27.08.2006 MMI Chapter 2: Hong Kong and Beyond
(Note 1: The diary never materialised, its seemed impractical!)
(Note 2: Photos and Videos will be up tomorrow, its late, sorry!)
And now, on with the show.....
I woke up from a catatonic combination of illness and sleep depravation and opened my eyes. The scenery outside was alien to me, giant tower blocks surrounding a massive expanse of water. The train I was riding, the MRT from Hong Kong airport was announcing in a broad British accent that we would soon be arriving at our destination. So I forced myself out of the slumber, switched off the I-Pod and pulled my luggage through the metal doors onto the station. Taking up a passive position in the navigation I merely carried and observed the surroundings. It was dark now, and heading out onto the streets was incredibly disorientating. We hopped in a Taxi and hoped for the best. I spotted our hotel over the back of some buildings, its bright neon sign towering over most of the others. I noticed the driver was sitting on the right hand side of the car, it took me a surprisingly long time to notice this however.
We pulled up to the hotel lobby and the staff helped us take our bags. They all spoke impeccable English. I noticed a sign in the lobby for the featured entertainer of the night. Listening closer the singer was already doing her thing, riffing on some Beatles song or another in a way which suggested jazz but also suggested she was secretly enjoying the fact that she could sing absolutely anything and in any way so long as it was low key and lounge like. Finally finding our way up to the room I couldn’t rest for long until there was a knock at the door, it was the bell boy with our one bag. I tipped him awkwardly, it was necessary here but not something I have ever done before or will ever feel comfortable doing. Which is not going to be that often as most other Asian countries see it as somewhat of an insult, fine by me. The room was really comfortable and had a great view, high tech too. There was a telephone slash console panel in the room which welcomed us by name when we stepped through the doors. There were speakers in the toilet which piped the television sound through. Hong Kong TV has a lot of English speaking channels, at least that’s the impression I got from the selection in the room. I thought to myself that I would make it a personal mission to investigate just how much England had affected this small island, but at the same time I was feeling so ill and groggy that things were mostly a blur.
The next day I awoke, took care of all the morning things and gathered my documents for my Visa application to be taken care of that day. A taxi ride out to the business complex where the Taiwanese embassy was located took far longer and was way more expensive than I had bargained on. When I eventually arrived and located the place it seemed like a relatively quick process, show this, pay this come back later. So I entered the rest of the day in a pretty carefree state of mind, ready to sightsee and generally relax. Breakfast came courtesy of the nearest McDonalds where everything was neatly displayed in English and Chinese. I should probably make it clear that in Hong Kong the native language is Cantonese. Neither I nor my girlfriend speak Cantonese but because of the occupation, the school systems and the geographical location an undisclosed number of the population can speak English and Mandarin.
Now I was confused and still am as to why only some people speak Mandarin. Its not as if some enthusiasts had taken it up, but a seemingly random demographic of people could either speak mandarin fluently or not at all. The same went for English, although I had a great deal more success in communicating in my language than my girlfriend had in hers. This could either be because of the rift between Taiwan and China, although I was always under the impression that capitalist Hong Kong tended to have its own ideas about that matter. I this were the case then people either didn’t want to speak to my girlfriend in Mandarin because A) they thought she was Taiwanese or B) She thought she was Chinese. But then why would they know it in the first place. Or it could be that a wider amount of the population learnt English under the occupation or have been influenced by or are in contact with or desire to consider themselves English than I initially imagined. Anyway I am none the wiser on the subject so I will continue.
Shopping in Hong Kong city was aided by the MRT line, similar if way less subtle and clean than the Tokyo subway line or London’s underground. Using this service made Hong Kong seem incredibly small and sparse. There aren’t that many stops and even then Disney Land gets its own line and station. The shopping which was sought out by my girlfriend was probably what many people see as a selling point of this place, high fashion towers of consumerism. Of which they were many but once this was out of the way, you don’t want to hear about those aspects of the trip is you are a reader of this blog. No, the first small glimmer of interest which appeared in my somewhat shaky state lay out in the cramped streets which as it began to rain had all the hallmarks of the moody smoky neon Hong Kong of my imagination. Maybe it’s because I never intended to make this trip a holiday and that such a short amount of time here could never give me the right to pass judgment on the place. But as I stood under a small electronics shop veranda taking shelter from the rain and watching the world go by, I felt I had achieved everything I ever could here. If I was to make a statement of opinion, I would say that Hong Kong is not a nice place to be, its drab, its dirty, its obnoxious, cramped and wet and yet, I felt like having seen this small area, I could somehow take a fond memory away with me, even if I was never to go back again.
