Hong Kong - Boy

The smoggy sky clears a little from Chengdu (via Shenzhen) to Hong Kong and (happily) the bureaucracy clears up a lot. Our exit from China and later transit through China vs entry and exit to and from Hong Kong demonstrate this perfectly. On exiting, our Tibetan group visa confounded passport control - central government had obviously not informed our inspector what types of visa the people's republic issues. There was much calling over of supervisors; noddings of head of supervisor; much checking, double-checking and triple-checking our passports; much waiting in the 'no wait' zone while others squeeze by; much ordering of us to go back behind the yellow line which wasn't possible due to the crush of people (and their baggage) behind us. Our officious inspector must have been exasperated by this horrendous lack of protocol while we were just exasperated, but in the end the score was 'people's bureaucracy' 1, pragmatism 0.

 

Our transit through Shanghai from Hong Kong to Japan was more comedy but thankfully shorter: Firstly, we were stopped going through the 'in transit' door and were directed to the 'enter China' passport control. Knowing this to be crap we went back to the China Eastern Airways desk where we were told to "wait here", then "follow me". We followed the CEA representative who she took us through the same doors we were told not to go through earlier, around the corner, via some darkened corridors, then through a coded security door where we waited for two passport officials to attend their desks. At this point I was extremely worried they would put a stamp on our newly acquired China double-entry visa taking away one entry (and we needed both). They didn't (phew) and after much checking and (of course) double-checking they put a modest 'transit' stamp on a separate page allowing us harmonious entry to the gate. We'll be enjoying China customs three more times before the end of our trip.

 

By contrast, entry and exit to and from Hong Kong (and Macau) was a breeze. We did this many times since you pass through passport control each time you visit a SAR (Special Administrative Region). It was all very efficient and without hassle. If this is how SARs operate then maybe all of China should become a SAR. China's mantra of "one country, two systems" for these places has never been truer.

 

My expectations of Hong Kong were merely that it should be bright and exciting. It was and more. In May it's also a humid city and a lot of ice cold 'air conditioned' wind blows out of the many shop entrances (Hong Kong doing its bit to cool the planet). It is also very very cramped - there are even people known as 'cage men' who live in an impossibly spaced area of 2x1x1 metres. C became extremely claustrophobic just looking at the kinds of rooms we had to live in for the next seven days, but we did habituate to the size and C eventually stopped mentioning the lack of window. We made up for our lack of living space by sampling the delights of a big city; its variety of food, entertainment and shops.

 

Strangely all the Chinese food we tried was generally poor quality. I never expected the chicken's feet to blow me away but was sad when a restaurant that came highly recommended served large quantities of duck fat in exchange for an unreasonable number of HK dollars. I'm not sorry I missed out on pig's knuckles now. Some cheap eats were good though; we found a tasty hole in the wall dim sum place and a great (for me at least) vegetarian buffet with a fantastic range of tofu, mushrooms and glutinous rice sweets.

 

We had superb Japanese food, but top marks go to a restaurant whose chef provided an exquisite buffet lunch with bottomless champagne, all for less than the price of two helpings of duck fat. Only a few times have I been fortunate enough to experience an absolute gastronomic indulgence such as this and it's the one time my eating slows down because stomach space is at a premium; it was tantamount to having a DIY tasting menu and then redoing your favourite dishes. On the two days we ate there the food became the central activity and the entertainment before and after just blurred into insignificance.

 

Only slightly blurry (read boring) is the memory of the retro space museum; a planetarium with some Chinese space propaganda; strolling through the New Territories' wetlands a few miles from the Chinese border; a weak harbour light show and forgettable Chinese orchestra.

 

More vivid are the fantastic views of Hong Kong island and Kowloon; the forest of high-rises all over the place; some literature on Chinese atrocities being (surprisingly) handed out on the street; superb entertainment in the form of two percussion artists from Israel; being drenched by the rain in the wholesome and slightly jaded plastic world of Disney and feeling the glitz of the mega opulent Casinos in Macau, which could well have been transplanted from Vegas into the middle of Macau's aged and what appears to be blackened fire-damaged high-rise neighbourhoods.

 

Our main reason for being here though was to obtain a China visa quickly and painlessly. We obtained it in exactly this way and given how much fun we had here am glad the 'people's bureaucracy' saw fit not to allow normal China visas in Tibet.