Hong Kong Island

Day 56 - 20/07/2010 - 23:01 - Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong

So we've had our first full day here and I must admit, I've not made my mind up on whether I like the place or not on what we've seen so far.

Several things really annoy me about Hong Kong such as the downright stupid fines that you can receive, and what stupid things they label illegal. Examples: eating and drinking on the metro. Eating I can do with, but somewhere so hot and stuffy, to ban drinking on the underground and have a fine of £150 for it is stupid beyond belief. With regard to the latter, "Illegal photo taking". They actually encourage people to report others whom take photos in metro stations. Completely bonkers. I saw someone take a photo of an advert in the metro today and jokingly said quite loud "Oh my, report her, she's taking a photo". I don't know whether she heard me, but she ran off as soon as she took it and therefore was incredibly amusing.

Another problem I find is how unfriendly the place is to pedestrians - the cities (I don't know about the suburbs) seem like for cars only. Pavements will lead you around a corner and then disappear totally - the unoffical pavement is now an entrance to a tower, up to a second floor and a walkway in the sky. It felt bloody wierd walking into tower blocks just to use it as a walkway to a bridge. Tourists without a very good map (we've only got a basic one which shows a couple of walkways) will find it very confusing and annoying (like us). Unfortunately this trudging around looking for the entrance to the bridge over the road was often very difficult to find.

When you know where they are however, they are quite good and you can often skip mass parts of the city's roads either underground or on the 2nd floor of buildings, using bridges and pathways to get across. It feels like somewhere in a science fiction movie - 3 levels all of which feel like street level, which is quite cool I guess. We found it very easy to get back to the metro once we saw the sign earlier today, we entered the pathway from the Immigration tower of all places, which was around 3 blocks away from the metro stop. We went up to the second floor, then walked out onto a walkway over roads, sidestreets and in between towers. The second floor of those towers housed shops which were accessible from the walkway. Incredible really.

What we did do today though was visit Victoria peak on the steepest tram I've ever been on. The views were absolutely spectacular but the fact they'd built a tower on the part where you get the best view and charge you to look at the views from the least obscured bit of the building took the piss a bit. It was also absolutely scorching hot today (33 degrees and 70% humidty) and therefore, we really couldn't spend too long in the sun on a mountain. Never mind. I did however, take advantage of the tower and managed to get myself some portable MP3 speakers from one of the 3 gadget shops in the tower. One was selling this one type for 200 dollars (around £17.50) and we went to another to see if there was anything smaller/cheaper on offer. They only sold the same model but wanted 250 for it (£20). I said, that's pretty good (when she showed us the demo) but they are selling it for 200 upstairs. She looked at me shocked and quickly got a calculator out and put 180 onto it (£15). Deal. We can now listen to music together in our hotel, result.

We spent the peak of the afternoon heat (which seems to be from 3-5 in Shanghai and here) back at the hotel and headed out to go and see Stars Avenue (Hong Kong's version of the movie stars in Hollywood) and the laser/light show which takes place along the river bank every day at 8pm. Both were pretty good to be fair, although the laser light show was obviously incredibly Chinese and cheesy. Stars Avenue was also Chinese, although I recognised 4 of them on there - Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Chow Yun Fat.

We walked around a bit more, passing the 1881 Heritage an old colonial building which is now a very posh shopping mall before going for something to eat at a restaurant and coming back.

We are planning to go to Macau tomorrow but this afternoon I heard (from hotel reception) that there is a cyclone in the distance that MAY affect Hong Kong (it's mainly going to affect China between here and Vietnam, the outsides of the storm catching HK and VN). We'll see how bad it is tomorrow - there is a risk they could upgrade the cyclone warning system which was turned on today from 1 (possibility) to 3 (very strong winds/rain). I would like to see one, but I think I'd prefer to see Macau!