Looking around the markets the term bootleg as a comparative term becomes redundant. I would hesitate to say that anything is what you could call official products. DVDs, Clothes, consumer products are all a fifth of the original price because they are fake, made in Hong Kong or china and sold without fear or reprimand. Not one to have any qualms about such matters I happily looked around every corner of the places but trying to avoid being roped in by many an enthusiastic shop keeper. I came home with some stuff, a cool Chinese traditional shirt, a bleach wall scroll for about two pounds and about the only thing which was official, something which is so great I can hardly type it Taiko no Tatsujin 6 for the PS2 with the TaTaCon drum controller. Something which has eaten up my entire day today.
Once the shopping had come to an end I headed off to meet the appointment to pick up my passport and new visa for re entry to Taiwan the next night. Now this is the first time I had ever had to do something like this, and I was not sure of the procedure although I knew it was relatively common having spoken to people in Taiwan. What I didn’t know however is how stressful and difficult the rest of my evening was about to get up in a small room on the 40th floor of some tower block in Hong Kong. Now I really don’t want to go into all of the details but needless to say when I went back to pick up visa it was not ready waiting for me. It would take hours of talking, interrogation, producing documents and generally gut wrenching trauma before I would lead with anything close to a visa. I was really broken down by the whole ordeal. I wasn’t feeling well and this place took the last of my energy, I was a wreck for the rest of the day and I couldn’t do anything except walk and space out until we eventually got to our hotel.
The last of my energy got me to the Disney land connection station entitled Sunny Bay. I chuckled to myself at the irony of about the greyest, wettest and grimmest looking scenery I had ever seen out of the window. It was a bay alright, although the entire airport and Disney land complex had been built on reclaimed land which took four years to complete. The only other time I had heard of reclamation was on an episode of Mega Structures where the sultan of Dubai built an island shaped like a palm tree on which to house hotels and casinos. Back then it looked like a difficult task and how on earth they had achieved it here was beyond me. The sheer size of such a task seem implausible but again, I was feeling too ill to give it too much thought. Instead I just sat back, slumped down into my Mickey Mouse shaped train carriage and continued my journey into capitalism and the American way.
That night I slept like a baby. The medicine I had been taken seemed to really be helping and by morning the physical tiredness had gone away, leaving only his buddy wheezy flemmy cough to fend for himself. I had energy to walk around now which was a good thing since I was spending the day in a theme park. Just as Hong Kong’s fashionable shopping districts looked exactly like parts of London, Hong Kong Disney land looks like every other theme park I have ever been to and despite minor regional adaptation, I believe it is exactly the same as every other Disney Land save the newly opened Disney Sea in Tokyo. I am never one to admit I enjoy Disney and don’t expect any such statement now, but in a place like this, it highlights just how much of our culture had been in someway influenced by this corporation. The whole time I kept thinking how forcefully the whole thing was engulfing my entire being and there was no escape, once you were inside they had you, and you would enjoy it, because it’s everything you have known since you are a child.
Even if Disney has only been something in the background of your life, you will know it intimately because of it’s stature in society, unlike the brilliantly understated Miyazaki museum, this place houses some of the most prevalent characters and assimilated values and stories (Alice in Wonderland, Winnie the Pooh) which at least I can say featured quite heavily in my childhood. It’s a big bad, powerful place which has you in the palm of your hands. But in my state of physical health and state of mind, it struck just the right balance to help me feel safe and relaxed, at least for a few hours.
The flight was at 9 and we made it back with plenty of time to spare. Hong Kong airport was way more western orientated than Taiwan CKS or Narita. I even found this week’s copy of Empire in the bookshop which I bought and look forward to reading during lunch tomorrow. We ate at a very weird place called Popeye’s Chicken and Biscuits. Never heard of it myself but from what I could gather its some kind of American chain emblazoned with the image of the jovial spinach eating sea dog. I have not idea what sector of society felt it necessary to add the biscuits but the chicken was pretty good. The actual flight time between here and there works out at about 70 minutes, just little enough time to make the air staff run around like headless chickens trying to get everything done. I don’t mind, I hate having to wait too long with my tray on my lap after eating because you are pretty much trapped there immobile under that fold out tray until they take it away from you. The coach back from the airport took a grueling two hours and we had to carry our luggage a fair way to the house at 2am. When we got to the building the doorman wasn’t there so we couldn’t get in for a while. Some unsavory types were sitting across the way and I didn’t feel all too safe. Luckily the doorman eventually came back from wherever he had been and we could finally put down out bags and rest.
