush-hour pedestrian traffic a bit intimidating, causing her to feel like returning to the relative calm of our shoebox, though even with a map it took her an hour to cover the 5-minute walk from the metro to the hotel.

Here`s a dodgy google translation of what Gaby had to say about HK:

What's left to say: On every street there are at least 2 Seven-Eleven or wellcome markets, MACD is on every street corner, skyscrapers everywhere, old vs. new, there are dried Chinese streets for plants, fungi and animals ( eg, seahorses, abalone or ox penis), electronics and apparel streets anyway, art / antique area (next to the ancient wood carvings also bezoars, antelope horns or offer Elephantenstoßzähne) and night markets. Not to forget the flesh-quarters, then also times where the meat hangs out all day, where you also do not know what animal was the times - maybe cat or dog? Incidentally, 10-dog-dick-soup should be quite tasty. Had I not already a vegetarian, I would be here. Fish and crabs are looking at the restaurant itself - so no more seafood. I will probably still thousands of things forgotten ... but I think you just have to see themselves.

PS: Yesterday evening, we have after a long back and forth, ultimately by finally, about a digital SLR camera to enrich. Thanks to David's good negotiating skills, we have paid less than in Germany or America, and still have a very good Manfrotto Tripods to get.

Sightseeing & Culture-wise, we saw one and a half temples, popped up Victoria Peak and enjoyed just looking around. The pics say it way more eloquently than li'l ole me, so check out our pics...

1 comment:

JEQP said...

How's the serenity?

Bezoars, eh? You can get anything there...