hong kong

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