As told by me

Having resisted for a solid 28 hours, it was time for a little shopping. A conscious decision had been made a couple of weeks ago to leave a few essential items to be bought here, on the basis that I’d probably be unable to resist buying something, and a suspicion that it was likely to be cheaper here anyway. This was now quite problematic, however, as I simply don’t have any room in my deliberately smallish pack. The core of the problem is that while a commitment had been made to travelling as light as possible, thus far that commitment extended only as far as not buying a large backpack. It’s therefore clear that a major cull is going to have to occur before the ‘real’ travelling begins in a couple of weeks (sorry Mum but that will inevitably involve one more parcel heading your way).

With that problem in the back of my mind, and after gobbling down some takeaway noodles in Kowloon Park, I set off in search of a few items of clothing and some sandals. It appears that the sandals are going to be a problem, with it being winter and all now (plenty of ski gear for sale though) – so they may have to wait for Vietnam. Clearly I should have grabbed that lovely pair at the Ecco shop in Mälmo all those weeks ago.

Anyway, as I was heading back to the Guesthouse having secured my desired second pair of pants (as in trousers) and a long-sleeved shirt, as well as a couple of travel gadgets I really don’t need, I was accosted by a small group of primary school children and their young teacher, who were performing a tourist survey as an exercise for improving their English. The boy whose turn it was to ask the questions did a pretty good job, despite the overeager attention of his teacher who ended up snatching the pen off him when he kept writing “R” instead of “L”. In spite of this we got through the survey easily enough, and it was deemed a great success – either I was their first catch of the day or they were just enormously enthusiastic but it really doesn’t matter. As I was being showered in thanks, one of the girls slapped a red love heart sticker on my shoulder and then they all skipped off together, clapping their hands and shouting “yay!!” It was a joyous moment and is an early contender for the moment of the trip competition.

Around dusk, I ventured out to the Temple Street Night market, where I picked up what appears to be a genuine (or at least a very good fake) Quiksilver cap for the princely sum of HK$30 (£2.70), and had some stir-fried chilli and black bean clams and another plate of pork with noodles (I thought this might be one to challenge Speedy Noodle, but sadly not. The search continues).

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Hong Kong November 2008

After waking at 4am and reading a chapter of my new book, tried to sleep some more before accepting the futility of fighting my body clock. Got up, had a shower and was out onto an almost deserted Nathan Road by 6.45am, heading for the Peak Tram, across the harbour in Central (a short 5 minute ride on the MTR). As I was making my way up to the Tram station (it’s really a funicular but whatever), and having stopped to take a few architectural shots in the early morning light, I realised that the battery on my camera was about to die. I know it’s not all about the photos, but knowing the view from the Peak would be amazing and that I’d need to take some, I forlornly retraced my steps, cursing my lack of preparation, especially as I had had the foresight to purchase a spare battery, just not to carry it with me. Anyway, it was something of a pleasant surprise to find that my spare battery was in fact fully charged, so I turned around and headed back across the harbour for the third time in 30 minutes. By this point (7.20am), the train was surprisingly busy, and I spent most of the journey watching a young schoolgirl’s fingers dance across the keypad of her phone as she furiously texted her mates using chinese characters (none of that predictive text malarkey here).

It was a short walk up the hill to the Tram station and I was soon heading up the hill, accompanied by four other passengers, two of whom got off at one of the midway stations. The track, especially in the middle section, is absurdly steep (like literally 45 degrees) and I suspect I wasn’t the first person to wonder just how strong that cable is (the Lonely Planet reassuringly notes that it’s never had an accident in its 100 year + history).

At the top, I was greeted by an empty centre (save for the solitary security guard) and was glad that I hadn’t paid the extra for the viewing platform, as it didn’t open for another 90 minutes. I therefore headed outside into the very fresh morning air and started walking down a very pleasant looking road, which turned out to have amazing views south and west over Hong Kong Island, enhanced by the morning sun, which was still to crest the hills.

