hong kong, part 1

carrie and i stormed hong kong a while back. we travel well together because we enjoy each other’s company and insights, plus our interests are similar [namely nightclubs, men and beer. kidding…] and we’re able to spend as much or as little time together as our whims dictate. we arrived in hong kong late on a saturday night; it was november 19. we jumped a bus i’d read about at the airport and disembarked on the side of a busy street right downtown in causeway bay with no clue where to head. we quickly realized that the average honkie [i really do think that’s what hong kong residents are nicknamed] have a surprisingly good grasp of the english language. people understood our questions about the street address, they just had no clue as to its whereabouts. after wrong turns and back tracks we finally found wang fat hostel. it was the first of many establishment names that could be construed as penis jokes…

it was well after 1am and our room wasn’t ready so after waiting and settling in we decided to save ourselves for the following day.
hong kong consists of 2 main parts; hong kong island and the mainland. we woke early the next morn and headed for the port.

the streets are a huge tangle, some way overcrowded with people hustling and cars inching along. i was surprised at the canopy of seemingly dangerous neon signs that covered nearly every main throughfare.

we caught a ferry from the island, where we stayed since that’s where most of the clubs were located, to tsim sha tsui, the most populous spot on the mainland, where we darted in the first eatery we could find.

i guess most people just order one dish but we were starving and are used to the japanese style of sharing many small servings, so we made ourselves look like pigs with cold pumpkin soup [lacked much depth of flavor], fried wontons [yummy], mushrooms wrapped in beef in brown sauce [a bit tough but flavored well], wild rice, and green veggie and dumpling stew [it proved really hard to eat the huge dumplings without looking like a slob].

if you’re thinking my descriptions lack enticing adjectives, know they closely mirror the translations we found on menus, when there was actually any english at all.
then we hit kowloon park for the weekly martial arts exhibition.

obviously some local kung fu schools put it on, lots of children, some very talented.
we wandered through the maze of streets just taking in the sights, sounds and smells of it all. one of seemingly millions of street stalls.

i was feeling cautious but not panicked by the recent surge of avian flu. although they were taking the threat seriously…

apparently they weren’t about to give up their sidewalk live fowl markets.
i decided to photograph from across the road just in case...

we made our way to hong kong’s largest market on temple st., which is referred to as men’s market because it used to sell only menswear. the peak hours are at night; we arrived just as their business day was beginning.

i fell in love with the markets there. although they are grubby and crowded you can find anything your little heart desires for a freakin’ bargain, they are great spots for people watching, and there are so many restaurants, if you will, tucked between the vendors. many consist of a closet sized shop with folding tables and stools wedged onto the sidewalk out front. the food's cheap, plentiful and the beer is cold.

we were so stuffed from our heaping plates of sautéed muscles and green vegetable [maybe kale] stir-fry with garlic that we couldn’t make room to try the last thing on the list…

we passed this butcher shop/eatery as we made our way back to the ferry port.

we spiffed up and hit the town.

we headed to lan kwai fong, the hip entertainment district, but to our disappointment most of the honkies are good boys and girls and stay home on sunday nights apparently. we found a club that looked like something out of the flintstones aptly named the cavern where a chinese band was cranking out ‘70s and ‘80s covers. pretty damn funny.
the next morning afternoon, we hopped a bus to the northern part of the island to visit stanley market. [thanks to charlie for that lil’ html jewel.]

we snagged a prime table for some lunch; i had a crunchy noodle stir-fry with shrooms and the infamous green vegetable; decent, filling and cheap.


then we shopped so long that it was time to head straight to dinner. we made our way to a mexican restaurant in wan chai, which has been the seedy district ever since it became the hotspot for u.s. sailors on leave from the vietnam war. nestled between gawdy hostess bars we found a rather posh joint with enchiladas, burritos and $30 pitchers of margaritas, but hey, we were on vacation… we decided to try our luck in some of the surrounding bars. some drunk, stumbly patrons urged us to try a second-floor dance club saying it was ladies’ nite. you know something’s not quite right when ladies drink for absolutely free…the place was a creepy dive. we were never able to figure out which girls were actually working and which ones were “working”. free wasn’t enough to keep us there once we couldn’t shake some loser with a bad attitude who’d camped out our table. some of the other bars were a lil’ more normal but all in all that part of town was not our niche. carrie headed back to the hostel and i set off to find a club i’d read about in the guidebook. managed to make it to the locale only to embarrass myself by asking about a nightspot that had closed two years prior. luckily i’d asked an interesting fellow to help, so instead of hitting the club, i spent the next hour or so chilling out with him. what a stroke of luck.

**some photos credited to carrie