Three Days in Hong Kong
Hello and xin chào! Or in the case of this post, 你好!
It's finally winter here in Hanoi: puffy jackets and sweaters abound, my landlord brought me a massive blanket, and the temperature is… in the upper 70s. On a recent rainy morning when it was about 70°F, I had a student quizzically ask me if I was cold in my button-down and jeans. No, I absolutely was not, to which my ever-present sweat in the classroom can attest. The craziest part is how much my body has adjusted to the heat: I need a light sweater if it's below 75°F and there's no sun.
Anyways, today I've got some pictures and stories to share from my trip to Hong Kong about two weeks ago. (The weather was perfect when I was there: 70s and sunny the whole time.) The trip was fantastic, with the very notable exception of immigration on my out of Vietnam.
My school totally botched the timing of getting me my work permit and long-term visa, so my initial three-month visa expired the day before I was due to depart. The school had my new work permit before then, but they couldn't get me my new visa for whatever reason. This meant that I had the very stressful experience of leaving Vietnam on an expired visa! Per the school's instructions, I had to spend 45 minutes pleading my case with the immigration police, show them a photocopy of my work permit, have them call the relevant person in HR, and ultimately pay a fine* of 1 million VND ($43). I raised hell with the school, so luckily they reimbursed me for it.
*Almost certainly a bribe. The border guard told me something like "1 million, and everything will go away, no problem, all clean."
Needless to say, I was exhausted by the time I got to Hong Kong even though the flight was only two hours. And if there's anything I learned from my time time there, it's that Hong Kong is not a low-energy city. It makes Midtown Manhattan look peaceful.
Pretty much all I did on my first day was hang out on the promenade near my hostel on Victoria Harbour, which cuts through the center of Hong Kong. I caught a great sunset and then had some Hong Kong-style curry beef brisket at a little hole-in-the-wall on my way back to my hostel for some rest.
In the evening, I returned to the promenade to see "A Symphony of Lights," a totally absurd light and laser show that happens across the skyline every night at 8pm. It wasn't super elaborate and only lasted about 10 minutes, but the lights looked pretty cool, and there was a fun atmosphere on the promenade. Shortly after the show ended, a bunch of street performers (forbidden to solicit tips, according to some posted signs) appeared underneath an elevated portion of the promenade.
They ran the gamut from a singer and a guitar to multi-piece bands to groups of elderly people doing dance routines in the most garish get-ups imaginable. Since it was so close to my hostel, I actually went back on my last night in Hong Kong!
The next day, I hit what is perhaps Hong Kong's most iconic tourist attraction: Victoria Peak. It amazes me that Hong Kong is such a large city given that so little of it is flat land, and one of the best views of the city's central skyline is on a mountain with an elevation of about 1,800 feet.
The most direct way to the top is an extraordinarily steep tram built by the British in 1888. The tram doesn't just wind its way up to the top; it goes straight up the mountain, and the seats are angled as if you're on a flat surface. Note the angle of the buildings relative to the tram and passengers in the picture. It was a fairly long wait to make it on the tram, and it was still pretty crowded on the peak, but the view sure made it worthwhile.
Once you headed away from the mall at the top of the tram line and onto the nature paths, however, it became shockingly peaceful given the bustle of the city and unbelievable skyline view.
After some time relaxing and taking in the view, I headed back down into the city to do some exploring (mainly in the creatively named neighborhood of Central). My next stop was the Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and Art, an arts and entertainment complex that just opened this past summer. An example of what urban planners call an adaptive reuse project, Tai Kwun is housed in the former Central Police Station complex. Built by the British in 1841, the complex initially served as Hong Kong's main police station and prison and was decommissioned in 2006. Coincidentally, there was a placard there that mentioned one of its most famous prisoners was Ho Chi Minh!
The complex constituted a series of plazas and walkways through colonial-era buildings, some of which housed shops and restaurants, some that housed exhibits about the complex's past, and others that were used as galleries and art spaces.
One of my favorite portions, of course, was a contemporary art museum in the sole new building of the complex.
Some portions of the exhibits were predictably inscrutable, but it was the awesome architecture and setting that made it one of the unexpected highlights of my trip.
Part of what made Hong Kong so stunning to me was its scale. No matter where you are or what window you look from, it's hard to forget you're in a massive city. It's not even so much that the buildings are big like buildings in Midtown Manhattan or the Chicago Loop; it's more that they are all so uniformly tall. Every part of the city is covered in skyscrapers.
