hong kong

its a weird feeling to look at a map of hongkong because so many of the names and places are familiar and i even have a sense of what they look like or what they looked like on film photograph work of literature travel shows etc. but never really been in the city at all.

im going to stay in tsim sha tsui. another place i've never been but have a deep probably mistaken sense of what it looks like.

got good suggestion from ilxrolling china thread question but if u were going to be in hk tomorrow what would you want to do? what should i do?

i have no idea.

shenzhen too because i'm flying into bao'an and out of it too. what's going on in shenzhen?

yo

sup

if you wanna be all WKW just walk from your place in TST up to prince edward, going generally from south to north

then take the green line to kwun tong

is it possible to be all wkw? i was too shy to mention that. okay.

the streetmap of the tip of tsim sha tsui is beautiful.

HK has definitely gentrified significantly from what's shown in the 20th century films. probably more similar to the glitzy 00s films now. if you want that old school dilapidated look you wanna stay on kowloon, around east or west kowloon, maybe go out to the new territories, places like tai po & yuen long

if you wanna see luxed-out billion dollar places, go to the island around central and admiralty

wan chai, causeway bay + eastwards of cwb is still gonna be pretty urban + residential, esp around north point

really good move - take a bus from tst to kwun tong or somewhere in east kowloon, go up to the second deck, do it at night, EMBRACE THE NEON

if you're in TST, def go to chungking mansions, it's a diff world inside

thanks thanks.

chungking mansions for sure. i had it pricked out on my map but i wasn't sure i should.

Mathews also estimates that up to 20 percent of the mobile phones recently in use in sub-Saharan Africa had passed through Chungking Mansions at some point.

lol yeah it's pretty funny, the rest of tst is so glammed out + luxed out but then you walk into chungking mansions and it still feels like when WKW shot that one scene

idk there's a lot of great things to do in HK, don't go to the peak, don't go to disneyland

it's very safe now and at its seediest probably 1/100 as seedy as the seediest parts of the mainland now, or maybe I was just never good at finding the secret triad hangouts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG_THGV_V9k

this made me all nostalgic the other day

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/us/at-84-square-feet-home-takes-tiny-house-movement-tinier.html

after you go articles like this ^^^ will seem kinda lol, 84 sq ft? that's how like half of HK lives

http://www.photomichaelwolf.com/100_x_100/

I want to go back to hong kong, it was too fraking hot when I was there in August.

I took this cool pic:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-H48yU2X1URc/Tio2GjrFFBI/AAAAAAAAA8E/eTUplNU2mzo/s641/11%2B-%2B1

This was my favorite restaurant in hk:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ALf0mwWJDYQ/TijZ93jZGLI/AAAAAAAAA7c/juvOjqd1dAI/s612/5a3810f37e984320a4224f86ca6c3a5b_7.jpg

oh yeah guidebooks say go to the big buddha but I never went it was built in 1992 it's not really that old it's big I guess probably a great symbol of flagrant capitalism

I liked running around the horse track too:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-18Fy4mJI1Ug/TijZ8oZh_FI/AAAAAAAAA7E/SKOZspnPcV8/s612/be49b450abe84727b5e86c114634d760_7.jpg

oh yeah seeing the races at happy valley is def a must-do (wednesday nights)

i'm in an airport.

thanks for the tips guys

jealoous.

i need to go back. i turned 30 there. it was fun. i need to go back.

if you're in TST, def go to chungking mansions, it's a diff world inside

― dayo, Sunday, 4 December 2011 02:19 (Yesterday) Bookmark Permalink

otm, also do this before the whole building collapses

also mong kok is rather cosy on weekends

yo dylannnnn how long you gonna be there? I can send yer contact info to a cool ilxor, webmail me (remember to include yer e-mail)

xp yeh mk on a weekend is a zoo, there was a fire there recently and 9 ppl died, rip ;_;

oh god, that's horrible (and most people wouldn't know what was going on or where)

i would like to go to HK

The thing I miss most about Hong Kong is staying in the Four Seasons. By far the nicest hotel I've ever stayed in.