Morning came, as it does and the world seemed a little more quiet than usual. Today had been set aside as R and R after the traveling. Everything which needed to be accomplished had been accomplished and add to that sitting in a bag in the next room was a shiny unopened box which contained Taiko no Tatsujin Wai Wai Happy Roku Dai Mei as this latest version is enthusiastically entitled. I sat myself down inches from the screen, snapped together the stand for the drum. Fired it up and played most of the day away. Not all of it however. At lunch time we went to my girlfriend’s place of work and ate some pretty awesome buffet and for the first time in my life I got to eat what Jonathan Ross never stops raving about “Okonomiyaki”. Yes sir, Japanese DIY savory pancake. It was really nice actually in a sort of wholesome bland kind of a way and I would definitely seek it out again. As far as Japanese food is concerned however, nothing will ever top beef curry in my chart of tasty goodness.
In the afternoon we headed out to Tiger city again, my girlfriend and her sister went shopping whilst her sister’s boyfriend and I played in the Sega World. We were in there for a long time, I really had a good go at Samba de Amigo for once, something which has been around for years and years and yet I have never had the chance to realize how fun it is. It is really well made and the motion sensor is very neatly made use of. Motion sensoring in arcade games is something quite widely used but seldom done properly. The bemani games and that police shootout game are two which come to mind, all with various degrees of success. I for one have often felt they are sometimes too physically demanding. Try playing the PS2 eye toy for more than half an hour and you will see what I mean.
And with that my day came to an end. And I sit here in my room typing about one of the longest blogs I have ever written. I wanted to let everyone know what I had been up to since I feel like I have to come to the end of the first chapter in the weird adventure. With my new Visa and a re entry into the country once again, It feels like life and daily activities have a chance to start all over again. I have my very own Taiko here in the house so it seems there is no need for my daily pilgrimages to the department store anymore. Also this damned cold which has been sapping all of my energy seems to have finally dissipated leaving me with a new wave of enthusiasm for school life. From tomorrow there will be nothing standing in the way between me and a sense of daily normality. Of course I will always return here to document my activities but at least I won’t be back peddling as far as I did today. As always I hope everyone is safe and happy and healthy and you enjoyed reading the blog.
Till next time,
This has been MMI
(Note 2: Photos and Videos will be up tomorrow, its late, sorry!)
And now, on with the show.....
I woke up from a catatonic combination of illness and sleep depravation and opened my eyes. The scenery outside was alien to me, giant tower blocks surrounding a massive expanse of water. The train I was riding, the MRT from Hong Kong airport was announcing in a broad British accent that we would soon be arriving at our destination. So I forced myself out of the slumber, switched off the I-Pod and pulled my luggage through the metal doors onto the station. Taking up a passive position in the navigation I merely carried and observed the surroundings. It was dark now, and heading out onto the streets was incredibly disorientating. We hopped in a Taxi and hoped for the best. I spotted our hotel over the back of some buildings, its bright neon sign towering over most of the others. I noticed the driver was sitting on the right hand side of the car, it took me a surprisingly long time to notice this however.
We pulled up to the hotel lobby and the staff helped us take our bags. They all spoke impeccable English. I noticed a sign in the lobby for the featured entertainer of the night. Listening closer the singer was already doing her thing, riffing on some Beatles song or another in a way which suggested jazz but also suggested she was secretly enjoying the fact that she could sing absolutely anything and in any way so long as it was low key and lounge like. Finally finding our way up to the room I couldn’t rest for long until there was a knock at the door, it was the bell boy with our one bag. I tipped him awkwardly, it was necessary here but not something I have ever done before or will ever feel comfortable doing. Which is not going to be that often as most other Asian countries see it as somewhat of an insult, fine by me. The room was really comfortable and had a great view, high tech too. There was a telephone slash console panel in the room which welcomed us by name when we stepped through the doors. There were speakers in the toilet which piped the television sound through. Hong Kong TV has a lot of English speaking channels, at least that’s the impression I got from the selection in the room. I thought to myself that I would make it a personal mission to investigate just how much England had affected this small island, but at the same time I was feeling so ill and groggy that things were mostly a blur.
The next day I awoke, took care of all the morning things and gathered my documents for my Visa application to be taken care of that day. A taxi ride out to the business complex where the Taiwanese embassy was located took far longer and was way more expensive than I had bargained on. When I eventually arrived and located the place it seemed like a relatively quick process, show this, pay this come back later. So I entered the rest of the day in a pretty carefree state of mind, ready to sightsee and generally relax. Breakfast came courtesy of the nearest McDonalds where everything was neatly displayed in English and Chinese. I should probably make it clear that in Hong Kong the native language is Cantonese. Neither I nor my girlfriend speak Cantonese but because of the occupation, the school systems and the geographical location an undisclosed number of the population can speak English and Mandarin.
