I've never tasted a better Frappucino than that first sip in Hong Kong. After a couple months of drinking green tea, eating rice and stuffed dumplings, I savored a quick fix of caffeine and indulged in a plate of Indian curry. 7-11s, Outbacks, and those famous golden arches glowed with neon familiarity. I even managed to get lost in a couple shopping malls...in Hong Kong they're cunningly placed at key pedestrian crossings and subway hubs, disorienting even the most indiferrent passer-through.
Fortunately, Hong Kong also has some great out of the way, chilled-out hideaways in its outlying islands. The best part of waiting in a half hour line for movie tickets to the Harry Potter 3D extravaganza, was meeting Zen, the HK native who showed me some lesser known HK hangouts. Among them was the car-less Lantau island...accessible only by ferry and enough remote beaches and short mountain hikes to keep us busy for the better half of a day...it was also impressingly wind-powered! Zen and I also made a night-tram trip with a couple of his lovely lady friends to Victoria Peak...where we gazed upon a magnificent neon rainbow of a skyline, courtesy of the dozens of ocean-front skyscrapers.
A visit to Hong Kong by independent travelers would be incomplete without a visit to the epitome of backpacker ghettos worldwide, the Chunking Mansions. 30 floors of poorly-lit, windowless, curry-smelling, prison-cell sized accomodations provide the perfect answer to the 4-star, $300+/night Hiltons and Sheratons a block down the road. Only here can you find Nigerian businessmen drinking a can of Guinness at an Indian food stall...a truly international community.
Luckily, my HK entertainment didn't end with the chaotic Chunking Mansions...the mid-autumn lantern festival was in full swing during my stay. Children haggled parents for sweet moon cakes, incense dragons danced though to thunder-drums, and live music and traditional costumes were in no short supply. On the other side of town, HK high society sip $15 martinis (I preferred the $8 Guinness) inside 4-story dance clubs in the posh Lan Kwai Fong district. Actually, my favorite down-time activity was perusing the amazing 3-story library in the city center. Some Ginsberg here, a little Yogananda there, and some free internet to top it all off left me a happy bookworm. By the end of my second stay in HK, I'd probably seen five new movies...most memorable was the Jane Goodall's "Wild Chimpanzees" IMAX experience. I was the only other patron to join the field trip group of special education students at the science museum. The film was captivating...interesting and heart-warming, with some amazing cinematography of the Tanzian landscape. While the credits rolled the end of the movie, the entire audience (including myself!) were howling like apes as we left the museum.
