Hong Kong Day 3 – Victoria Bay

Day 3 – Sunday, 18th January 2009

I woke up at about 9 or 10am – I couldn’t be bothered to check the time, after the insane rush tour yesterday through HK plus the bit where we got ‘scammed’ quite a bit of our money, I’d prefer to relax as much as I could. My breakfast consisted of the previous day’s dimsum leftovers (IIRC) which I ate in our hotel room, before we set off on our own free-and-easy day at nearly 11am.

That blue store looks strangely like Guardian (including the logo), which was named differently here..

One of the most efficient things about Hong Kong is its pedestrian crossing and the traffic lights for pedestrians are incredibly timely – namely you don’t have to wait for a long time before you are allowed to cross. Unlike Malaysia where zebra crossings are severely limited and the pedestrian traffic lights work on the opposite side of the spectrum compared to Hong Kong’s, you can safely walk all over the city.. if not for the insane crowds at certain ‘hot spots’ of the city.

I asked a tour guide on the first night when we arrived whether there’s any free WiFi hotspots available, and he told me about 7-Eleven and public telephone booths. I saw a few free WiFi signs for 7-Eleven (although how I’m going to go online discretely on my laptop in 7-Eleven is left to be seen..), and for this phone booth, I saw further proof of what my tour guide had mentioned.

People queueing up.. reasons for which I don’t know – warehouse sale??

We spent a good part of our time walking, walking, and walking. It gets incredibly bothersome with my tiresome, heavy camera bag (I need to do something about this next time, especially – hopefully – when I go to New Zealand end of this year) that seemed like it’s going to crush my spine. We seemed to be walking around aimlessly until my dad announced that we would go to the Flower Market Street, but not before we stopped by at a restaurant for lunch.

The first time where I drank warm sugar cane juice – Hong Kong was supposed to be cold, but it wasn’t that cold that particular day so drinking something warm made no sense.

We finally arrived at the Flower Market Street after our lunch, where, as usual, there was a huge crowd (not as huge as the Women’s Market though) purchasing flowers. We also managed to listen to a female seller in her 40s who was spilling a colourful tirade of words to other sellers about a customer who, apparently, “want the best, ask many things, yet want the cheapest at the same time”. Two of our tour guides yesterday from both the day tour and the night tour gave conflicting comments about the sellers’ manners, with the latter tour guide detailing to us how rude they could be and there were even public service advertisements for these sellers to be more polite, while the former mentioned that the sellers weren’t as rude as before. After listening first-hand to an incessantly rude, demeaning seller, this is why I wouldn’t want to shop in Hong Kong’s markets.

We then went to a particular gated area selling birds, and I managed to snap this parrot that was on display in the open.

Another look of said bird.

Most of the birds were in cages, and many old men prowled throughout the grounds with said cages.

We then returned towards the Flower Market Street, ready to make our way to Tsim Sha Tsui. I was fairly amazed to see a congregation of Chinese people walking everywhere.. something I’m not used to seeing after living in Malaysia for 20 years.

Mandarin oranges on sale.

Our first time taking the subway – the train was longer than Malaysia’s LRT and it could fit quite a number of people, something that the appropriate Malaysian authorities should really look into upgrading. Even though we had to stand, it wasn’t that uncomfortable as we arrived at our destination just a few minutes later – plus although it was crowded, we weren’t packed like in a sardine can.

At the garden near Sogo where my bro and I had an argument with my mum – nothing entirely serious because everything went back to normal about 20 minutes later wtf.

And speaking of Sogo, I was quite exhausted after lugging around what felt like a bag of bricks (my mistake), and while waiting for my parents to finish window-shopping at Burberry, seeing no seats around, I proceeded to squat to rest – my first time ever sitting down after walking around for 4-5 hours straight, excluding the lunch time. A security guard then approached me and told me not to squat WTF – no signs disallowing squatting could be spotted within my immediate vicinity. It’s all quite mind-boggling really ‘cause I definitely don’t look like a beggar, plus I see nothing wrong with squatting if seats weren’t provided for people to sit (did I infringe on a certain royal decree outlawing squatting?), and it wasn’t as if Sogo was a very high-class area anyway. -__- I shot back asking, very tired and pissed, where I could sit then, and he answered politely in Canto, “You may sit downstairs there, welcome, welcome” wtf.

