Hong Kong Blog

Starring…

Richard Cohen ……… as…… himself

Guest starring…

Ivor Cohen ……………as……… Dad
Joanne Cohen …………as………Mum
Sophie Cohen …………as………Soph
Steven Cohen …………as ………Steve

Over the past couple of months the Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea football teams have all come to Hong Kong in the hope of boosting support here, and while they’ve been successful to varying degrees (I think City might have actually decreased theirs) it was now time for: Team Cohen. Now, I am probably the most ill-suited tour guide on the planet; in fact my sense of direction is so notorious that my friends both in London and Kent prefer to direct me home when they are extremely, extremely drunk and can hardly walk lest we end up on the wrong side of the country. However with a Path Finder and his apprentice on the way I felt confident I’d be able to fluke my way around Hong Kong and actually follow them.

After receiving a phone call to say that the team had arrived safely, had collected their luggage and were now in their rooms at the hotel, I headed towards Langham Place - a shopping mall, hotel and office tower complex in the heart of Mong Kok. Upon entering the hotel I was asked by three separate people if they could offer me any assistance on my walk to the lift (I declined all such offers without explaining that I’d been walking for almost 21 years now) however as my journey drew to a close I did accept the offer by the ‘pink lady’ to press the lift button for me, and then to press the button of the floor I wished to go to. Without meaning to sound like I’m employed by Langham, it is without doubt the nicest hotel I’ve ever been to. It is heralded as “Best New City Hotel” by TTG Asia and for good reason - it is equipped with 42-inch plasma TV screens in every room, a fitness studio, a rooftop heated swimming pool and four restaurants. You are even given a ‘pillow menu’ to choose your preferred pillows to sleep on! But then again, I guess most of this was also true in Vauxhall Avenue in Kent.

I actually found it to be a slightly strange feeling walking into a room and being greeted by the family after a three month absence, looking at the familiar faces smiling back which were also now somehow slightly unfamiliar. Keeping in contact via the Internet and phone is one thing, but actually seeing people is quite another. After catching up and despite their exhaustion after the twelve hour plane journey I was determined to take them out for a meal, and so being in Hong Kong and in order to introduce them to the local cuisine for the first time Team Cohen first went to… Pizza Hut.

…no, that wasn’t a joke.

…really.

After the meal we started to plan a rough schedule for the week and established through a conversation conducted entirely in yawns that the priority for most people seemed to be sleep. I had to work the next day, but before leaving I advised everyone to walk around Mong Kok and to soak up the atmosphere.

When we next met, Dad and Steve had four fake Rolexes and ten custom-made suits between them, while Mum and Soph boasted several “genuine silk” garments. Ok, none of this is true, but from their reports it wasn’t due to any lack of effort on behalf of the market sellers; the place sounded as lively as ever. The market is definitely, definitely a place to haggle over prices; you can usually reduce any item to a mere fraction of the original price (I’m fairly certain it’s actually possible to come away with the item and have them pay you for it) and from the sound of things The Team performed well as a unit. Sensing that everyone was now feeling slightly more adventurous we headed towards Central for dinner. Of course this meant travelling on the MTR and so it was that four Octopus tickets for the price of half an Oyster ticket later everyone was standing on the Hong Kong public transport, gaping and pointing. It’s pretty easy to spot a tourist just by judging a person’s reaction on the train, if the s/he is content then s/he is a local – if a person looks slightly bewildered as to why they haven’t been delayed yet, or are looking at the flashing lights or LCD TV’s they’re not. Also, looking ‘Western’ is quite a big giveaway if you’re playing this game and are looking for pointers. Upon arriving at Central we stopped by the HSBC building and had a brief tour of the square and fountains next to which I eat my lunch every day, before starting off for Lan Kwai Fong, a place I had only been to once before. Lan Kwai Fong is a small square of streets in Central which is now a popular expatriate haunt in Hong Kong for drinking, clubbing and dining. One of my work colleagues had led me there during my first week back in July, and obviously I now had hardly any idea where it was. Without divulging this information to my tour group and loyal followers I suggested we “head this way” then “this way looks familiar…”, “yes, this is definitely right…”. I’m fairly certain Dad worked out we were progressing in a slightly circular direction but eventually, somehow, we found our way to the dining area. Well, I say we found our way to the dining area; in actuality as soon as we entered its vicinity we were attacked by representatives from each restaurant. I glanced nervously around at Mum, who said “you first”. I gulped, took one small stepped forward and: “SIR!. Try some Shanghai cuisine perfect for Americans”, “Sir, I have great deal you, only you, come this way, come, come”, “Follow me Sir, they all try to trick you”. I headed towards Vietnamese and Thai place, and was rewarded with a beaming smile and “you are a very, very wise man with a beautiful family” from the representative.

