Ka-ching Kong
It’s a commercial monster of a city where the glitz and grit give a yin and yang balance to daily life
WITH the new Cathy Pacific non-stop route from Dublin to Hong Kong, the Pearl of the Orient is now a gateway to the East for travellers from Ireland. So, my annual winter escape to sunnier climes sees me touching down in
Hong Kong before heading to Vietnam.
I’d never really considered Hong Kong as a holiday destination, but with hasslefree flights from Dublin and cheap
A concrete jungle near to colonial mansions jars with me
onward travel to my Christmas destination of choice, Vietnam, I find myself spending four nights in the most visited and vertical city in the world.
My first venture with its verticalness occurs moments after I exit the airport express. Whilst looking for my hotel, I end up scaling a pavement so steep that it seems to stretch up and touch the mountains beyond. It’s like climbing a ladder without using your hands. My thighs are throbbing, my calfs are cramping, and my boyfriend is about to get it because it is clearly all his fault that we are lost.
How can it be that we are in one of the most densely populated places on the planet and there is nobody around to ask for directions? Just as we are about to perish on the peak a dog walker with a pack of pooches descends from the mountain mist. He points us in the right direction before enquiring “why didn’t you take the escalator?” I turn to Dave and through gritted teeth seeth “there’s an escalator”?
Said escalator schleps 85,000 people a day up and down the impossibly steeps streets of Hong Kong’s Central and Mid-Levels neighbourhood. It’s like a sushi conveyor belt, but for people. It is quite possibly my favourite thing in Hong Kong. After a long day pounding the pavements this leg lugger is a sole salvager. I just wish I had known about it before I arrived. Always do your homework, kids.
It’s these conveniences that make Hong Kong easy to navigate, meaning you can see a lot in a short amount of time. It’s rare to experience a city so exuberantly complex in such a geographically tiny package.
Yet, even though everything seems congested, there’s always a green space or peaceful place nearby. In fact, 40 per cent of Hong Kong is country parks and nature reserves.
For me, it is this balance that makes Hong Kong so compelling. It embodies the Chinese philosophy of yin and yang.
Neighbourhoods pulsate with Chinese and British traditions yet Hong Kong is addicted to change. The hyperactive city is fiercely cosmopolitan yet less than an hour away are traditional fishing villages.
WITH its English road signs and British highstreet stores it is comfortingly familiar yet still curiously strange. With its meld of Western and Asian, of natural, ancient and modern worlds Hong Kong, as a destination, has every- thing you could desire.
However, after a 12-hour flight and horrendous hike to our hotel, all that I desired was a decent meal.
Hyped as one of the world’s greatest food destinations we could have had dirt-cheap dim sum or a wallet-winching Michelin-star spread. We could have tried stinky tofu from the street venders or queued for hours for the best barbecue goose or traditional British afternoon tea or traditional Cantonese clay pot rice. But we decided to fully immerse ourselves in local food culture and eat at a ‘dai pai dong’ which is basically a on-street, outdoor restaurant.
As space is such a premium, you’ll most likely end up sharing a table “dap toi” with strangers, especially in more casual places. Cosying up to our fellow diners, we pointed to their plates when it came to ordering (English isn’t as widely spoken as we thought it would be).
When our dishes arrived, we couldn’t make out what we were eating and our dining experience was more autopsy than appetising. Thankfully, if this was our yin we found our yang the next day in Lan Fong Yuen.
Those in the know queue for hours to get a seat in this small cha chaan teng (breakfast place) but arriving at 10am on a Saturday, we were seated almost immediately.
We ordered the most famous dish, French toast which is deep fried and topped with butter and honey and has a layer of coconut custard (kaya) sandwiched between the toast.
This was accompanied by ‘silk stocking’ or ‘panyhose’ milk tea, so called because the long cloth bags in which the tea is made look like tights.
Systems quivering with sucrose, we leave the crowds of locals to join the crowds of tourists queuing to ride the Peak Tram which takes you to the top of Victoria Peak, the highest hill on Hong Kong Island.
The 131-year-old Peak Tram is the world’s steepest funicular railway and for those sitting on the righthand side there are showstopping views over the skyscrapers and Victoria Harbour. It really is peak tram. The near vertical ride is like the slow and steady climb of a roller coaster just before it goes over the edge.
At the summit, we skip the crowded observation deck and stroll along the tree-lined Lugard Road. After about ten minutes the trees give way to an unobstructed view across the harbour. We snap postcard-perfect photos and relish in the silence, and the lack of tourists.
The Peak Tram is a very British way to reach the top, but the public bus is a very local way to reach the bottom. This ride is like the freewheeling part of the rollercoaster, you know, the bit when your life flashes before your eyes. Hold on tight and keep your limbs inside at all times.
The next day, we take the modern metro to the waterfront were we board the historic Star Ferry, which has been transporting passengers across Victoria Harbour since 1888. Apparently, it is one of the ‘Top 10 Most exciting Ferry Rides’, but whoever complied that list really needs to get out more. What it is, is an inexpensive way to see the harbour and a quick way to get from Hong Kong Island to Kowloon.
Over on Kowloon, we gawk at the luxury shoppers dressed head to toe in Gucci clutching Chanel bags as they queue outside Hermes and Pucci to buy more desirables and matching outfits for their pampered pooches.
IN contrast, just a stones throw away are the cheap and colourful Ladies Market and Temple Street Night Market where these designer divas haggle over the price of flowers, meat, fruit and veg and the tourists stock up on gadgets and knock-off versions of those covetable handbags.
We skip the queues at the Peninsula Hotel - no scone is worth a two-hour wait - and have afternoon tea in the Sheridan, which is served 18 storeys high and comes with marvellous views across Victoria Harbour.
Of course, this glitzy side is balanced with a gritty side and the conspicuous consumption is in sharp contrast to the appalling poverty. A visit to Montane Mansion (as seen in the movie Transformers) exemplifies the over crowding and housing crisis facing a huge percentage of the population. This is the real meaning of a concrete jungle and it’s an uncomfortable juxtaposition to the spacious colonial mansions on Lugard Road.
I find Hong Kong to be full of these jarring extremes - sophistication and squalor, beauty and ugliness. It feels shambolic and ever-so-louche but for visitors, it offers some of the world’s best shopping, dining and high-life experiences.
For me though, Hong Kong was too familiar, too easy. It felt like Asia lite. Having flown 10,000km away from home, I wanted to experience somewhere different and exotic. Boarding my flight to Vietnam, I had no idea just how different things would get…