Hong Kong a thousand miles of difference from Bowie By SCOTT ROUCH Special to the Blade-News
One of the advantages of my wife Melanie's job working with school-age children is the schedule, so when the schools took spring break recently so did we and headed to Hong Kong.
Not being Tibetan monks, I'm happy to report that none of our civil rights were violated. The biggest affront came from the smells at the food markets we saw and there was some sketchy food served to us on our China Airlines flights.
I'd been to Hong Kong a few times while in the Navy, the last time 19 years ago when the British ruled the territory, so I was interested to see what I could remember and how much it had changed over the years. While the Chinese retook control of Hong Kong in 1997, calling it a Special Administrative Region, it still had the feel of a modern Western city.
But to my own surprise, the feel of a Western city isn't always needed or appreciated.
We visited neighboring Lantau Island to see the Giant Tian Tan Buddha and Po-Lin Monastery. To get to Ngong Ping Village, home of the 98-foot, 250-pound bronze Buddha and monastery, we took the subway (MTR) to the island then took a 25-minute cable car ride up to the village. The walk to the Buddha was interesting with soothing Chinese music coming through the loudspeakers. Before turning a corner and seeing the Buddha, however, the setting was spoiled somewhat by the appearance of a Starbucks and 7-Eleven, which used to be my favorite store. I guess it didn't upset everyone though as later we saw a monk coming back from the village with what appeared to be a big bag of food. The Buddha, however, was as huge and stunning as promised and the monastery was filled with many varied and colorful artifacts and decorations. We decided to take the bus back down to the MTR, which proved to be a great decision as the cable car broke down right about the time we would have been making our way back down, stranding all those on its 3-mile path for an hour and a half. Timing is everything.
The aforementioned MTR was one of the best we've ever experienced. The undergrounds are extremely clean and frequently housed underneath modern shopping malls. The stations had places to line up for train doors and the trains hit their marks every time. Inside the train the destination map is computerized, showing what direction you're going, highlighting the different stops. It also shows you which side of the train to exit which becomes important so you know how to fight through the masses to get off in time. A positive exchange rate ($1 = Hong Kong 7) always helps my disposition, and the cost of a one-way ride on the island was under $3.
(New Cliche Alert) I'll discuss some more of the wonderful sights we saw, but I must admit I'm not a tour guide even though Melanie and I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express. Sorry about that. Actually we were very happy because of all the trips we've taken, this is the first time we've stayed somewhere that was mentioned in a travel guide book.
It's hard to change the view from the island's highest hill, and Victoria Peak (1,300 feet) still afforded a stunning panoramic view of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon (across Victoria Harbour) as well as the South China Sea.
More easy transportation that has been around for a long time is the Star Ferry that covers the harbor from two locations on Hong Kong (Central, Wan Chai) to Kowloon. Melanie and I were able to take the five-minute ride across the harbor for about 50 cents combined. We made the trips a few nights, including the night we saw what was dubbed the world's largest laser light show. We specifically went the night they advertised the 15-minute show would be narrated in English. The Chinese are with the times as the only English they used was to tell us which companies were sponsoring and participating in the show. The already impressive lit Honk Kong skyline was made that much more impressive by the show which featured lights blinking and twinkling and shooting into the sky off buildings synchronized to music.
I wasn't sure if I was going to remember any of Hong Kong or the places we frequented, but picking up a map at the airport when we arrived, I felt a rush of familiarity when I saw an ad for a pub called the Bull and the Bear. The Bull and the Bear was a sit-down restaurant my buddy Jim Vanderpoel and I had gone to all those years before, and fashion plates that we purchased were official blue polyester Bull and the Bear neckties. I wore mine out years ago and was hoping for a chance to pick up a replacement. Dragging Melanie there, I was a bit disappointed once we found it as it had moved and was now just a corner pub.
Finding the pub brought us to the seedier side of town, and I started to get a sense of dejà vu. The tattoo parlor just down the street from the club did look familiar - at least the sign outside it did since we never went in. I'm pretty sure it was the same place with its plain white sign that simply said Tattoo because that was the area just up the street from the pier. Some things definitely stay the same. Years before, competition was fierce among tailors on the island to get our attention and our business. With spending cash readily available - I was living on the ship after all - I purchased an all-white Don Johnson, Miami Vice-style suit. Yeah, I was quite the fashion plate.
Melanie got a taste of that when we went across Victoria Harbour to Kowloon and walked down Nathan Road where the expensive stores reside. Seemingly every block we were accosted by representatives from tailor shops trying to talk us into buying some of their merchandise off the side streets. Both of us being tall and blonde made it hard to blend in with the rest of the crowd and we were easy targets for their attention.
The streets were bustling with activity from the moment we stepped out of our hotel to the time we ended our day's adventures. Melanie and I obviously had a different experience than on my previous visits. We didn't go drinking at a pub in Kowloon and trade shirts with Australian rugby players and we were definitely in bed way before we would have even thought about it before. That said I'm glad I was able to share the experience of Hong Kong with my wife and to see it in essentially two different lifetimes is something I'll always cherish. I plan on going back to Hong Kong and this time I hope it won't be another 19 years.
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The writer is a former freelancer for the Blade-News and former sports public relations officer at Bowie State University.
