hong kong

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