God Bless the open access point!
I am sitting on my bed at the Dragon Hostel in the Mong Kok area of Kowloon. I am drinking a beer which cost me HK$8 ($1.41 Aussie, €0,88). The place is clean, but as it is about 1:30am I don’t know what the other residents are like. I have a room to myself with a double bed and the room is air conditioned.
First Impressions of Hong Kong:
Parts remind me of Kuala Lumpur, specifically the Chinese area of KL. The thing that reminds me is the smell, not a bad smell, but a distinctive smell. I guess it is a Chinese smell, perhaps something to do with spices or incense? It isn’t a tropical thing as I have been to Tropical parts of Australia and Papua New Guinea and the smell wasn’t there. Perhaps I should change the word smell to aroma to avoid any sinister connotations.
The housing looks like crap. Very small apartments in tightly packed, falling apart high rise apartment buildings. The (closed) shops on the streets remind me of Penang, and I saw an open corner store that looked like any asian grocery in Sydney.
But, as I have found everywhere I have been, Hong Kong is only a little different from everywhere else. 7-eleven’s everywhere, a McDonald’s downstairs. I caught a bus from the airport and I was thinking to myself this is not strange, this is like a bus anywhere. Perhaps next time I am here (on my return flight) I will go over to the real parts of China for the real culture shock. I have been reminded of the travel bug, so easy to forget in the happy times with family.
*If any parts of this post are strange, it is because it is a bit of a stream of consciousness experience. My body clock says it is 4:30AM. For those In The Know, don’t worry about my blood levels. They are under control as I have taken steps.
Going to sleep now. Lots of exciting things await me tomorrow.