HK is awesome, and so very easy for an English speaker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inMdaxWZ9EA

aahhhh I miss it so much

Have done Singapore.

HongKong seems to be in the same bracket.

Hong Kong is not a fascist country, for one

just yr traditional oligarchy

HK is also cultured and interesting and looks lived in, whereas Singapore looks mostly like a business park imo.

I stress ~~~imo~~~

i went for work recently. the company i was visiting was based in the hk science park up towards the mainland which is actually kinda beautiful since it's right next to the water but prob. not much to do there.

i went to an AMAZING restaurant which was like beijing-style food but i can't remember the name. best food i had in HK. my japanese colleagues took me there and i'm in an airport waiting for them now so i'll ask them for the name when they arrive actually.

wholeheartedly recommend doing the trip to shenzhen but check whether you can buy a visa (sometimes they don't let uk ppl in, not sure about u.s.). i can't give any tips for once you get there - we just walked around the train station and got offered sex and fake watches and looked at restaurants with huge tanks of fish outside.

i also saw some of the seedier side of hk and it was pretty interesting if creepy

nah i live in the mainland so shenzhen sort of blew my mind with how green and alive it is and everyone looks to be in their late teens. i actually decided i probably want to live in shenzhen in the near future.

but crossing the border to hk (man the train from lowu the first half = what??? where hong kong at?? its all jungle???)... in comparison to this city, (I stress ~~~imo~~~) no city on the mainland can claim to be international... modern... anything.

stayed in a hourly rate hotel in wanchai last night overheard long argument between dude wtih accent like top gear presenter and filipina hooker about when an hour really begins.

dyao i walked by where the fa yuen street fire was today.

i'll be here a week or so. not set.

my fucking china telecom phone went into emergency only mode as soon as i crossed the border though. so, if anyone wants to chill email me at addresss connected to my name.

man i walked from the art museum all the way to where nathan road bisects and all the wholesale clothessellers are and i didnt see goddamn chungking mansions what's wrong with me. maybe i should look at a map.

i dig the lived in thing, dyaoooo. mainland cities just kick people out, bulldoze old shit then put up things that sort of look old but are bigger and prettier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_House_(Hong_Kong)

walked by that yesterday, too... government putting multimillions into upgrading it, etc. in chongqing... shanghai... xi'an... it would be a li ning store/kfc right now.

just messaged you dylan. deerhoof are playing tonight in sai wan ho if youre interested.

just messaged you, buddy ;))))

haha only mainland china could make hong kong's preservation efforts look good

this is a city, tho, that tore down a pier and moved it 100 feet down the harbor and built it up the exact same way as it was befroe

man i walked from the art museum all the way to where nathan road bisects and all the wholesale clothessellers are and i didnt see goddamn chungking mansions what's wrong with me. maybe i should look at a map.

― dylannnnnnnnn, Wednesday, December 7, 2011 12:54 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

lol chungking mansions is at the very start of that route, it's on nathan road near the southmost MTR exits

sounds like you walked all the way to sham shui po - neat! SSP is one of the most 'lived-in' parts of HK imo, go into the golden computer arcade on a weekend if you want to experience animal fear at being body to body w/ 10000 crazy computer nerds in a 500 sq ft place

chunking mansions is easy to miss.. but yeah it's like 1 minute from the harbour (it's on your right if you're walking up from the arts centre)

i live SSP, that's my go-to place every year when i go back (usually it's go home "hi mum", and then off to SSP and buy loads of guitar leads and lightbulbs and SD Ram.

if you have time to kill, make your way to aberdeen (you need to take a bus from causeway bay) I grew up in that neighbourhood. It's all very 70s and there is a promenade with like junks and stuff, it's cute, and you get to see Ap Lei Chau which is like the 3rd most densely populated island in the world or something.

