GPS in HK

Scary. I've never been in a private car in Mong Kok on a Saturday night before. There were cars everywhere! People, trucks, taxis, scooters.. all doing their crazy stuff on Nathan Rd. We made it from Kowloon City to the other side of Lantau Island to Chek Lap Kok, the HK airport, unscathed. Nice work Mike, a friend of Curtis' who'd picked him up for a VIP trip. I was along for the ride, to jump out at the nearest MTR, but when the GPS started telling us conflicting information, I had to stay onboard for the adventure!

We only saw 2 near misses and a pimped out van that had blown a tyre along the Lantau highway, its tiny tyres wrapped around massive rims like icing on a donut.

Yet another reason not to trust this "dark city". I'm sure one or two of those prescribed turns were ones which were barricaded by council street cones and excavation machinery...

A dark city

Was great to see an old mate in HK again. Curtis and I grew up here and while he was over for a week we visited a few of the old haunts to relive old memories. What we found was renovation, reclamation and relocation. It really did drive home how much of an itinerant place this is, or highlighted the fact that it's over a decade since we ran around the busy streets, bursting with caffeine and sugar, prolonging the inevitable. I guess it's just noticeable, age that is, when you're away from a place for a while and then come back.

It's like the movie Dark City. While hunting around for hiking gear yesterday I found 2 places on the list (printed only 2 weeks ago) had relocated and one the building just wasn't there anymore. In the movie, one day there's a street and the next it's yet another high-rise. I love that movie, and not just cos of Jennifer Connelly.

Each time I come back I realise it's never the same but the only thing that remains is the coming and going of people I know. It might not be the same people each time, old friends from school or church, yet each one of them is coming back for the same reason as I am; visiting family and trying to find that missing chapter of life, the other home which makes no place really feel like home. It's the third culture kid experience, something I'd love to know more about.

Hong Kong home

It's incredible to be back in Hong Kong again. The complicated urban environment, efficient public transport, range of food, colours and smells. As busy as it is, this trip has reminded me of how HK also supports small interconnected communities, something you'd like to think would be more prevalent in an open, Western setting.

Whereas in Australia I have no idea what the people diagonally across the road from my place even look like, let alone their names or whether they'd gave me a hand if I was dying in the street. Not that here I know all the neighbours on the same floor, let alone on all floors in this tower of 7 to the housing estate. Such a concentrated mass of people, so undoubtedly the odds are going to be greater to be in each others' faces, talk in passing, help wherever necessary.

It must also have something to do with a society who still rely heavily on public transport. I could drive to and from work in Australia, avoid all contact with anyone other than work colleagues and the bare essentials when serving the public then head home, relatively untouched or confronted. Here they're in your armpits, shoving in front of you to get out of a train, sharing a claustro look as one more person squeezes into a lift, or amazing me when I'm still served with a smile 2000+ customers later, putting Western countries to shame.

In all this busyness everyone seems more relaxed than ever. Incredible. I will definitely take a piece of that back with me and apply it to my cushy Australian life. Really live out that creed of "no worries".

New Year 07

What a way to start a new year. Hiking.

It's a far cry from the old days when I would have woken up on someone's porch, or risen to see the aftermath of a backyard in the daylight. Ushering in a new year with a physical challenge is what this year will be all about for me. I'm setting a personal training regime for myself (as so many other NYE pledges are made!) and hopefully it will be what helps me power through.

My sister, April, and I went up Mount Parker on Hong Kong Island, approx. 500m above sea level. It was a great day, a winters' 23deg C, and there were plenty of people out on the public holiday. After only 10 mins of the initial climb (a country park track with reinforced earth stairs) I was completely out of breath and the coffee I'd sculled for breakfast earlier on was requesting an immediate evac. Felt much better in the shade and with a few buttons undone on my shirt it was easier to push on, now concreting in my mind that I am not Superman.

It was cool to see what they've done to dismantle the old HK airport at Chep Lap Kok (seen behind in photo of me about to die). Man, it brought back some memories seeing that ol beauty, the way the planes used to come in between the buildings and the one time a China airlines plane didn't make it... It sat in the harbour for ages and they were thinking of making a kitsch restaurant out of it; the semi-submerged fear factor dining area.

The view over the other side gave some sort of scope as to the more natural surrounds. Imagine this area untouched by mass civilisation. Weather worn junks sweeping into the deep harbour. Would have been an amazing sight.

Another point of interest re: the old airport. During the Japanese occupation during World War 2, stones were removed from the old wall surround the Walled City to extend the runway.

A solid start to the year I must say. My legs are completely pummeled though. I was willing each knee to work just to get up some steps in a shopping centre. Watch this Norm Be In It.