I ordered my favourite Vietnamese food: raw beef soup (the beef is actually cooked by the soup by the time you eat it), while Sophie chose to go for the spicy chicken even though she doesn’t like spicy food, Mum for the chicken rice and a random coconut drink which turned out to be spectacular, Dad for the duck and Steve for some fish. Before receiving our food though, a chopstick demonstration was required, and I’ll leave it to your imagination how foreign we all looked eating our dinner, with loud cheers every time food and mouth connected. After finishing, we walked back through Central and admired some of the more elaborate buildings the Hong Kong skyline has to offer.

The following morning it was time for Kowloon Tong and Festival Walk. Walking into Festival Walk for the first time still remains a highlight of my time here and I agree wholeheartedly with all praise it receives for its spaciousness and its public amenities. I absolutely love it. In fact the only criticism I have ever read is that its “array of escalators are confusing and unwisely planned”, however in my opinion it’s all part of the fun not knowing where you’re going to end up… I’m quite used to that feeling anyway. Thinking about it, in the three months I’ve been here I’ve been to Festival Walk every single day. Heading up to the food court we split up, half of us choosing to get some Japanese rice, the other half choosing KFC. After lunch we battled up the hill From Festival Walk to the City University of Hong Kong student residence where Joe and I are living this year. This hill presents a test of endurance that the bleep test can only dream of matching. If I did no other sport during my time here but walked up that hill every day I’d consider myself to be at the peak of fitness. Sapphire and Bryan, two of the people on my floor are members of the Residents Association in our hall, and when asked if I had any suggestions on how they could improve things, I’ve asked them if during this year they could construct a tram line going up the hill. I believe that an official response from the President of the Committee is currently being written. I’ll keep you updated!

After finally making it up the hill and a few victory speeches later we arrived at and entered my hall (there are eight in total), signed in at security and somehow managed to enter the elevator without the aid of the pink lady. Despite my love for the campus at Kent, particularly the atmosphere created by my group of friends at Rutherford College at night time, I have grown to prefer the living conditions here: the corridors are longer and brighter, the rooms are larger and the kitchen facilities are far, far superior. We took a brief tour of the kitchen before settling in my room, which was of course, tidy by pure coincidence. After chilling out for a while, we went up to admire the view from the top floor, before heading back out of the student residence towards the MTR Station in Festival Walk, choosing this time to go via the main University Campus to see the swimming pool and library, with the eventual destination somewhere with an even better view: Victoria Peak.

Travelling to Hong Kong without visiting ‘the peak’ is like travelling to New York without visiting the Empire State Building or London without Stamford Bridge. At an altitude of 554 meters it is Hong Kong’s highest point and is generally regarded by tourists and locals alike as the best spot to view Victoria Harbour and the skyline, and to actually take in the entire island as a whole. The peak is accessible via the ‘peak tram’ which is an experience in itself. The peak tram began operating in 1888 and is a funicular railway that curves a steep 373 meter swathe up the mountainside. When I say steep, I mean steep. It feels like a ride in a theme park and upon reaching the summit I’m surprised they don’t offer photos of you on the tram with both arms raised above the head. As the peak is an extremely popular destination in Hong Kong, before reaching the viewing platform there are several (clearly tourist orientated) shops, the team took the opportunity to buy their names in Chinese among other souvenirs, despite my grave warnings after one such shop had translated my name to ‘plum’ several months ago. Moving on to the viewing area at about 6pm, we took some photos framed by the tall buildings and spectacular scenery, and then waited for dark as the lights on the tall buildings began to glow brighter and brighter. The peak at night is as spectacular as it is during the day, in fact I’d say even more so. The bright, colourful lights illuminate the city like it is some kind of fairytale and only after several more photo shoots did we at last leave to head home, only to be stopped for at least a couple of days by a gigantic queue.

