香港 = Xiang(1) Gang(3) = Hong Kong

Here I am in Hong Kong, in the area of Kowloon, laying in a double-sized bed in a hostel writing this. The sun seems to be shining (for the first time) from a clear sky and there's constant sounds of helicopters passing by. There's been some insects running about in our room mainly probably due to us keeping our window open to make it not so hot in the room. The room is... quite compact, that is to say maybe half the size of our dorms back in Beijing. Well, I don't mind, it's not as if we are living here anyway..

Last few days in HK have been foggy and the building (kinda of a marketplace) in which we stay is filled with Indian and Pakistanese people trying to sell us a) suits or b) fake merchandise (iPhone, Rolex,...). Proper touts - quite soon learnt to ignore them. The hostel is situated in the heart of Kowloon on Nathan Road, which is the main street in Kowloon, filled with whatnot.

Having seen the cuisine here it feels as if though I had seen it somewhere before. Then it occurred to me: all the Chinese restaurants in Finland probably are of Cantonese origins, since the sauce they always have on the table is the same stuff they have here and e.g. there's always wonton soup in the menu of a Chinese restaurant in Finland. This and couple of other facts led me to believe that this is the case. So what you are eating back there is the Cantonese cuisine then!

On the first day we checked out the shoreline of Kowloon (on the other side of the strait there is the Hong Kong Island with its massive spires of symbols of the prevailing corporatocracy). Walking on the shoreline there was lot of westerners aka tourists, lot of clean streets (in HK one can get fined quite heavily if you smoke, eat&drink, spit or litter in the wrong place at a wrong time, or that's what the signs say; in practice it's probably something else), neat looking buildings and so on. Sometimes it feels as if Hong Kong is just one big mall with its most splurgesome shopping centres and Pradas etc.. But I think it's just because we're in the tourist district. Upper in the north it is something else, or so I heard. Anyway, in the shoreline there was the famous avenue of stars with actors such as Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Bruce Lee having their handmarks on the ground. And then, at 8 p.m., there was a light show with lasers 'n' stuff projected to the sky from some of the tallest buildings in Hong Kong island. Wasn't so great though..

Yesterday we used a tram in Hong Kong island to get to the Victoria Peak. The tram travelled in declination of 45 degrees up. In the peak there was lot of tourists and lots to buy of course. Instead we just sucked in the views from up there towards HK island and Kowloon, and went for some small hiking in the near jungle. In the evening we met Natalie (from Beijing), who lives in the territories up north. We had some dinner, after that went to a bar district in HK island, "central" as they call it in English. After having a few good glasses of drinks it was time to retreat back to the hostel.

Today we'll have some dim sum with Na'alie and do some walking in some market areas. The original plan was to go and see Avatar today, but not surprisingly the IMAX-theaters were booked full, so we'll go on Monday. Today we probably go for some clubbin'.

Overall, it seems HK is a modern city with lot of tourists, but also the traditions are strongly in display. The atmosphere is easy-going and happy. Lot's of people here as well. Weather is just perfect as it is about +20 degrees instead of Beijing's 0 degrees.

As a factual info: HK is actually HKSAR, which stands for Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Meaning, HK belongs to China, but is quite autonomous. HK became part of China in the 1st of July 1997. As a result, officially everything here is written in 3 languages: English, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese. So it's quite easy to get along here. I've talked 'em all here :)