The Peninsula Hotel – it’s supposedly very high-class, and many VIPs and celebrities would bunk in there, although I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary with the exterior.

My bro making friends with an Indian man (literally from India, working in HK) after asking for his help to snap pics (as opposed to me making friends with a Chinese man the day before wtf). They too exchanged phone numbers, and my question on whether we’d really call/text each other remains. (This pic was snapped in front of the Hong Kong Space Museum, which was also near the Hong Kong Cultural Centre.)

An ice-cream van.

The setting sun at Hong Kong island.

Mum and dad against the backdrop of the Tsim Sha Tsui Clock Tower.

Sunset descending on Hong Kong. It’s quite relaxing to be hanging out at Victoria Bay, simply walking around at the raised platform near the clock tower while enjoying the cooling breeze and the view – now this is what I call a true holiday, rather than rushing from one place to another trying to see as many places as possible.

At Harbour City mall, where I discovered a free WiFi hotspot and got onto it pretty quickly on my Touch Pro.

The Chinese New Year decoration.

We then tapau-ed McDonald’s nearby to eat at Victoria Bay while enjoying the night view once again – it starts to get pretty dark at about 6.30pm-ish, and this pic was snapped at nearly 7.

Zooming in on the buildings. I thought the lights used to outline a particular building on the left was pretty nifty.

Another few lighted up buildings – too lazy to correct the orientation of this pic (and subsequent ones) ‘cause it’ll just reduce the size of the pic.

We initially didn’t intend to stay for the Symphony of Lights, but since we were already there.. we stayed and watched through it once again. Unlike yesterday, today’s narration was done solely in Cantonese, as opposed to a mixture of Canto, Mandarin, and English, for some reason. There was also a crowd of photographers who were there snapping away with prepared tripods and other tourists feasting their eyes on the show.

The dancing lights.

During the Symphony of Lights where I was standing right in front of the railing, a Chinese woman next to me kept spelling the name of the buildings, for example HITACHI, and then mispronounce it as High-ta-chi hahahaha whilst she asked her family members around her if that pronunciation was correct (no, they didn’t know). The dad answered that it’s called Ri4 (日本的日) Li4 in Chinese.

As we were walking around looking for a way out, I saw a somewhat mixed-looking spectacles-wearing Chinese dude who was swarmed by these two Cantonese-speaking girls who asked to take a photo with him, which came as no surprise as he did look kinda cute in a slightly nerdish way. They were surprised to find out that he was a 中国人 (Chinese national).

We took the MTR back to Yau Ma Tei station, and then walked for about 5 minutes before reaching our hotel. My parents decided to stay out and walk around, so I went back to the hotel room with my bro and indulged myself in a cosy bathtub and typing a bit on my laptop before deciding to walk around myself at the Men’s Street nearby at 11pm sans my bag and camera – felt pretty liberating to be walking around on my own, observing the wares on sale. Would’ve also bought a Baby Milo tee (the cloth used felt pretty good in quality) if not for the fact that I don’t have a single Hong Kong dollar note on me, I was quoted HKD59 (~RM30) for a tee, which could be bargained for even lower methinks.

The little stroll I had was fantastic – I discovered a throng of sex shops near the park (which would give the Men’s Street a whole new meaning..), and as I walked and encircled the area, found even more fortune telling stalls set up, some with hilarious wordings like “can speak good English!” or something to that effect. My parents told me that the one of the stall owners at Men’s Street told them that business wasn’t good as it was pretty quiet as of late, probably no thanks to the economic crisis.

Our last night at Hong Kong drew to a quiet close.