The next day we started towards Sham Shui Po to explore the hyped Golden Computer Centre and Golden Computer Arcade. In the mid 1990’s the basement of the Arcade was Hong Kong’s centre of piracy, with the majority of the vendors selling copied software and music CD’s manufactured in mainland China. Prior to the handover several raids were conducted and such retailers were ‘erased’ (as a famous governor of California might say), however the Centre and Arcade remain two of the most thriving electronic trading venues in the world. Soph, Steve and I all had a mission: an i-Pod Touch, an SD card and an XBOX360 respectively. After following each other for five or so minutes we decided to divide and conquer, and so setting our clocks to military time, we agreed to meet back at the stairs in 45 minutes. Aside from Steven (who actually bought the wrong thing) unfortunately we were all unsuccessful in our quests, the i-Touch was not to be released for another week in Hong Kong and the current stock of XBOX360’s had sold out; the next batch being held back while Microsoft battled with some technical issues. It wasn’t a total loss however – Dad bought a music DVD and Steven some extremely, extremely cheap speakers for an iPod - even if they don’t work for £1 you can’t really go wrong - and everyone purchased the roll up keyboards as seen on Die Hard 4.

A little later on in the day we journeyed to Causeway Bay for dinner. Located on the northern shore of Hong Kong Island, the rent in the shopping areas of Causeway Bay is ranked second in the world (with Fifth Avenue in Manhattan ranked first), and indeed it is one of Hong Kong’s major shopping districts with many shops open until well after midnight. Acting on advice from a member of the family who shall remain nameless, after looking around the Times Square shopping complex we headed towards ‘Food Street’ where apparently you could get ‘almost every’ kind of food. After an exemplary path finding exercise we found that actually you could get ‘almost no’ types of food there: it was an alley the size of our garden with three of four rather expensive restaurants at most. And so it was that we headed back towards Times Square where we stumbled upon heaven. By a gigantic LCD TV (which people in the street were just standing and watching) we found ‘The Spaghetti House’ and the most sensational freshly squeezed apple juice on and not of this world.

The next day was ‘National Day’, a public holiday which is celebrated in Hong Kong, China and Macau to mark the anniversary of the formation of the ‘People’s Republic of China’ on October 1st, 1949. Feeling festive we took the opportunity to go to the ‘Hong Kong Museum of History’ in Tsim Sha Tsui, which preserves Hong Kong’s historical and cultural heritage. I don’t tend to enjoy museums – in fact, I’ll be honest, I hate them. We’ve never really seen eye to eye and we’ve reached a mutual understanding of sorts whereby I never go and they’re generally none-the wiser. However, this museum was different. I think more out of interest in the subject than any improvement in my level of maturity, I actually found myself reading all of the signs relating to the Japanese occupation and the handover back to mainland China, how Hong Kong became the booming financial centre it is now and what life was like during the time of the Emperors. Dad had to shoot off a little early to meet with a suit and shoe tailor (for real this time) and after meeting with him we continued through Tsim Sha Tsui towards Victoria Harbour, confronted by at least a dozen other tailors, many of whom wanted to know “who is the lucky tailor you have picked, Sir?” and giving us their completely unbiased opinion(s).

