Humid Hong Kong
Hong Kong, 2009-09-21 12:00 by Laerke and Martin
Hong Kong… hmm where do I start… It is big and chaotic, but I guess you already knew that.
The weather has been awful, it is HOT and really, really humid. The air is thick and grey, at one point both of us found it a little harder to breathe than normally. We went up to the peak to see the fantastic view out over the Hong Kong skyline, except you could barely make out the buildings in the thick soup of grey that they call the sky here.



It is also really crowed here, worse than the malls in Singapore, worse than the metro in Taipei, and maybe even worse than the markets of Bangkok – and on top of that, it is crowded everywhere.
The population here is an interesting mix of Chinese, nannies and maids from Indonesia and the Philippines, Indians, Africans, Arabs – all here to do some kind of business – and some Western expats. Some of the parks get really busy with the migrant workers on weekends – one of the parks in Kowloon, close to the big mosque, was filled with Indonesian maids on picnic; a square in Central normally attracts loads of Filipinos and so on.
The Indians really make themselves noticed in the Kowloon area of Hong Kong; you can’t walk for 5 minutes on the street without having an Indian guy after you “Copy watches, copy handbags Ma’am”, it’s almost like being back in the sub-continent.


“After the parade, the street was very empty…nice for a change!”

Everybody raves about shopping in Hong Kong, so far we haven’t seen anything we would like to buy, and it is not that cheap either… We believe we have been to all the right places, but so far it has been pretty disappointing, even good bargains on electronics we weren’t able to find!? We found shopping in Thailand and Taiwan, even in Singapore, was much better and cheaper.
The first morning we woke up here in Hong Kong there was a parade on the street; it was apparently the Chinese national day, which of cause meant red banners and stars. But the parade also featured kids on rollerblades, old women with lanterns, fancy old cars, Sri Lankan dancers, Dragon and Lion dancers and many other remarkable sequences. It was a great parade and clearly the highlight of our time in Hong Kong, so it was lucky we arrived when we did.
All in all, we can’t say we really care a lot for Hong Kong, but now we’ve been there and know that…