Now I was confused and still am as to why only some people speak Mandarin. Its not as if some enthusiasts had taken it up, but a seemingly random demographic of people could either speak mandarin fluently or not at all. The same went for English, although I had a great deal more success in communicating in my language than my girlfriend had in hers. This could either be because of the rift between Taiwan and China, although I was always under the impression that capitalist Hong Kong tended to have its own ideas about that matter. I this were the case then people either didn’t want to speak to my girlfriend in Mandarin because A) they thought she was Taiwanese or B) She thought she was Chinese. But then why would they know it in the first place. Or it could be that a wider amount of the population learnt English under the occupation or have been influenced by or are in contact with or desire to consider themselves English than I initially imagined. Anyway I am none the wiser on the subject so I will continue.
Shopping in Hong Kong city was aided by the MRT line, similar if way less subtle and clean than the Tokyo subway line or London’s underground. Using this service made Hong Kong seem incredibly small and sparse. There aren’t that many stops and even then Disney Land gets its own line and station. The shopping which was sought out by my girlfriend was probably what many people see as a selling point of this place, high fashion towers of consumerism. Of which they were many but once this was out of the way, you don’t want to hear about those aspects of the trip is you are a reader of this blog. No, the first small glimmer of interest which appeared in my somewhat shaky state lay out in the cramped streets which as it began to rain had all the hallmarks of the moody smoky neon Hong Kong of my imagination. Maybe it’s because I never intended to make this trip a holiday and that such a short amount of time here could never give me the right to pass judgment on the place. But as I stood under a small electronics shop veranda taking shelter from the rain and watching the world go by, I felt I had achieved everything I ever could here. If I was to make a statement of opinion, I would say that Hong Kong is not a nice place to be, its drab, its dirty, its obnoxious, cramped and wet and yet, I felt like having seen this small area, I could somehow take a fond memory away with me, even if I was never to go back again.
Looking around the markets the term bootleg as a comparative term becomes redundant. I would hesitate to say that anything is what you could call official products. DVDs, Clothes, consumer products are all a fifth of the original price because they are fake, made in Hong Kong or china and sold without fear or reprimand. Not one to have any qualms about such matters I happily looked around every corner of the places but trying to avoid being roped in by many an enthusiastic shop keeper. I came home with some stuff, a cool Chinese traditional shirt, a bleach wall scroll for about two pounds and about the only thing which was official, something which is so great I can hardly type it Taiko no Tatsujin 6 for the PS2 with the TaTaCon drum controller. Something which has eaten up my entire day today.
Once the shopping had come to an end I headed off to meet the appointment to pick up my passport and new visa for re entry to Taiwan the next night. Now this is the first time I had ever had to do something like this, and I was not sure of the procedure although I knew it was relatively common having spoken to people in Taiwan. What I didn’t know however is how stressful and difficult the rest of my evening was about to get up in a small room on the 40th floor of some tower block in Hong Kong. Now I really don’t want to go into all of the details but needless to say when I went back to pick up visa it was not ready waiting for me. It would take hours of talking, interrogation, producing documents and generally gut wrenching trauma before I would lead with anything close to a visa. I was really broken down by the whole ordeal. I wasn’t feeling well and this place took the last of my energy, I was a wreck for the rest of the day and I couldn’t do anything except walk and space out until we eventually got to our hotel.
The last of my energy got me to the Disney land connection station entitled Sunny Bay. I chuckled to myself at the irony of about the greyest, wettest and grimmest looking scenery I had ever seen out of the window. It was a bay alright, although the entire airport and Disney land complex had been built on reclaimed land which took four years to complete. The only other time I had heard of reclamation was on an episode of Mega Structures where the sultan of Dubai built an island shaped like a palm tree on which to house hotels and casinos. Back then it looked like a difficult task and how on earth they had achieved it here was beyond me. The sheer size of such a task seem implausible but again, I was feeling too ill to give it too much thought. Instead I just sat back, slumped down into my Mickey Mouse shaped train carriage and continued my journey into capitalism and the American way.
That night I slept like a baby. The medicine I had been taken seemed to really be helping and by morning the physical tiredness had gone away, leaving only his buddy wheezy flemmy cough to fend for himself. I had energy to walk around now which was a good thing since I was spending the day in a theme park. Just as Hong Kong’s fashionable shopping districts looked exactly like parts of London, Hong Kong Disney land looks like every other theme park I have ever been to and despite minor regional adaptation, I believe it is exactly the same as every other Disney Land save the newly opened Disney Sea in Tokyo. I am never one to admit I enjoy Disney and don’t expect any such statement now, but in a place like this, it highlights just how much of our culture had been in someway influenced by this corporation. The whole time I kept thinking how forcefully the whole thing was engulfing my entire being and there was no escape, once you were inside they had you, and you would enjoy it, because it’s everything you have known since you are a child.