We stopped by yet another gigantic shopping mall ‘Harbour City’ for a lunch / dinner combo, and interrogated the waitress as to where would be the best place to watch the fireworks display the government was organizing as part of National Day. She responded with ‘the Clock Tower’, another famous landmark in Hong Kong and the single remaining structure of the ‘old’ Tsim Sha Tsui station. The clock tower is forty-four metres high, surmounted by a seven metre high lightning rod, and I could probably tell you how many bricks were used counting each one individually in the time we had while waiting for the fireworks to begin. We were advised to get there early in order to get the best view, and while it was empty three hours before people indeed slowly started appearing and before long you couldn’t move. We had a local family sitting behind us with two young children, both of whom stared at Mum and I for three hours as though we were proof there was life on Mars.

With half an hour to go, something strange began happening to the buildings across the Harbour; the lights on the furthest building to the left began flickering. It actually took the crowd a moment to work out anything was happening. However as its closest neighbour on the right began flashing its own lights, music started playing and before long the entire skyline was ‘talking’ to each other through the sky lights and lasers attached to each building; at times several of them even appeared to be competing in a ‘light off’ against each other. Sometimes a cluster waited while another responded. It was unexpected and extremely, extremely well organised; excitement began to build. At quarter past nine - three hours after our arrival - the fireworks began and the entire universe above us exploded in sound and light. The crowd reacted to each explosion as though watching a pantomime, “ooooh, ahhh”, “OOOH”… and at least 90% took out their mobile phones and began recording. It was spectacular.

After the display finished and the crowd slowly began to disperse we explored the surrounding area a little and had the time to take some quick photos of and with the golden dragon which had been erected for the Chinese Mid-Autumn festival a week previously. Though thoroughly exhausted there was still time for one more adventure that night, travelling back to Mong Kok via the ‘KCR’ railway. The KCR actually goes all the way to the border of mainland China (originally it did actually extend beyond the border to Canton, but after Mainland was taken over by communists in 1949 this was no longer possible). A proposed merger by the Hong Kong Government between the two railway companies ‘MTR and KCR’ (which is likely to be approved at the end of this year) will mean one railway system in Hong Kong. The trains themselves are a little darker than the MTR ones and the stations don’t have air conditioning, however they do have four or five LCD TV’s broadcasting the news and sport in every carriage, and as a geek I certainly think a relationship exists between the number of screens and the ‘coolness’ factor.

On Tuesday I went to work while the team visited Stanley Market, a peninsula on the south-eastern part of Hong Kong Island apparently renowned for its bargains in clothing. I’ve never been there because, well, I’m male and genetically I don’t enjoy looking at clothes, but from the team’s reviews I heard that it was actually slightly disappointing. Earlier in the day I had tried to organise for everyone to have a tour of the trading floor at HSBC (everyone in the family, not everyone in the world), however unfortunately the global head of Futures and the head of Futures Singapore were in town which meant this would not be possible. Settling for a tour of the building instead we signed in and took the elevator up to the restaurant on the 28th floor, before making our way down floor by floor on the escalators. When we reached the trading floor Mum and Dad tried to peek through the window to catch a glimpse of where I work, while I nervously hid behind the corner in case anyone saw.

Successfully leaving the building still with my job, it was next time to work our way towards the Jewish Centre via the previously described Central-Mid-Level escalator system. We passed through the vigorous security checks at the doors of the centre much to the delight of Sophie, who I had warned might receive a test on her knowledge of the Jewish religion to prove her identity before gaining entry and we found our way to the restaurant which had been relocated from its regular location to the Succah (but as it was raining this had once again been relocated to a room close to the Succah). We sat down and ordered the food. Dad informed me that it was my duty to order the largest bowl of chicken soup they offered, and after a huge main course and an equally large desert we all left absolutely stuffed. It’s lucky the escalator system doesn’t operate downhill at night time because it almost certainly would have collapsed under my weight, never mind our combined weights.

