NOTES ON MY FIRST NIGHT IN HONG KONG (PART 2)

By the time I was settled in my room, it was nearing 9pm. the minibusses run to campus until midnight, and the trains until 1am, so I didn’t have very long to look around.

The closest MTR station to campus is Hang Hau, which is on the purple line way in the bottom right corner of the map. Hong Kong proper is on the island down the Blue Line, Kowloon is on the mainland and just sprawls on forever.
I didn’t know where I was going, I had no plans whatsoever. I jumped on the train in Hang Hau, transferred to the Blue Line at North Point, and was planning to go all the way down to Central (downtown Hong Kong) and then walk back. The train was pretty much empty until I got to Causeway Bay, where a huge flood of people were waiting to get on the train. It reminded me of the Times Square subway stop, so I figured it was where I wanted to be as my first tourist experience.
I jumped off the train, and was greeted with an endless row of lights and tiny shops and hundreds of people walking around. Food everywhere, sweltering hot humid air. This was the city, with flavors of Blade Runner or that scene in Attack of the Clones where they are chasing after the bounty hunter, but with this weird Joel Schumacher neon hideousness throughout. Lots of teenagers getting froyo or kebabs, lots of cars cruising around.
I walked a bit north until I saw the water to get my bearings. There are several roads that run parallel to the water; I picked one a block south of the water that looked relatively lively and started walking west. I occassionally moved a block south or north, but kept heading mostly west, figuring it would be easiest to keep moving in a single direction for when I wanted to head back.
Of course, I saw Starbucks and Mcdonalds (which was packed) and Burger Kings scattered around, but what surprised me most was the HUGE number of 7-Elevens. They were basically on every other street corner. I laughed at this originally, but I’ve since had a number of locals recommend I go there for random items I need. Apprently 7-Eleven it is a big part of daily life here in Hong Kong. Who knew?
I spent most of the night walking down Johnston Rd until I hit the Wan Chai station (which was the next stop over). Immediately after that was a large soccer field and a set of basket ball courts, full of people playing around. I walked through, stopped on a bench to take a drink of water and watch the game.
Thus far, I hadn’t seen any tourists or foreigners. I’m sure I looked lost but no one stopped to help or even say hi. I finally ran into an American couple wandering around. I stopped them and asked where I could get a drink. They said to walk down Lockhart, where there were a row of bars and strip clubs. I didn’t want the strip club as much as I wanted a drink, but I thanked them and moved on.
When I hit Lockhart, I realized that the drinking establishments were all in the red light district. By this time it was around 11pm, and the street was full of women who worked the clubs out on the street trying to get men to come in. And by ‘trying’, I mean grabbing on to them and not letting go until they either came in side or physically removed the girls from their arms. Every foreigner who walked by (and there were a LOT of 30-something white business men in polo shirts who just oozed money) would get swarmed by girls in short shorts and tiny sparkling shirts. I wasn’t interested in strip clubs, I just wanted a drink, so I kept moving until I found a normal bar… that just happened to be a Mexican restaurant called the Coyote (note: none of the construction in these images was still up when I was walking around). There were some foreigners having drinks by themselves at the bar that opened right up onto the street, and I figured it was safe from the street walkers, and maybe I’d have an interesting conversation.
I asked for a beer, and told the bartender to ‘surprise me’. I got a Dos Equis, which was on special for HK$30, or about 4 bucks. Not bad for an import, although it is still weird to hand over a $50 for a single beer and get back only change. One of the guys at the bar looked like an Indian businessman (was constantly on his Blackberry) had been drinking Absinthe for a while and wasn’t stopping any time soon. I finished my beer pretty quickly and asked the bartender about places to eat. I was hungry and worried about getting a train back.
He directed me around the corner to a noodle shop that sold a huge bowl of noodles and pork for $27, or about US$3.50. That’s right, I ate an entire meal for less than the price of my beer. I didn’t do much, but I still had a night on the town for less than 10 bucks. The food was easily the best Chinese food I’ve ever eaten, spicy and flavorful, and it was just a random shop on the street. It makes me look forward to more eating adventures.
I then made my way back to the Wan Chai station, caught the last minibus back to campus, and crawled into bed. It was around midnight, so just getting on in the afternoon back in the States, and lots of people popped up online asking how the city was. I tried to say hi to Lally, but we still can’t talk without fighting. I fell asleep fairly quickly.