Hong Kong Heat = 9/4 to 9/9
Casting all my worries, work and personal aside, I booked a ticket to a place I had been two times prior, in 1996 and 2000. Of course, both times I roomed within the walls of the infamous Chungking Mansions, the second time with an American photographer, both of us going primarily to watch the Mr. Asia bodybuilding contest.
This time, I was staying with my cousin who had been an air stewardess there for over eighteen years, and had religiously saved a tidy enough sum to purchase a HK$2.5 million place that had unfortunately dropped in value to two million(Luckily, she only has HK$300,000 left to service on the loan).She had also married an Australian expatriate in the meantime and brought two beautiful young creatures into this world.
She also had the temerity to ask me whether I was gay, and I had the inner strength to answer “Of course not.” without the slightest betrayal of my true inclinations by a blink of a wayward eye or otherwise.
Well, to cut short my digression, I found HK to be rather more vibrant than Singapore, with an equally(or even more, if one considers the trams and minivans) efficient public transport system, though a somewhat less impressive international airport(although the system of airport buses to the city was much superior to Singapore’s.
On Day 1, September 4th, I went to Changi airport early to catch my 11:05 flight. On flight, I slept involuntarily for about ten minutes due to the residual fatigue I felt from four sessions of tuition on Sunday and nocturnal activities on Saturday night. The Cathay Pacific aircrew neglected to wake me up for lunch so I was rather peeved, also due in part to my butter fingers dropping a tiny cup of Haagen Daz ice-cream, which rebounded off my left shoe and propelled forward into the aisle two seats ahead, all while I was strapped motionless to my not overly-comfortable seat in the cattle class. The stewardess who picked it up said : “How did it get there?” with a genuine look of bewilderment on her fine North Indian features.
I got to Chek Lap Kok, followed arrival procedures and laid hands on my first local currency at a Traveller’s counter near the exit. As per my cousin’s instructions, I found the queue for bus A11 before realizing that I only had HK$50 as the smallest denomination, remembering that no change would be given for the HK$40 fare. Consoling myself that the ten dollar difference was only slightly over S$2, I boarded the long-range bus, and was reminded of the degree to which Hong Kong was spread out over many islands.
The time passed 4pm as I was still halfway to my destination, gazing at massive highways, and rather clear waters in the outlying islands. I got to the city in about 20 minutes, and disembarked from the bus in a hurry, as I only spotted the sign that showed my desired destination ‘Shun Tak Centre’ at the last moment.
I boarded a taxi at the wrong queue and was ushered by the driver to the adjacent queue for destinations within HK island. The last part of my trip to my cousin’s place at Robinson Road in the Midlevels was the most intriguing, as the taxi climbed higher and higher up what felt like a big hill, at time hitting angles of 40 degrees or more.
My cousin and her husband, I was to find out later, had taken a loan of HK$10 million for the rather large flat(by HK standards) after the previous landlord had tried to raise their monthly rent for a larger apartment from HK$30,000 TO HK$38,000.
Yes, money counts for an enormous part of life in Hong Kong.
Once there, I got through the security kiosk only when I supplied the number of the flat, and explained what my cousin did for a living. Up at the ninth floor, the maid, one of two, let me in with a smile, and I spotted my youngest nephew, Callum, for the first time. I walked in to my cousin, who was tutoring her other child, Christian in the boys’ room, and was told, very seriously, that they had not finished their Chinese lesson.
Later, a very pretty, and rather cautious-looking girl, Nicole(the daughter of Singaporean friends), visited, and played with the boys.
In the evening, as I accompanied my cousin to a 24-hour banking kiosk and to buy a bag of laundry soap, we witnessed a snatch theft, as a Caucasion woman shouted “Stop that man!” towards a skinny, small-built local in pink and black office wear, who made haste like the wind, in a straight line. My cousin stood staring for a few seconds, as surprised as I was that this could happen in a seemingly more civilized section of modern Hong Kong.
This time, I was staying with my cousin who had been an air stewardess there for over eighteen years, and had religiously saved a tidy enough sum to purchase a HK$2.5 million place that had unfortunately dropped in value to two million(Luckily, she only has HK$300,000 left to service on the loan).She had also married an Australian expatriate in the meantime and brought two beautiful young creatures into this world.
She also had the temerity to ask me whether I was gay, and I had the inner strength to answer “Of course not.” without the slightest betrayal of my true inclinations by a blink of a wayward eye or otherwise.
Well, to cut short my digression, I found HK to be rather more vibrant than Singapore, with an equally(or even more, if one considers the trams and minivans) efficient public transport system, though a somewhat less impressive international airport(although the system of airport buses to the city was much superior to Singapore’s.
On Day 1, September 4th, I went to Changi airport early to catch my 11:05 flight. On flight, I slept involuntarily for about ten minutes due to the residual fatigue I felt from four sessions of tuition on Sunday and nocturnal activities on Saturday night. The Cathay Pacific aircrew neglected to wake me up for lunch so I was rather peeved, also due in part to my butter fingers dropping a tiny cup of Haagen Daz ice-cream, which rebounded off my left shoe and propelled forward into the aisle two seats ahead, all while I was strapped motionless to my not overly-comfortable seat in the cattle class. The stewardess who picked it up said : “How did it get there?” with a genuine look of bewilderment on her fine North Indian features.
I got to Chek Lap Kok, followed arrival procedures and laid hands on my first local currency at a Traveller’s counter near the exit. As per my cousin’s instructions, I found the queue for bus A11 before realizing that I only had HK$50 as the smallest denomination, remembering that no change would be given for the HK$40 fare. Consoling myself that the ten dollar difference was only slightly over S$2, I boarded the long-range bus, and was reminded of the degree to which Hong Kong was spread out over many islands.
The time passed 4pm as I was still halfway to my destination, gazing at massive highways, and rather clear waters in the outlying islands. I got to the city in about 20 minutes, and disembarked from the bus in a hurry, as I only spotted the sign that showed my desired destination ‘Shun Tak Centre’ at the last moment.
I boarded a taxi at the wrong queue and was ushered by the driver to the adjacent queue for destinations within HK island. The last part of my trip to my cousin’s place at Robinson Road in the Midlevels was the most intriguing, as the taxi climbed higher and higher up what felt like a big hill, at time hitting angles of 40 degrees or more.
My cousin and her husband, I was to find out later, had taken a loan of HK$10 million for the rather large flat(by HK standards) after the previous landlord had tried to raise their monthly rent for a larger apartment from HK$30,000 TO HK$38,000.
Yes, money counts for an enormous part of life in Hong Kong.
Once there, I got through the security kiosk only when I supplied the number of the flat, and explained what my cousin did for a living. Up at the ninth floor, the maid, one of two, let me in with a smile, and I spotted my youngest nephew, Callum, for the first time. I walked in to my cousin, who was tutoring her other child, Christian in the boys’ room, and was told, very seriously, that they had not finished their Chinese lesson.
Later, a very pretty, and rather cautious-looking girl, Nicole(the daughter of Singaporean friends), visited, and played with the boys.
In the evening, as I accompanied my cousin to a 24-hour banking kiosk and to buy a bag of laundry soap, we witnessed a snatch theft, as a Caucasion woman shouted “Stop that man!” towards a skinny, small-built local in pink and black office wear, who made haste like the wind, in a straight line. My cousin stood staring for a few seconds, as surprised as I was that this could happen in a seemingly more civilized section of modern Hong Kong.
posted by DP at
3:48 PM
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