When I returned back to the student residence it was T - 1 hour until my 21st birthday, and I let everyone in the corridor know - approximately once every 2 - 3 minutes. I thought knocking on every door and keeping the neighbours up-to-date was the right way to go about things. After a while they began quoting the time back at me pre-emptively and leaving their doors open because honestly they knew I’d be back. With five minutes to go I was relaxing back in my room when several people rushed in and told me that I had to try a dish someone had just finished cooking in the kitchen in honour of my birthday. Absolutely awestruck that someone had cooked something for the occasion, I waited in the kitchen with a couple of the others, while the rest went to round up everyone else. Moments later, as midnight struck, someone hit the lights and three or four people brought in a cake with candles and started singing happy birthday - first in English, then in Cantonese. I couldn’t believe it. Offering my sincere thanks we cut and shared the cake and still hugely grateful I went to bed extremely happy.

The actual day of my birthday was just as unbelievable, if not more so. I met up with the family in the hotel and after a chorus of ‘happy birthday’s’ they passed a number of cards which the ‘postman had delivered under their door that morning’. Feeling very close to people back at home and hugely, hugely thankful to everyone who had sent me their well wishes and congratulations, Dad then went to the cupboard and presented me with a rather large package. Both Mum and Dad were being extremely secretive and wouldn’t tell me who it was from nor what was inside. Feeling like a little child again I started to rip open the packaging, and pulled out what appeared to be a canvas. Everyone in the room stared at it slightly mystified, …who? …What? Mum then said, ‘…your friends said this was from a show called Heroes?’ and everything clicked. There, before me was Hiro Nakamura battling a dragon at the dawn of time, but more importantly was a gift from friends back home, send halfway across the world. I felt so lucky to have the friends that I do and actually felt a pang of homesickness for the first time since I’ve been here.

The feeling passed rather quickly and when asked what I’d like to do on my birthday, I suggested that we go on a boat trip tour around Victoria Harbour. After asking at the help desk in Langham Place for information on when the boat trips occur, how often and from where there seemed to be only one problem in an otherwise perfect plan: it was leaving in ten minutes and was twenty five minutes away. The hotel made the call and a taxi arrived in moments, however despite their reaction speed our journey was fraught with delay as every traffic light seemed to sense we were coming. The taxi driver began to share our plight though and eventually he ignored all traffic lights completely as he zoomed towards the Harbour at full speed. We arrived in the knick of time, boarded the boat and collapsed on deck. The boat trip was extremely nice and I couldn’t help but think how one year ago today I’d never have believed I’d be spending my 21st birthday, with the family, sailing around Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong. It was unreal. We returned to the hotel in the evening for a birthday meal, and the day seemed to peak at the end as for dessert I had the opportunity to dip strawberries into two chocolate fountains. Does life get any better?

Unfortunately Thursday had crept up on us like a thief in the night. It seemed only yesterday that the team had arrived in Hong Kong and now it was almost time for them to leave. After work we ate in the Spaghetti House one last time before going for a final walk around the bristling and bustling streets of Mong Kok. When it comes to emotions I often feel like a cripple; unable to express what I really mean; I prefer to swallow the words and feelings and smile, keeping my thoughts inside my own and private. It really meant the world to me that my family had travelled to Hong Kong for my birthday, and I’ll never, ever forget it for as long as I live. I felt like the luckiest person in the world.

As I walked back through Mong Kok I felt oddly distracted, for once not paying any attention to the energy radiating out of the place. I arrived back at the student residence equally subdued and entered the kitchen / common room desperately seeking the company of others. Sure enough a number of people were gathered around the table completing a jigsaw and slowly I began to climb out of my shell again. When asked where I had been and why I looked slightly upset, I managed to convince half the corridor that I had been in Mong Kok with Lucio an Italian exchange student and not my family, and that he had secretly bought a gun and had stashed it in his room.

Retiring that night and waking the next morning life began to continue as normal as I headed into Central for another day of work. However, I couldn’t help but reflect on the week I’d had and smile. And I knew now that Lucio had a gun, he aint ever gonna be the sa-a-a-aaamme.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 29th, 2007 at 12:09 am and is filed under Hong Kong. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.