Hong Kong - Just a Few Photos, part 1

Here are just a few photos.

First what you really expect in Hong Kong: the waterfront with the buildings, the boats and the hills in the background. (note that also as you would expect the air is not very clear. On average the air in Hong Kong is four times more polluted than the air in New York and 20,000 people per day go to the doctor for respiratory problems related to the air pollution...this is from a news show Isaw on TV while in Honk Kong)

Have you ever seen a place where people line up outside the Cartier store? It is a first for me. The door is only open in the photo because the guard was letting someone in at that very moment. Some people must have left from the other door, because otherwise people just wait outside. They wait for the guard at the door to let them in. There was line up just like this one, but longer, outside Coco Channel.
I conclude that at least some people have money in Hong Kong, or some people who come to visit Hong Kong have money. Not far from there you have the Peninsula Hotel which is reputed for being extremely luxurious and, I quote: "The cheapest room start where many other luxury hotel stop... A night in the opulent Peninsula suite will set you back the price of a new car." (from "Top 10 Hong Kong" of Eyewitness Travel. If I buy a guide I usually buy "Top 10" because they are cheap, small, light, easy to carry around and have mas of the key areas god enough to be used. But I just use the guide part as a rough idea of where to start, just the way any guide should be used. I mostly use the maps)

And here the front of the place where I am staying (the Chungking Mansion in which there are over 90 guest houses. I am obviously staying in one of those 90 guest houses at US$30 a night... not quite the price of a new car). The entrance is the darker spot at ground level.

I'll have to do a post about Chungking Mansion. It is a bit of a famous spot.

The Johannesburg to Hong Kong Flight

Afterward I always forget. For example I have forgotten how much the entrance visa is for Chile, and I wish I remembered since I am going back. I do remember that to enter Chile as a US, Australia or Canada citizen you need to pay around US$100 (could be US75, or US$120) and it is valid for the life of your passport, but I need a new passport, mine is ful!). So this time I am going to try to write down things.

First the plane:
The flight from Johannesburg to Hong Kong takes 13 hours!
And I want to remember that on that flight, economy class, I would have been allowed 30kg of luggage... Not that I can carry it!!! But it is good to know.

This said I should add that even thought when I first heard the captain say "13 hours" I was totally demoralized, it wasn't that bad. I watched two movies (nothing worth mentioning) and slept. I did wake up with a serious kink in the neck but it was gone by mid morning the next day.

One of the peculiarity of this flight was that from the moment the plane appeared to be fully boarded (and it wasn't) people started changing seat, re-organizing themselves, making deals with other passengers, etc. Now, I can't criticizes because I always do it (well, not the "making deal" part, that I never do), and just like them I always do it before the plane even starts moving. But this was by far the worth case of it I have ever seen. People were changing right, left and centre. In the end it made very little difference since the plane was very nearly full. But it was funny to watch.

Now the bus:
Figuring out the bus to get to the hotel was incredibly easy.
To go to Chungking Mansions on Nathan Street you have to take the Airbus A21 and stop at stop number 14. The airport is well signed and there are multiple help desks where the staff is actually helpful. I knew the bus number and the stop number but what I didn't know is that inside the bus there is a small LED screen with none stop messages telling you which stop is next so you can't miss it.

Another thing you need to know is the bus is HK$33 and you have to have the exact change. 
I went to the 7-Eleven at the airport and bought myself a drink and mentioned to the young man at the cash register that I needed change for the bus and he very nicely asked how much the bus was and made sure he returned my change so that I had HK$33 in change. I was SO impressed by that! At a 7-Eleven, at an airport, what are the odds?!!?

Last the guest house (hostel?):
When you get out of the bus you need to walk back in the direction the bus comes from and Chungking Mansion is very close. Once you are in you need to find the set of elevator which corresponds to the block you are going to (D in my case, so on the right at the back) and once you are there you need to remember that the elevator on the right only stops at odd-numbered floors, while the elevator on the left only stops at even-numbered floors. Once you know all this it is easy.

Hong Kong - First impressions

Well I was wrong my super cheap (and incredibly tiny) room (at US$120 for four nights) turns out to have wireless!
So just a few pictures for you.

There are colourful streets signs and people everywhere.

Buildings are usually somewhat grey and not great looking especially when you get off the main avenues.

more street signs, more people.

At night all the lights are turned on and the streets are very busy, so going out at night is not a safety issue.

A vegetable markets. There are amazingly few fruits but maybe I feel this way because I just left South Africa.

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A medicine stand at the vegetable market. There was everything from dried cacti palms, to dried snakes (no, not snake skins, I could see the ribs) and eucalyptus berries!  (you know that if you click on the photos you get them a little bigger.)

Just a couple of women waiting at the bus stop. You can take pictures of people in Hong Kong. Cameras are flashing, snapping, rolling all the time, nobody cares, nobody pays any attention.

First impression: busy place but so busy in fact that you can feel nicely ignored and alone. It feels safe, very safe and it is incredibly easy to get around, to find food, to do what ever you need to do. It is exhausting but it is nice. I wouldn't want to live here I think, unless I had a neighborhood which was "my neighborhood", then maybe, but generally I like it.
I had read that particularly where I am staying people trying to sell you stuff were very insistent and that you should avoid making eye contact with them or you would never be rid of them. All I have to say to people who wrote this is: "do not go to Africa!!! ". I find it all very easy here, tiring because of the amount of people, noise and motion going on all the time, but easy.