oh go and eat skewers of curry fishballs (big hot) for $6 or however much it costs now.

there's one I like in SSP (after buying lots of guitar leads and SD Ram)
小食部
深水埗欽州街114號地下
http://ihome.cuhk.edu.hk/~s0962685/%A9@%AD%F9%B3%BD%B3J.htm

this place is a bit hyped but the baked char siu bun really is exceptional
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/foodandwineholidays/7145607/Tim-Ho-Wan-restaurant-Hong-Kong-the-hottest-meal-ticket-in-town.html

(if there's a queue - get a ticket from the lady and then go wander around ladies' market round the corner for 45 mins then come back)

re chungking mansions – as per previous instructions, stay on nathan road and look up (east side), it's the building that looks conspicuously like it was beamed in from johannesburg and is about to fall on you

http://images.travelpod.com/users/johannesjudith/1.1247624404.chungking-mansion.jpg

or, just follow your nose

was that a subtly aimed insult

well i mean it stinks

at least the shopping area downstairs did when we were there

lol yeah - the place doesn't get good ventilation

despite that i wanted to go upstairs ('er indoors said no)

dylannnnnnnnnnnn where in the mainland do you live? i was discussing shenzhen with a chinese colleague today and it sounds like my experience of it pretty fucking limited. i really want to spend more time in mainland china. i spent a week in beijing but just found it completely impenetrable.

have you guys checked the chunking mansions website? i liked the descriptions of the different areas.

particularly Block B and Block C

A Block
Most popular block in Mansions.

B Block
This block has many guesthouses like A Block.

C Block
Indian people likes this block.

D Block
This atmosphere is very calm, not noisy.

E Block
There are few guesthouses in this block.

i thought i was in the wrong part of nathan road because it never seemed blinged out. apart from tgifriday's and 500 neon LEICA/CANON/NIKON signs and chow tai fooks blasting mustardy cold a/c out onto the street... i dunno... i was expecting it would be like what you see in shanghai or beijing or any other mainland city, a simcity2000 arcology shopping mall and a wholly artificial bigbrand development landscape. it was pretty humanscale and not that blinged out even compared to other spots in hk.

when i came out of the tsim sha tsui mtr station the first thing i saw was four nigerian girls getting bombed with a couple six packs of heineken laid out like a picnic. it was a really unhong konglike scene because while i stood there chillin a dude smilingly reminded me to butt my lucky strike in the nearest wastebin instead of lettin the ashes fly. and i found chungking mansions pretty quick once i knew where to look (ya i did walk to ssp!!). i walked through a few times, got some dal and rice.

i'm back in shenzhen at the moment. getting on the mtr at wanchai (actually poss. admiralty or something) and not surfacing again until lo wu, walking across the border... shit's crazy. i love paul theroux drive-thru comparisons of places but i would be embarrassed to go back and read what i said later.

anyways.

tomorrow i'm going to dongguan to gawk at the world's largest (and 99% vacant???) shopping mall.

tpp i live in dalian. i don't think any place should be anything but impenetrable after a week. especially beijing.

If there's any way you can wangle getting on to the sun deck of the Peninsula Hotel that overlooks the bay, do it. The view is absolutely remarkable.

what is the cheapest place one can stay in hk?

one of the reasons i dig shenzhen is because i am in a chain hotel for 130rmb (160hkd) a night watching donnie brasco, but in hk i can't find anything liveable for anything near the price.

I have very low standards so was ok in Nathan Mansions / Chungking Mansions but any decent hotel is going to be much more expensive than across the border. It might be worth looking at hostels. I've heard the Venetian is meant to be vaguely ok.

there are guesthouses in yau ma tei/jordan that are about 160 HKD. obviously 10x smaller than anything in the mainland xp

http://i63.tinypic.com/r216qa.jpg