Absolute Mediocrity in Hong Kong

January 31st 2009

The rest of my time in Shanghai was pretty relaxed. I was hanging out with Yannick, Cornell's roommate, a lot because he is self-employed and so can work from home. Very nice guy. His current existence seems to revolve around a few hours work and then many more hours of leisure: books, dvds, occasional massage or walk around the city, completed with an evening of relaxed dinner and drinks with the good expats of Shanghai. He says its only a temporary thing, but it's one heck of way to spend your time, if only temporarily.

Cornell and I went old Nihon school for a couple evenings and went to play darts at a local Japanese bar. Of course I didn't want to show up my host, so I let him win most of the time. I did win a game now and again for the sake of appearances, just enough to sooth my ego... With a mug of a Asahi draft in hand, it really was a little slice of good old Wakayama.

Saturday morning (1/24) saw me up at crack of five bloody thirty to catch the metro to the maglev to the airport for my 7:45 flight to Hong Kong. The maglev was a pretty cool ride: a German-engineered 300km/hr speed machine that brings you 30km in about 7 minutes. Unfortunately the platform exits were not engineered by the same German; at the terminus there was one single escalator and no stairs for all one thousand passengers trying to rush to their planes.

The only hiccup at the airport was the suspicious interrogation I got for my deodorant. I had two sticks of Old Spice in my bag and the security guard took them out and shook them above his head: “What is this?! What is this?!” I took the cap off, took a big dramatic sniff and made the appropriate gestures under my arm. He seemed unconvinced but another guard cut him off and let me go. I'm sure there's a lesson there...

As you may have guessed from the title, when I finally got to Hong Kong my week was pretty mediocre. Which isn't to say that Hong Kong itself is mediocre, or that the people are mediocre, but rather that what I accomplished in 6 days seemed rather mediocre compared to what might have been.

My new home in Hong Kong's Tsim Sha Tsui, Traveler's Friendly Hostel, could not have been further from its namesake or the luxury I'd experience in Shanghai. I've stayed in many a shabby place on several different continents, but this place takes the cake as the hands down worst hostel of all time. It would be difficult and tiresome to explain in all it's painful glory just how dilapidated this place was, but I'll give you some more of the so-pitiful-its-humorous hi-lights.

My room, Room 27 with the yellow door, was a six-bunk dorm room. The beds literally shook so from my top bunk I swayed violently when I or anyone else moved. In stead of lockers, a large portion of our room was stacked high with cardboard boxes filled with toilet paper. The quarrelsome, warlike staff would enter without knocking to retrieve some required TP at all hours, usually not acknowledging our presence or locking the door again behind them. I suppose they were upset at having all these foreigners in their utility closet. A few unlucky visitors who had booked a bed ahead of time but arrived late in the afternoon found themselves relegated to the new “7th bunk” of our room, namely the tile floor, for which they received no discount or apology. I suppose it was better than the twelve-bunk room, which was actually just a hallway with beds in it.

I beg of you not to have me relive the horrors of contained in that cesspool they called a washroom/shower.

The list goes on. Alone I may not have stood a chance, but united through our common adversity, my bunkmates and I overcame these hardships and had a good time. In the mix was Chris, the relaxed and intelligent med student from Florida; Dani, Iowa party girl extraordinaire teaching in northern China; Eveline, a.k.a. Dutch, the sweet-as-only-the-Dutch-can-be student from Beijing; and Jessica, the internet-addicted Canadian teenager with a Danish boyfriend (I seriously heard enough about this guy to name him as a good acquaintance; he must be a patient man). The five of us partied pretty hard the first 3 or 4 nights, hence my utter failure to accomplish anything culturally stimulating in Hong Kong. As the days passed Chris, Dani, and Eveline were replaced by Dave the pregnant Brit (inexplicably sick every morning, yet never drank a drop of alcohol), and Mike the comedic Scotsman (I'm pretty sure humor a prerequisite for citizenship, anyway).

There were some other one-day friends who I only encountered briefly, such as Asser the German. Poor guy came into this room of six where the five of us were already well and good into the game. We rolled back in at 5am one morning with all the delicacy of a prison riot. Asser took it in stride, though we invited him to hang out the next day he either declined or disappeared. One day he said he was off to the Macau casinos and that's the last I saw of him. The last replacement friend of note was Joseph from New York, though he insisted he was there to represent China. I hate to be the one to propagate stereotypes, but this guy fit the bill for craziest foreigner on the mainland, within and without. Joseph rocked waist-length dreads and a beard to match, brown teeth (top left center missing), several layers of brown pants and sweaters (may or may not have been original color) and, well, his hands being the only piece of actual person visible, nothing pretty to look at. Now you can chide me for judging someone on appearances, but I made an honest effort to accept people as they come, as is necessary in the backpacker life. Joseph, however, oscillated between scary and batshit crazy. Here are some of Joseph's pearls of wisdom:

“Lung cancer is good for you.” (after our repeated denials to his requests to smoke in the room)
“So you support Al Qaeda?” (in response to some poor Japanese girl admitting she was an Islamic Studies student)
“I only watched the inauguration to see Obama get shot, like the NSA did to Kennedy.” (no instigation, just crazy talk)

Weird guy. Added tension. Didn't like it. Needless to say, I kept my stuff a little closer and slept a little lighter that last night in good old Room 27.

Party as we did, Hong Kong wasn't an entire bust. We saw the parade and the fireworks on the first two days of new year. There was a light show at the pier the first night. I got to the first half of the Hong Kong Historical Museum and a random Kung Fu show in Kowloon Park. The best bit though was at the end of the week I went to Lantau Island with Jess and Mike to see the largest outdoor Buddha in the world on top of the mountain. It was big. Sadly it was a bit foggy so the photos weren't so hot, but it was nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong. Also on Lantau was the monastery connected to the Buddha and a short walk away was the Path of Wisdom, tall tree planks arranged in an infinite sign and inscribed with the Heart Sutra. And yes, I do feel wiser having walked it.

Random side note: yes, I have about a bajillion pictures of all this stuff I've been writing about, but no I don't have a good way of uploading it. I was able to download Picasa, which is what I usually use, but after the initial install it isn't recognizing any new files I put on the computer. Yes, I've done the regular troubleshooting but it's still bugged. I am beginning to regret having gotten Linux with this thing. If anyone can suggest any Linux compatible alternatives, I'm all ears.

Til next time...