Jet-lag(ged) confessions

I don’t know when I will be able to post this, but I’m writing anyway. It is now a bit to 5 a.m. on Jan. 17 and I am sitting in a hotel in Mongkok, which is a northern neighborhood in Kowloon. It is +20C but airconditioning is really effective. Have been trying to sleep for some time, but don’t really feel tired. Probably because I slept through the whole flight.

The flight was ok- but this is really the last time I will fly with Finnair! The plane was completely packed with 60+ aged men (most drunk; vodka, gin and brandy cost 4 euros a glass on the flight as was pointed out asap) flying for 1 month vacations to Pattaya. I did not bother with the details. Also: no own TV or choice of food!!! (*not so important*)
I had around 30 min in Bangkok, which was enough for walking once from one end of the airport to the other. I had to leave my boarding card when leaving the plane though and only got a blue plastic card saying “Finnair transfer, Nr. 13”, which was a bit suspicious. Anyway, I met Jussi, one of the two other Finns at HKUST who had been waiting for me there for 7 hours, and they let both of us back into the plane.
In Hong Kong we took a shuttle bus to our hotels. I almost missed my bus because the driver called for someone going to ‘Kankau’ which translates (when deleting the Chinese accent) to C-o-n-c-o-u-r-s-e Hotel. Well, I should have known that I guess!
The trip to the hotel took another 1.5 h (I was dropped off last) but I got there eventually. I was put on the VIP-floor (!) and given that it’s a bit shabby I don’t know what it says about the place in general…. Well, once the city wakes up –streets 9 floors down still seem really empty- I will be out of here!
But the general impression of the city is great! Before trying to sleep I wandered around a bit and I have to say: this place is totally crazy! Everything is high rise and one can only make out the approximate height by the silhouette of buildings created by lights in the apartments. Haven’t bothered to count the floors…. (after seeing the huge harbor and fields of containers beyond eyes reach with “little” 15-storey or so control towers every once in a while, it did not seem to make any sense to count). It looks all neat and nice from further away, but in the “canyons” between the houses it seems like organized chaos. Most of peoples’ stuff is hanging out of the windows and along air-conditioning units of various shapes, there are aquariums with lobsters and living shrimp on the sidewalk, traffic is crazy (left-side traffic but overtaking from any side), there are people everywhere; everyone is of course Asian and nobody speaks English (that I understand)! The city was completely alive when I got there at around 11 p.m. with people getting haircuts and everything buzzing from people and traffic. I went to one of these little restaurants which you can find in every street corner here to get some food. They are more like little rooms with some chairs and tables and a kitchen in the back, which is separated from the rest with a glass window. But you can’t really see anything inside cause of the steam coming out of the kitchen. Unfortunately all menus were in Chinese so I just picked something with vegetables. Which I got was something green (see picture below), which could be defined as some form of spinach-asparagus with a strong texture (like this vegetable which in German is called Sellerie). Interesting. (see picture on left)

I will now continue waiting for the city to awake and then find some coffee somewhere (hotel nights here do not include breakfast). Until then I will watch some more of this interesting Jianxia TV, MTV Asia (with European bands I’ve never heard of) or the StarWorld, a mixture of American entertainment (including Christian sermons and testimonials of god’s gory on earth) adapted to the Asian taste (I guess).

Lessons learned so far:

1. 
   Always take everything with two hands even if it is really unpractical. It does not matter whether it is a room key or green vegetable.
2. 
   Always listen carefully and try to use your imagination in eliminating the accent of anything said in (presumably) English.
3. 
   In a hotel room, you have to use your key card to put the electricity on by sticking it into some weird device. Otherwise the lights won’t work.
4. 
   Always smile and be patient even if you don’t have a clue about what’s going on (especially with cab drivers or others trying to sell you stuff).
   
   
   08:40 a.m. Jan. 17
   Just got back from my second “stroll” in Hong Kong. I left the hotel when it got light, around 7:30 a.m. It seems that this city is one which stays up late and also wakes up late. There was nobody on the streets until 7 a.m. and then at once as if some alarm had gone off, streets were suddenly crowded immediately after that. Have to find out if there is a specific reason for that. Also, stores open only at 10 a.m. or noon, which means everything before that consists of newspapers etc. sold on the street plus little Chinese kitchens selling indefinable foods.
   
   In my search for morning coffee (which I absolutely desperately need every morning) I passed two Mc Donald’s restaurants and found one Starbucks, and –I am ashamed- it was extremely tempting to go in and buy something recognizable. (Un-) Fortunately, Starbucks was closed, and I decided at that point that during my stay here, I will not set foot into any western chain nor eat western food, never, ever!!!! I will be difficult, I have noticed, since I did not manage to find any place selling coffee. Everyone seemed to be eating and drinking something though, but I had no clue what it was and from where they got it. I found bakeries selling minced pork/beef/tuna or pork-BBQ-buns, but decided that was too much for now. Can try it later on….I ended up with a bottle of KOwloon dairy milk (do not try it) and water.
   
   Other remarks I should make at this point before I forget: Hong Kong is geographically speaking really small. Or at least the centre (Kowloon side) is, since I managed to walk through half (measured by north-south distance) in 45min.
   And the city is really clean. This morning there were dozens of people cleaning one block and although equipment is really simplistic (wooden brooms, cleaners cloth themselves in old garbage bags, see picture), it seems to work.
   People are friendly, but just keep staring at me. And I keep staring back, I guess. There are not many non-Asians around- the “westerners” really stand out (and being one myself, I of course look for them too, since it gives you some security… I hope that will pass after some time). Or maybe it is just me?
   That’s all for now. Have to find a KCR station now and the apartment we rentd, which is somewhere between Hang Hau and Tseung Kwen O. And anyways, my battery is running out and I need to buy an adaptor somewhere….

Advertising and schoolgirls in uniforms (leftover from British rule) on Nathan Rd.