What surprised me, however, was how often it seemed that these towering buildings were in such disrepair for how wealthy Hong Kong is. It was really obvious, actually, that there is a massive wealth gap in Hong Kong. I passed countless different locations of Cartier, Chanel, Tiffany, Patek Philippe, Rolex, and so on. At the same time, large swaths of massive apartment blocks are totally run-down.
When I arrived at the building my hostel was in, I went in the wrong entrance where the elevator was being refurbished. As I was climbing up to the 5th floor (European 5th, so 6th basically), I passed a few signs in the stairwell prohibiting residents from sleeping in the stairwell during elevator refurbishments. Sure enough, not only did I see people sleeping in the hallways, I had to step around a man sleeping on a piece of cardboard in the stairwell. Nonetheless, Hong Kong is home to more billionaires (93) than any other city in the world besides New York (103).
After Tai Kwun, I headed back to my hostel on the metro during the early portion of rush hour. Metro workers with loudspeakers were posted at every third or fourth car directing people to squeeze in and out of the unbelievably packed trains. Luckily the line I was taking wasn't quite as crowded. Later that evening, I went on a mini shopping spree at Uniqlo and spent $20 on some Michelin-starred dim sum at one location of a chain called Din Tai Fung.
I sampled three different kinds of dumplings. To be honest, while I wasn't totally blown away, they were still probably the best dumplings I've ever had. And hey, now I can say I've dined at a Michelin-starred restaurant.
The next day, it was time to take the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbour. Part tourist attraction and part vital public transportation, the ferry cost $0.35 to cross from Kowloon (where I was staying) to Hong Kong Island (home to Central and roughly equivalent to Manhattan).
Upon disembarking, I wandered through an extensive network of elevated walkways in and around the skyscrapers of the main business district.
Though Central is mostly flat, it's not long before you start to hit the steep terrain of Hong Kong Island. The elevated walkways of the business district connect to the base of the Central Mid-Levels Escalators, which are exactly what they sound like.
Since the center of the city was essentially built where mountains meet the water, a half-mile-long system of public, outdoor escalators and inclined moving walkways were built in the 1990s.
The top of the escalator system spits you out in Hong Kong's Soho district, which—like its New York and London counterparts—is packed with unnecessarily expensive but tempting bars and restaurants.
Since I'm a total sucker for street art and well designed restaurants that I can't afford, I loved this part of the city. I spent the rest of the afternoon winding my down the mountain through some street markets.
I spent the rest of the afternoon back at Tai Kwun people watching from a great bar that ended up being way more expensive than I thought. (Now I know not to make assumptions based on the happy hour prices when it's not happy hour!) Before heading back to my hostel—hurrying to avoid rush hour—I stopped by a Tim Ho Wan outlet, another dim sum place whose original location in a different area of the city was awarded a Michelin star.
I went to have their famous char siu bao, sugary buns filled with barbecue sauce and char siu pork. I wasn't sure if ordering two would mean two buns, and it turned out to be two sets of three buns. I ended up eating four in one sitting, and that was… a mistake. They are deceptively indulgent, and it didn't help that I had the other two as a late second dinner (as this was an early first dinner). Nonetheless, they were incredibly delicious—and cheap by Hong Kong standards (about $4.50 for 3, if I remember correctly).
My last evening in Hong Kong was spent back at the Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade and on the Star Ferry before doing some more wandering on Hong Kong Island.
One of the last things I did was ride Hong Kong's iconic double-decker tram (as I had done the night before). It was one of my favorite experiences, rolling down neon-bedecked streets on the second floor with all of the windows down.
The next morning, it was time to head to the airport, which might be my new favorite airport in the world. The terminal was beautiful and modern, but the mountain views were truly something else. Back in Hanoi, I was fortunate to experience no issues getting my new visa and passing through immigration. (And as of a few days ago, I now have my long-term, multiple-entry visa, so no more immigration headaches for me. In theory, at least.)
Check out more photos here! I'm especially happy with how these turned out, so take a look if you can. My next post will be about my day trip to Hạ Long Bay last weekend, so look out for that soon.
Till next time,
Gray
It's finally winter here in Hanoi: puffy jackets and sweaters abound, my landlord brought me a massive blanket, and the temperature is… in the upper 70s. On a recent rainy morning when it was about 70°F, I had a student quizzically ask me if I was cold in my button-down and jeans. No, I absolutely was not, to which my ever-present sweat in the classroom can attest. The craziest part is how much my body has adjusted to the heat: I need a light sweater if it's below 75°F and there's no sun.
Anyways, today I've got some pictures and stories to share from my trip to Hong Kong about two weeks ago. (The weather was perfect when I was there: 70s and sunny the whole time.) The trip was fantastic, with the very notable exception of immigration on my out of Vietnam.
