hong kong

With the Chinese mainland behind us, Aman and I made a quick stopover in Hong Kong.  I had never been to HK before this journey, but Aman had visited last year.  He had come home after that trip favorably impressed that Hong Kong was a dynamic, diverse and all round happening place.  Thus, we added it to the itinerary for our adventure so that I could check it out and Aman could get to know the area a little better. 

Stopping in HK was also a brilliant excuse to see two dear friends, Kismet and Vineet.  By the time we got there, it had been 79 days on the road since Aman and I had left India and stayed in the company of family and friends.  Although we had met some fabulous people since then and made lots of new friends along the way, there was something special about seeing two familiar faces.  We hadn’t seen Kismet and Vineet since they visited us last summer in New York.  And, like it always is to spend time with old friends, our visit with them went by too fast! 

Aman and I arrived in Hong Kong on a Thursday evening.  Technically, this was our second pass through HK, because we had stopped for two nights on our way to the China mainland.  Kismet and Vineet were out of town then, but kind enough to leave behind a set of keys so we could stay at their place.  We used the same keys to let ourselves back in to their apartment when we arrived that Thursday night where we found Kismet, Vineet being still at work.  The conversation that ensued with Kismet upon our arrival was the non-stop type that you have with a good friend whom you haven’t seen in way too long.  There was so much to catch up on and we jabbered on for hours about everything that had been happening on our respective ends.  Eventually, Vineet freed up at work so we all met for a relaxing dinner at a nearby waterfront restaurant on Stanley Main Street.

Stanley, the town in which Kismet and Vineet live, is located in the southeastern part of Hong Kong Island, east of Repulse Bay.  Aman and I really liked this area, and it was not hard for us to see why Kismet and Vineet live there rather than the “Midlevels” neighborhood, where many ex-pats initially choose to live when they move to HK.  Stanley is a little further out from the business and commercial district of Central.  It has a nice beach, a developed waterfront street chock full of restaurants and bars, and the famous Stanley Market, which is a delightfully chaotic array of small shops, street stalls, and fascinating people.

After a night of proper catching up with Kismet and Vineet, Aman and I spent a quiet day in.  There was much to do – laundry, bills, planning the next leg of our trip, organizing our photos from China, touching base with various family members now that we could communicate by phone with the outside world again, etc. – and it took pretty much the whole day to accomplish everything on our “to-do” lists.  In the evening, we met Kismet and Vineet for dinner and drinks at Cicada, a trendy fusion-Asian tapas restaurant located in the Soho neighborhood.  It was raining out, and the night-crawlers moved about under the safety of their umbrellas.

The weather did not improve much the next day, but that did not stop Aman and I from getting out to explore HK’s Central a bit more.  Walking around, I was amazed (but not surprised) at the towering views of the surrounding skyscrapers everywhere – Aman had told me before we arrived that, in visiting HK, I would see one of the most vertical cities in the world and I did.  

Later that night, we met Kismet, Vineet and another lovely couple of friends (Maansi and Rohit) for dinner at a Sichuan restaurant that Aman had tried the year before when he visited HK and came home raving about.  He insisted that I try this restaurant too, because it not only had delicious, fiery Sichuan cuisine but also, one of its owners, a former Chinese opera singer, is known for her soprano voice and singing a Chinese aria for everyone at the end of the night.  The food was well balanced (no menu, everyone gets served a standard sequence of dishes that alternate between spicy and non-spicy), and the aria was beautiful.  It was a very unique experience.  Then, after dinner, we all walked over to Lan Kwai Fong, or LKF, a hip and vibrant area in Central known for its electrifying nightlife.  There, the fun continued.  Great area to experience HK nightlife.  I was impressed by how packed the bars were – with people spilling into the streets everywhere.

The next day, we drove into Central for brunch.  It was Sunday, which meant that all of the housemaids had the day off…  Aman had prepared me for this little phenomenon – generally speaking, most families in HK have maids to help with the housework.  Most of the maids are foreigners (principally from Indonesia or the Philippines), and they typically live with the family for whom they work.  Naturally, they spend most of the time in and around the house, except for Sundays when they all get out for their day off.  Perhaps for lack of anywhere else to go, groups of housemaids congregate on sidewalks and in other public areas - to socialize, listen to music, dance, read books, have picnics, paint each other’s fingernails, and generally let the day pass.  From a sociocultural perspective, it was quite an interesting sight.  This was just one small group out of many that we passed that afternoon.

After brunch, we drove to Kowloon to check one of the world’s most densely populated urban neighborhoods.  The place makes Manhattan look like a relative ghost town.  It was mind-boggling how many people were in the crowded streets.

It also boggled our minds how so many people could stand the acrid smell of durian (revered in southeast Asia as the “king of fruits”), which permeated the air at times.  The four of us literally held our breath and walked as fast as possible whenever we got a whiff of it coming from one of the street vendors.

We rounded out the day with a brief stop at the driving range followed by a great meal at one of Aman’s favorite pizza restaurants outside of New York, Pizza Express.

At Kismet’s helpful suggestion, Aman and I decided to go hiking the next morning.  Neither of us had any idea that Hong Kong has so many great places to go for a nature walk, but it does.  The trails are plentiful, and vary in terms of length and difficulty.  We picked a slightly difficult 5.2 km trail (the Tai Tam Country Trail) that roughly took us two and a half hours to complete.  The trail winds up and then down a steep hill, around a reservoir and then along a path that winds through some points of historical significance.  (The area was the scene of heavy fighting between the Commonwealth and Japanese forces in 1941.)  It was a damp and humid day, and given our altitude, we walked at times in a shroud of clouds and fog.  Not the greatest day for a view of HK Island, but still, a quiet hike in the woods was a nice break after walking the crowded city streets for so many days.

The following day, it was time to pack and move on.  After five amazing months, was this really our last day in Asia?  Wow!  The time had gone so fast and, at the same time, it felt like we had been away from home for such a long time.

We spent the morning packing our bags, and then took a short walk down to nearby Stanley Beach.  Despite the overcast sky, it was a hot and sticky day (common in HK). It was also a national holiday so lots of people had the day off, and the beach was full of activity.

Aman and I sat on a low concrete wall separating the sandy beach from the picnic area, taking it all in.  What struck us about the scenes that flashed around us - parents playing with their children at the water's edge, a group of friends having a cookout, a church group on an outing - did not seem all that foreign, even though we were in a very foreign land.  True, we had been in several foreign lands since starting our year-long epic adventure.  The point is that we could've been anywhere in the world, it seemed.  It's amazing how similar people are sometimes, given all of our cultural differences.

So, in short, thank you Asia.  It was a wild ride that we will never forget.