travelswithalice

I missed a big part of the Hong Kong experience despite having lived there on and off over 10 years. I also feel the same way about over 15 years in Singapore. Even of my five years in Sydney.

I used to say a lot of this was at least partially due to the fact that I didn’t have children to ferry back and forth to school, ballgames, or playdates. Or the fact that I’ve never enjoyed driving. The truth of the matter probably lies somewhere between laziness and lack of curiosity. 

Never part of the glitzy China Club set, nor of the bohemian LKF one, the nearby Wan Chai street market may have been the most adventurous exploration I ever attempted on my own.

I regarded Hong Kong as my quiet retreat, my “away” place, spending endless hours in the hotel lounge reading, having coffee and cakes, planning coming holidays, and writing about past ones.

In today’s Hong Kong paper, there’s a photo of people swimming in the harbour. Over 3,000 participants from 11 countries set off from Tsim Sha Tsui public pier en route to Wan Chai in a swim meet that was an annual event begun in 1906 but was suspended in 1978 because the water had become dangerously polluted. It was revived in 2011 after a rigorous clean-up campaign.

_{Photo grabbed from South China Morning Post.}

So when did Victoria Harbour stop being the foul-smelling E.coli infested water that people dreaded falling into, fearful of dying not from drowning but from septicemia? And why didn’t I even notice?

Yesterday, Stuart and I took a tram to Tai Hang, an up and coming suburb just off Causeway Bay. Looks like it has a way to go yet but there are definitely pocketts of expensive-looking high rises encroaching on the middle to lower levels. 

We had a pleasant but unremarkable lunch at one of the smart looking cafes. Afterwards, we walked around looking for curiously named Lab Made Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream.

By this time, long queues had snaked outside three hole-in-the-wall type eateries. Several cars were stopped along the curb on both sides of the narrow untidy streets, their drivers keeping engines idling. A Porsche and a Jaguar among them.

I asked somebody what they were queueing for. Pork noodles. I guess we could’ve done with a bit more local knowledge. 

On the bus going back to the Grand Hyatt, I saw row upon row of smart-looking European style shops and restaurants in Causeway Bay. When did all this happen?

Tomorrow, the HKD120 billion Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge will start operations, cutting travel time from mainland China to Hong Kong from four hours to only 45 minutes. 

I’ve only ever been to Macau and Shanghai. And that was way before the 10 or so years I lived practically next door in Hong Kong. Of course exploring China sometime was something I always meant to do. It just somehow never happened.