My school totally botched the timing of getting me my work permit and long-term visa, so my initial three-month visa expired the day before I was due to depart. The school had my new work permit before then, but they couldn't get me my new visa for whatever reason. This meant that I had the very stressful experience of leaving Vietnam on an expired visa! Per the school's instructions, I had to spend 45 minutes pleading my case with the immigration police, show them a photocopy of my work permit, have them call the relevant person in HR, and ultimately pay a fine* of 1 million VND ($43). I raised hell with the school, so luckily they reimbursed me for it.
*Almost certainly a bribe. The border guard told me something like "1 million, and everything will go away, no problem, all clean."
Needless to say, I was exhausted by the time I got to Hong Kong even though the flight was only two hours. And if there's anything I learned from my time time there, it's that Hong Kong is not a low-energy city. It makes Midtown Manhattan look peaceful.
 |
| Hong Kong skyline at sunset. |
Pretty much all I did on my first day was hang out on the promenade near my hostel on Victoria Harbour, which cuts through the center of Hong Kong. I caught a great sunset and then had some Hong Kong-style curry beef brisket at a little hole-in-the-wall on my way back to my hostel for some rest.
 |
| A Symphony of Lights, which people were trying way too hard to record. |
In the evening, I returned to the promenade to see "A Symphony of Lights," a totally absurd light and laser show that happens across the skyline every night at 8pm. It wasn't super elaborate and only lasted about 10 minutes, but the lights looked pretty cool, and there was a fun atmosphere on the promenade. Shortly after the show ended, a bunch of street performers (forbidden to solicit tips, according to some posted signs) appeared underneath an elevated portion of the promenade.
They ran the gamut from a singer and a guitar to multi-piece bands to groups of elderly people doing dance routines in the most garish get-ups imaginable. Since it was so close to my hostel, I actually went back on my last night in Hong Kong!
The next day, I hit what is perhaps Hong Kong's most iconic tourist attraction: Victoria Peak. It amazes me that Hong Kong is such a large city given that so little of it is flat land, and one of the best views of the city's central skyline is on a mountain with an elevation of about 1,800 feet.
 |
| Riding the Victoria Peak Tram. |
The most direct way to the top is an extraordinarily steep tram built by the British in 1888. The tram doesn't just wind its way up to the top; it goes straight up the mountain, and the seats are angled as if you're on a flat surface. Note the angle of the buildings relative to the tram and passengers in the picture. It was a fairly long wait to make it on the tram, and it was still pretty crowded on the peak, but the view sure made it worthwhile.
 |
| Panorama of the view from Victoria Peak. (Click on the image to view it full size!) |
Once you headed away from the mall at the top of the tram line and onto the nature paths, however, it became shockingly peaceful given the bustle of the city and unbelievable skyline view.
 |
| View of the path, looking away from the skyline. |
 |
| Trees! Nature! |
After some time relaxing and taking in the view, I headed back down into the city to do some exploring (mainly in the creatively named neighborhood of Central). My next stop was the Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and Art, an arts and entertainment complex that just opened this past summer. An example of what urban planners call an adaptive reuse project, Tai Kwun is housed in the former Central Police Station complex. Built by the British in 1841, the complex initially served as Hong Kong's main police station and prison and was decommissioned in 2006. Coincidentally, there was a placard there that mentioned one of its most famous prisoners was Ho Chi Minh!
 |
| One of the entrances to Tai Kwun. |
The complex constituted a series of plazas and walkways through colonial-era buildings, some of which housed shops and restaurants, some that housed exhibits about the complex's past, and others that were used as galleries and art spaces.
 |
| The main plaza at Tai Kwun. |
One of my favorite portions, of course, was a contemporary art museum in the sole new building of the complex.
 |
| Art museum on the left. The barbed wire remains as a reminder of Tai Kwun's prison days. |
Some portions of the exhibits were predictably inscrutable, but it was the awesome architecture and setting that made it one of the unexpected highlights of my trip.
 |
| View from the art museum's mini-library. |
Part of what made Hong Kong so stunning to me was its scale. No matter where you are or what window you look from, it's hard to forget you're in a massive city. It's not even so much that the buildings are big like buildings in Midtown Manhattan or the Chicago Loop; it's more that they are all so uniformly tall. Every part of the city is covered in skyscrapers.
 |
| View up a street in Central. |
What surprised me, however, was how often it seemed that these towering buildings were in such disrepair for how wealthy Hong Kong is. It was really obvious, actually, that there is a massive wealth gap in Hong Kong. I passed countless different locations of Cartier, Chanel, Tiffany, Patek Philippe, Rolex, and so on. At the same time, large swaths of massive apartment blocks are totally run-down.
