Entry Two: Day 3 to 6 (cont.)
Hong Kong
Bold words point at a picture on this page
Reclamation:
HK is constantly changing. When you have been here before you probably won't
be able to recognize all of the buildings. But what's even more puzzling
is that you won't even recognize streets. HK is growing by turning sea into
land. This is, what's called land reclamation. I don't understand the name:
these parts never belonged to the land - so how can you reclaim it? Anyway,
this constant change makes the city interesting and always worth coming
back. After June 1, 1997 it will be even more interesting to come back.
On that day, HK falls back under Chinese administration. As a visitor you
are constantly reminded of that fact. T-shirts, posters, and the small talk
over dinner are a permanent hint
of this never before witnessed change:
a fully developed Western part of the world falls into communist hands.
It will be interesting to see how this will change HK within the next five
to ten years.
South Side
The south side of the island HK has two "must-see" areas: Stanley
market and Aberdeen. In Stanley market you can very cheaply buy silk, leather,
T-shirts, watches, etc. And no matter what you buy: everything is "5
for 100", which means "as long as you take more than one we'll
give you a discount". And haggling abilities will help you there as
well. Mine did not particularly help me because I seem to lack them completely
or I just looked like
easy prey for the salesmen and women.
Aberdeen is where one can find the famous floating restaurants, which I only looked at from far away because everyone said they are too touristic and I try to
see things off the beaten track. On the other side of the bay, though, I
found something truly amazing: the boat people of Aberdeen. Several hundred
people live on small boats in the harbor of Aberdeen. Even though the government
has tried to relocate them to land, some have stayed there and try to make
a living by fishing or selling boat tours around the harbor. Some of the
houses are not only small but also look like they are going to sink any
minute. In addition, the water does not strike me as particularly
clean. I was once told that if you fall into the Aberdeen harbor
that you won't get healthy again throughout your entire life - after seeing
it, I totally believe that. One indicator are the public bathrooms which are just small wooden attachments
to boats without a floor - any more explanation necessary?
Next to the boat people you can find an amazing fishmarket where tons of fish are brought in by fishermen, then stored, counted, weighed, and finally shipped to the restaurants. Not being a expert with fish, I can just tell you I saw a ton of different ones (that was precise, huh?).
Dinner
Yesterday night some local friends of mine invited me to dinner to Sai Kung
(east part of Kowloon) to a restaurant called Tung Kee. Without locals you
would not only be unable to find it, but you would not be able to order either.
The reason is that you actually don't order in the restaurant. The patrons
have to go to the nearby fish-market and buy their food themselves. My friends
bought some fish, crabs, shrimps, and a lobster. Now if you are weak at
heart you should not read on because what follows is a truly cruel way of
killing an animal. When they ordered the lobster our salesperson took a
50cm long lobster out of the aquarium, showed it to us, my friends nodded,
and then someone put the lobster on a side-table and chopped it in half.
He started with the tail and worked his way up to the head. With one swing
he split the head in two.
What I am concluding though is that the lobster
still lived until his head was split. It took about 5 to 8 seconds from
the tail to the head until it was parted. Unfortunately I have to admit
two things: it was a truly amazing view and secondly the lobster was delicious.
The whole dinner was outstanding. Thus if you can live with the idea of
having your food right after it died - go for it, it's definitely worth
it. Even though my friends would not let me pay, they told me that it was
not overly expensive - not for HK anyway.
"Tai Kag"
Remember from my first entry when I told you about the close landing of
planes on the airport of HK. On the bottom of this page are two pictures that prove what I said.
View:
Here you can download a 180 degree picture
that I shot. It is the view from the Star Ferry pier in Tsim Sha Tsui of
the Hong Kong skyline. The pictures has about 100k. If you have the time,
it is worth looking at it.
Today it's Wednesday, June 12. And I'm leaving Hong Kong for Singapore.
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