The view to the south

The view to the east

As I kept walking, the helpful signs informed me that this was the Morning Trail, which, as the name suggests, is a perfect place for one’s morning constitutional. The trail (technically a road, as the one car that squeezed past me sought to prove) continues for about 3km around the south, west and north sides of the peak, holding mostly on to one contour line though with a gentle uphill section as you approach the Tram terminus on the north side. There are truly stunning views to be had at almost every point on the trail, framed by the sub-tropical forest and the air is cool and clear, including:
- the view over Central to Kowloon

- the view east over Wan Chai.

It has to be one of the great scenic walks in the world and it was a very uplifting start to the day.

Next item on the agenda was to upgrade my accommodation, so I headed back to Mirador Mansions to try my luck with another Guesthouse. On the second attempt, I found a nice single room on the floor below with reasonably highspeed wireless internet and a functioning powerpoint in the room. I suspect the TV even works. All of this for HK$20 less than I was paying upstairs, and it’s even got a view down Nathan Road and across the harbour!

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Hong Kong November 2008

Despite being a little hungover and with a screwed up body clock, I easily found my way to the A21 bus, with Octopus card (the original stored value card, apparently) in hand and set off for Kowloon. A quite scenic forty minutes or so later, I found myself on Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui – a major tourist/tout hangout where I was heading for the Mirador Mansions, an apartment block in which there are a number of cheap Guesthouses – really just apartments that have been imaginatively subdivided. Mirador is just up the road from the infamous (but even cheaper) Chungking Mansions but that sounded a little too hardcore for me. I got a small twin room with shared bathroom for HK$200 (£18) which will do fine for tonight though I believe there is a better option a few floors down that I will check out tomorrow.

I’ve always considered myself pretty adaptable, which is just as well as I went from First Class to grotty guesthouse in about 90 minutes!

After settling in, I wandered down to the ferry terminal (about four blocks away) and caught the Star Ferry across to Central (the CBD on Hong Kong Island). By the time we arrived, my body clock had decided that, as it believed it to be 4am, it was going to start shutting things down. I therefore wandered in something of a daze along the (thankfully) well signposted walkways to the MTR station and caught the train back to TST. I went straight up to my room and slept from about 12.30 to after 6.00, which was, of course, precisely the wrong thing to do in terms of overcoming jet lag.

Anyway…I finally got up after dark and set off to explore the streets of TST. I found my way down to the waterfront again, just in time to watch the ‘Symphony of Light’, an impressive nightly light and laser show featuring most of the tall buildings on both sides of the harbour. I took a few photos but left after about 10 minutes as there’s only so many different ways you can light up a building, even when you’ve choreographed it all to very kitsch music. A bit more wandering around TST found me at a little restaurant where I had BBQ pork with noodles and chinese broccoli with oyster sauce, which was very pleasant, if nothing special. At this point, a fruitless search for a free wi-fi connection began, including a visit to Starbucks and culminating in the last half hour sitting here next to the lift, trying to connect to the hostel router which is emitting such a weak signal that it can’t hold a connection long enough to actually load a web page. Anyway, I need to charge my phone and my laptop and this is the only place with a functioning powerpoint. It’s after 11 though and I think I could make myself sleep now so I’m going to call it a day. With some luck, I’ll be able to post this, and some photos, in the morning.

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Hong Kong November 2008

So, after a sharp left turn at the front of the plane, we find ourselves in seat 1A, right up the sharp end, under the cockpit, and with almost the same viewpoint. After a couple of glasses of champagne whilst waiting for the great unwashed down the back to sort themselves out, we pushed back and taxied off for the runway. Apparently the rules about stowing all your stuff for take-off and landing don’t apply up here in the pointy end. I figure that they therefore either have some amazing inertial dampeners which were acquired through the Stargate, or those rules are, like most rules on planes, simply designed to keep the plebs in line.