When I arrived at the building my hostel was in, I went in the wrong entrance where the elevator was being refurbished. As I was climbing up to the 5th floor (European 5th, so 6th basically), I passed a few signs in the stairwell prohibiting residents from sleeping in the stairwell during elevator refurbishments. Sure enough, not only did I see people sleeping in the hallways, I had to step around a man sleeping on a piece of cardboard in the stairwell. Nonetheless, Hong Kong is home to more billionaires (93) than any other city in the world besides New York (103).
 |
| The street where I stayed. |
After Tai Kwun, I headed back to my hostel on the metro during the early portion of rush hour. Metro workers with loudspeakers were posted at every third or fourth car directing people to squeeze in and out of the unbelievably packed trains. Luckily the line I was taking wasn't quite as crowded. Later that evening, I went on a mini shopping spree at Uniqlo and spent $20 on some Michelin-starred dim sum at one location of a chain called Din Tai Fung.
 |
| This is what Michelin-starred shumai looks like. |
I sampled three different kinds of dumplings. To be honest, while I wasn't totally blown away, they were still probably the best dumplings I've ever had. And hey, now I can say I've dined at a Michelin-starred restaurant.
 |
| The Star Ferry in front of the 1,362-feet-tall International Finance Center. |
The next day, it was time to take the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbour. Part tourist attraction and part vital public transportation, the ferry cost $0.35 to cross from Kowloon (where I was staying) to Hong Kong Island (home to Central and roughly equivalent to Manhattan).
 |
| Aboard the Star Ferry. |
Upon disembarking, I wandered through an extensive network of elevated walkways in and around the skyscrapers of the main business district.
 |
| Somewhere above a busy road. |
Though Central is mostly flat, it's not long before you start to hit the steep terrain of Hong Kong Island. The elevated walkways of the business district connect to the base of the Central Mid-Levels Escalators, which are exactly what they sound like.
 |
| One section of the Central Mid-Levels Escalators. |
Since the center of the city was essentially built where mountains meet the water, a half-mile-long system of public, outdoor escalators and inclined moving walkways were built in the 1990s.
 |
| View from the upper reaches of the escalators. |
The top of the escalator system spits you out in Hong Kong's Soho district, which—like its New York and London counterparts—is packed with unnecessarily expensive but tempting bars and restaurants.
 |
| A busy street in Soho. |
 |
| Another street view in Soho. |
Since I'm a total sucker for street art and well designed restaurants that I can't afford, I loved this part of the city. I spent the rest of the afternoon winding my down the mountain through some street markets.
 |
| An accidental portrait. |
 |
| A steeper portion of the street markets. |
I spent the rest of the afternoon back at Tai Kwun people watching from a great bar that ended up being way more expensive than I thought. (Now I know not to make assumptions based on the happy hour prices when it's not happy hour!) Before heading back to my hostel—hurrying to avoid rush hour—I stopped by a Tim Ho Wan outlet, another dim sum place whose original location in a different area of the city was awarded a Michelin star.
 |
| These were a little too good. |
I went to have their famous char siu bao, sugary buns filled with barbecue sauce and char siu pork. I wasn't sure if ordering two would mean two buns, and it turned out to be two sets of three buns. I ended up eating four in one sitting, and that was… a mistake. They are deceptively indulgent, and it didn't help that I had the other two as a late second dinner (as this was an early first dinner). Nonetheless, they were incredibly delicious—and cheap by Hong Kong standards (about $4.50 for 3, if I remember correctly).
 |
| Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade at night. |
My last evening in Hong Kong was spent back at the Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade and on the Star Ferry before doing some more wandering on Hong Kong Island.
 |
| Riding Hong Kong's tram, affectionately known as the "Ding-Ding" for the old-timey bell it uses. |
One of the last things I did was ride Hong Kong's iconic double-decker tram (as I had done the night before). It was one of my favorite experiences, rolling down neon-bedecked streets on the second floor with all of the windows down.
 |
| View at Hong Kong International Airport. |
The next morning, it was time to head to the airport, which might be my new favorite airport in the world. The terminal was beautiful and modern, but the mountain views were truly something else. Back in Hanoi, I was fortunate to experience no issues getting my new visa and passing through immigration. (And as of a few days ago, I now have my long-term, multiple-entry visa, so no more immigration headaches for me. In theory, at least.)
Check out more photos here! I'm especially happy with how these turned out, so take a look if you can. My next post will be about my day trip to Hạ Long Bay last weekend, so look out for that soon.
Till next time,
Gray
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