I rest in my minimal hotel room (I barely have room to turn around) for a little while then go out to Explore Hong Kong. I walk along one of the big roads in the city, Nathan road and a few blocks down I start to feel happy. All the schoolwork lately was getting me down somewhat but here I am, all alone in Hong Kong and I am happier than in a long time. I walk down Nathan road, which to start with could be any street in Taipei. This changes however as I get closer to the waterfront at the end of Kowloon peninsula. For one thing the signs are different, they tend to use a loot of look fook and loon in their words, while the chinese Characters are just like normal. And after listening to some people speak it seems to me that Cantonese, which is the language here, is complete gibberish. Closer to the waterfront, the buildings get larger and more luxurious with more glas and steel. But right smack in the middle of this I find a nice park, the most odd thing in the park is the big count down timer to the Beijing Olympics. A get a feeling that although Hong Kong is basiclly a tropical country, the main atmosphere is not one of tropical island, but one of big city and this is confirmed as I get down to the water where the buildings are all huge glass and steel structures.


 

Exploring on your own is fun, feeling good by just walking down an unknown street in an unknown country is testament enough to that but exploring on your own might not get you everywhere you want to go. Therefore I go into the tourist information center I find at the harbor and get a map with a few good places marked out. Next I take the nearby ferry across the straight separating Kowloon peninsula from Hong Kong island. It is here that I start to realize the beauty of the urban landscape as I look out over the water and the tall buildings in the growing dusk. I meat a british man resident in Hong Kong and we talk during the crossing and he gives me some further tips on how to see the city. I am now in central, an area of nothing but skyscrapers, all looking exceedingly expensive. I walk into one of the biggest ones, IFC and look around. An overwhelming feeling of stress hits me as I walk there among people dressed for business rushing to and throe. Although I do not stay long I still take the time to snap some more close up shots of the magnificent buildings. As I am walking back towards the ferry pier through all the people milling about, I realize something. Central Hong Kong is a big monster, gulping up money and sending its minions out to fetch ever more money so that it can grow and reach unrelentingly towards the sky. I must get out of here before it gets me in the snares of stress.