After a brief, almost teary moment as we turned onto the runway, we were away. We flew straight over Windsor Castle (why did they build the castle that close to the airport?) and then, just as Slough hove into view, the clouds intervened, and that was the end of my time in the UK.

2 hours out from Heathrow now and the world is starting to feel really fine (soundtrack = Stone Roses). The two glasses of Heidsieck champagne were lovely, but, and I hesitate to say this lest I be branded a phillistine, it tasted faintly of sick. Maybe it was the almonds or the young black olives that came with it. Anyway, nevermind as I’ve moved on to the Delatite ‘Deadman’s Hill’ Gewurztraminer, which is lovely. I’m trying to avoid Asian food, until I’m actually in Asia (the three trips to Speedy Noodle in Brixton in the last 20 days notwithstanding – more on that later), so I shall be enjoying the following for lunch:
- salad of fennel, cucumber & relish with Loch Fyne smoked salmon
- seared halibut with olive, garlic & basil crusted with braised silverbeet & peperonata
- side salad of rocket, red chard, mizuna & baby spinach with aged balsamic & extra virgin olive oil

Lunch was pretty good, though the halibut was way overcooked. I can’t imagine how difficult it is to cook proper food on an aeroplane though, so I won’t be too critical. Anyway, I won’t bore you with intimate details of the rest of the flight other than to say I wish I had room to keep the lovely pyjamas and various toiletries that they throw in. I was also very impressed with the toilet – huge by plane standards and with a window and all.

So is First Class worth it? Well the service was excellent and they obviously put a lot of thought and effort into making it a very pleasant experience, but to be honest it was a bit lost on me. Sure, having a flat bed with actual sheets to sleep in was lovely, and I suppose if I’d been going all the way to Melbourne it would have made a bigger difference, but I would have been pretty happy further down the back.

Anyway, it only cost me £235.20 (plus a pile of points) so I’m not complaining.

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Europe November 2008, Hong Kong November 2008

Monday was relatively uneventful.  The shipping company came to pick up my boxes to ship them (hopefully safely & dryly) back to Melbourne, where they should arrive sometime before I do.  I had a lovely lunch with my aunty Ann in Fulham, then popped into town to pick up some Hong Kong dollars and to do some last minute shopping.  I then headed over to Acton to stay with Suze & Mat.  I hadn’t occurred to me at the time but they came to stay with me when they first moved to London, so there was a certain symmetry in them having me to stay for my last night in London.

This morning began with a short tube ride, out past my former workplace (hi guys!) to Terminal Four, which since BA moved out, is very quiet.  I therefore didn’t really get to appreciate the benefit of checking in at the First Class desk, nor of the personal escort through security to the lounge.  Anyway, it was all very nice even though the Qantas woman was very apologetic that they’d closed the proper First Class lounge so I would have to slum it with the Business Class plebs.  Oh well.  It’s not like I paid much for the ticket.  I had thought I would look like a grotty backpacker with my travel gear on (to be fair, I’m not actually grotty, yet), but in fact, apart from the smattering of suits, I’m one of the better dressed patrons today – there are surprisingly quite a few pairs of cheap-looking tracksuit pants around.

Anyway, I’m going to go for a wander around the terminal and will try very hard to not buy anything.  Then I will head down the airbridge and take a sharp left turn before settling into seat 1A – it’s pretty empty up the pointy end of the plane today, apparently – I suppose all those fat rich people that normally fly First are too busy watching their share portfolios tumbling off a neverending series of cliffs.  Oh well – all the more Moet for me!!

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Europe November 2008

Not surprisingly, Saturday started very gently, and quite late. Well, for Charlie and I at least. Poor AnnaKarin had dragged herself off to the airport for an early flight home to Stockholm for a weekend of hungover childminding.