Even if Disney has only been something in the background of your life, you will know it intimately because of it’s stature in society, unlike the brilliantly understated Miyazaki museum, this place houses some of the most prevalent characters and assimilated values and stories (Alice in Wonderland, Winnie the Pooh) which at least I can say featured quite heavily in my childhood. It’s a big bad, powerful place which has you in the palm of your hands. But in my state of physical health and state of mind, it struck just the right balance to help me feel safe and relaxed, at least for a few hours.
The flight was at 9 and we made it back with plenty of time to spare. Hong Kong airport was way more western orientated than Taiwan CKS or Narita. I even found this week’s copy of Empire in the bookshop which I bought and look forward to reading during lunch tomorrow. We ate at a very weird place called Popeye’s Chicken and Biscuits. Never heard of it myself but from what I could gather its some kind of American chain emblazoned with the image of the jovial spinach eating sea dog. I have not idea what sector of society felt it necessary to add the biscuits but the chicken was pretty good. The actual flight time between here and there works out at about 70 minutes, just little enough time to make the air staff run around like headless chickens trying to get everything done. I don’t mind, I hate having to wait too long with my tray on my lap after eating because you are pretty much trapped there immobile under that fold out tray until they take it away from you. The coach back from the airport took a grueling two hours and we had to carry our luggage a fair way to the house at 2am. When we got to the building the doorman wasn’t there so we couldn’t get in for a while. Some unsavory types were sitting across the way and I didn’t feel all too safe. Luckily the doorman eventually came back from wherever he had been and we could finally put down out bags and rest.
Morning came, as it does and the world seemed a little more quiet than usual. Today had been set aside as R and R after the traveling. Everything which needed to be accomplished had been accomplished and add to that sitting in a bag in the next room was a shiny unopened box which contained Taiko no Tatsujin Wai Wai Happy Roku Dai Mei as this latest version is enthusiastically entitled. I sat myself down inches from the screen, snapped together the stand for the drum. Fired it up and played most of the day away. Not all of it however. At lunch time we went to my girlfriend’s place of work and ate some pretty awesome buffet and for the first time in my life I got to eat what Jonathan Ross never stops raving about “Okonomiyaki”. Yes sir, Japanese DIY savory pancake. It was really nice actually in a sort of wholesome bland kind of a way and I would definitely seek it out again. As far as Japanese food is concerned however, nothing will ever top beef curry in my chart of tasty goodness.
In the afternoon we headed out to Tiger city again, my girlfriend and her sister went shopping whilst her sister’s boyfriend and I played in the Sega World. We were in there for a long time, I really had a good go at Samba de Amigo for once, something which has been around for years and years and yet I have never had the chance to realize how fun it is. It is really well made and the motion sensor is very neatly made use of. Motion sensoring in arcade games is something quite widely used but seldom done properly. The bemani games and that police shootout game are two which come to mind, all with various degrees of success. I for one have often felt they are sometimes too physically demanding. Try playing the PS2 eye toy for more than half an hour and you will see what I mean.
And with that my day came to an end. And I sit here in my room typing about one of the longest blogs I have ever written. I wanted to let everyone know what I had been up to since I feel like I have to come to the end of the first chapter in the weird adventure. With my new Visa and a re entry into the country once again, It feels like life and daily activities have a chance to start all over again. I have my very own Taiko here in the house so it seems there is no need for my daily pilgrimages to the department store anymore. Also this damned cold which has been sapping all of my energy seems to have finally dissipated leaving me with a new wave of enthusiasm for school life. From tomorrow there will be nothing standing in the way between me and a sense of daily normality. Of course I will always return here to document my activities but at least I won’t be back peddling as far as I did today. As always I hope everyone is safe and happy and healthy and you enjoyed reading the blog.
Till next time,
This has been MMI
posted by Aaron | 8:16 AM
2 Comments:
Interesting blog (like the image of you a bit pissed off in the tiny Mickey Mouse car ride though)
for info...Steve Gould went Hong Kong and hated it.
Hey man, good to read the mammoth blog today - you really managed to describe eveything in such a way that i could really imagine what it was like there. I'm picturing some kind of Blade Runner-esque atmosphere to the whole place...did you notice any small origami animals following you around...?
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