After some bacon & eggs, and some closed-eye time, Charlie eventually persuaded me off the couch and down to Churchill’s – one of Brussels’ English pubs, to watch the Australia v England rugby game from Twickenham. Unfortunately, Belgium is yet to ban smoking indoors, and the clientele was making the most of it. This wasn’t making life any easier for me and I gently nursed a couple of lemonades down as the Wallabies slowly overcame England, much to my relief.

Meanwhile, Charlie’s mate Ben had shown up, with two workmates (Caroline & Jen) who were in town for the weekend. We proceeded to acquaint ourselves, over a couple of beers (I’m still on the lemonade) before setting off for dinner. After a hearty traditional Belgian beef stew, I was starting to feel a little more human and even managed a class of red wine. Ben, by this point, was getting excited about Karaoke. Somehow, he managed to talk us all into it (actually I think the girls were pretty keen all along) and after a heated argument in French with a taxi driver, who refused to take us, we found our way on foot to “The Karaoke Bar”, a hole in the wall which proved, over the course of the evening, to be only meeting part of the demand for Karaoke in downtown Brussels on a saturday night in November.

This turned out to be a lot of fun and I was seen in stage some four times, all of which were eminently forgettable, except for the rendition of My Way, which I’m assured was actually decent. I shall be sticking with Sinatra exclusively, from now on.

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Europe November 2008

With my final day at work out of the way, I set off for St Pancras to catch the Eurostar to Brussels to see my cousin Charlie. This was a trip that I’d been feeling a little ambivalent about, as I’d seen him and his girlfriend AnnaKarin the weekend before (for his actual birthday) and there were a few people in London that I hadn’t had a chance to see. I’d actually booked the trip some months ago when I thought I’d be sticking around to the end of November and had never really intended to spend my last weekend in London, not actually in London.

Anyway, a reasonably pleasant couple of hours later (a couple of quiet London Prides on the train) I was in a cab heading for a pub in the south of Brussels. I then arrived, to be ushered directly downstairs to the (rather musty) cellar, where proceedings were already underway. There were about two dozen people in attendance, learning some of the finer points of beer production in a combination of languages, primarily French, English & German. I counted representatives of seven EU states, some EC workers, some journalists, others working for variety of industry groups and NGOs. A friendlier bunch of people I have not met in a long time and I was quickly making friends, helped along by the fact that everyone else was already tasting their third beer, so I had a bit of catching up to do. Needless to say, my earlier misgivings about the trip were quickly forgotten.

After a couple more hours sampling some of Belgium’s finest beers, we had reached the end of the lesson. Some of the more sensible types then made a strategic exit and headed home. The rest of us headed into town.

I’ve heard a number of people suggest that Brussels is a boring town. They’ve clearly never been to Le Corbeau. I’m sure this is a reasonably civilised bar earlier on in the evening. By the time we got there it was packed, literally to the rafters, with dozens of people dancing on tables and downing foamy tankards of Stella. Being not normally a fan of either table dancing or Stella, I was a little hesitant at first, but was soon right amongst the action.

And then it happened, and I knew my time in Europe was complete. Singing Nena’s 99 Luftballoons (aka 99 Red Balloons) in the original German while dancing on a table in a bar in Brussels with a group of Germans, Swedes, some token Belgians and my English cousin was about as European experience as I am ever likely to have.

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Europe November 2008

And so here we begin. After many months of researching, planning and daydreaming (mostly the latter), the time has almost come for me to set off on what I hope will be a most excellent adventure.

Though I’m not actually leaving Europe until Tuesday, I finish work tomorrow and am off to Belgium for the weekend to see my cousin Chaz, so as far as I’m concerned, the adventure starts then.
With some luck we should have at least a couple of months of what I hope will be interesting, challenging, unusual and generally very Asian, experiences ahead of us.

I look forward to sharing these with you and anyone else that’s interested. Please feel free to leave comments where and when you feel inclined to do so. You will need to register to do so, but that should only take a sec.

cheers
jon

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Europe November 2008