Hong Kong

The day started out nicely with an early rise but I totally underestimated the time it takes to get to the airport. First I was running late because I had forgotten something in my room, so I was thinking that if I want to check in relaxed I should hurry a little. So I ran through my neighborhood, through MRT stations until I reached the main station where I was faced with the first obstacle: finding the bus stop. After 15 minutes of unsuccessful search I asked a middle-aged lady who was so nice to walk me all the way to the station (a 10 minute run in the sun). I got on the bus only to find out that it would take an hour to the airport. If true I was definitely going to miss my flight, so I was asking a young woman in front of me if I could use her phone to online check-in, which I could but for which the time frame had already passed. Then she told me one of the wisest of all Chinese sayings: “What happens will happen and what won’t happen won’t happen, so don’t worry about it”. I tried my best, so why worry now?

Eventually I made the flight and was not even the last passenger to board. Despite all this I arrived in Hong Kong late, spent hours at the border and at the luggage conveyor belt and as a result missed Tilmann who had been waiting for me all the time. Since I couldn’t find him I tried to call him and ended up using somebody else’s phone (the third person that day who saved my buttocks) and reached him. It turned out that I was too late for the boat party, which he had organized for us that night. So I would meet him afterwards.

After I missed Tilmann and the party I was supposed to go to, I went straight to Kowloon where I had a hostel booked. As it is usually the case with the cheapest of all hostels this one is in a quite exciting neighborhood with lots and lots of Indians who try to sell me watches, cell phones, food and hostel rooms, which I always kindly decline.

Hong Kong hit me like a train! Next to Hong Kong Taipei feels like a village, even though population-wise they are not so different. Hong Kong boasts with endless opportunities to consume any imaginable product in an endless variety. It makes you feel tiny with its tall skyscrapers. It is filled with huge amounts of luxury cars and with people who have every imaginable skin color, eye shape, and face topography. One of the first things I noticed was that whenever I wanted to cross a street there were apparently no cars until I figured out that I had been looking into the wrong direction. Hong Kong drives on the left and that almost killed me. Well – so far Hong Kong is definitely a place that makes an immediate impression (input overload) on you like only few places in the world.

Hong Kong Island’s skyline:

The Hong Kong Museum of Art

The ICC, Hong Kong’s tallest building.

Luckily I was upgraded from an eight-people dorm to a four-people dorm, which is as big as you’d imagine a single. My ‘I-am-so-lucky high’ ended abruptly when I was confronted with the brutal reality of food prices in Hong Kong (or just my neighborhood). Coming from a country where my average meal cost only 2 Euros, Hong Kong’s average 7 Euros came as a shock. Eventually I found a place that served curry for 5 euros but judging so far, it will be hard to live in Hong Kong on the cheap. This is after all the place where the world’s most billionaires live.

Hong Kong’s skyline at night (duh!)

We met right before midnight and along came Kai from UCM and a drunk Austrian guy whose name I forgot. For the rest of the night we wandered around SoHo (South of Hollywood), drinking good Japanese cocktails and whiskey, and essentially just watching people and places. Tilmann summed up one truth about Hong Kong: ‘This city is built on money’, meaning the insane amount of fancy cars, the exorbitant entry fees to clubs, people who wear classical suits and dresses that seem to have an ‘expensive’ tag jumping into your eyes. Because SoHo is hilly it is almost entirely reachable by open-air escalators (so businesspeople don’t get sweaty). I was torn between being impressed and disgusted at the splurge. It may be nice to see this fantastic lightshow but is this really necessary? I have a hard time switching of my conscious and just enjoying the theater. If you are environmentally conscious, socially conscious, gender conscious, health conscious, then you will have a hard time ignoring Hong Kong’s stance towards these concerns because it is amazingly good at ignoring all of them. Enough ambiguity: since I shouldn’t be here in the first place if I was really going to criticize these things, I will enjoy everything as good as my conscience lets me.

More skyscrapers:

Tilmann and I on the ferry.

The following day I went around the neighborhood looking desperately for something to eat for breakfast, which is more difficult than one might imagine. I ended up at McDonald’s. Later, Tilmann and I met a group of CUHK students with whom we went to the Hong Kong Museum of Art. The Art on display was mainly 17^th century drawings, which were drawings of surrealist landscape based on the artist’s memory. When we were done Tilmann and I would go to Hong Kong Central and head up to the peak, one of Hong Kong’s places with the best view over the city. To go up we took the cable car, which rises almost vertically. We enjoyed the scenery for a long while, then we walked downhill towards SoHo where we enjoyed a cocktail before we headed home. That night my legs started to hurt because the way down was extremely steep.

On the peak.

The next day, I visited Tilmann at his campus for breakfast. CUHK is built on a hill and compared with the rest of the city it is basically a rural campus (not really but as I said – compared with the rest of the city). The surrounding hills are lush and the campus trails provides for a good hike. We didn’t stay for long, heading towards Pat Sin Leng, a nature park, where we figured out a supreme hike with good views over the islands. And it sure was a beauty. We were so full of energy that we did the hike up to the peak in record time (a New Zealand pilot died of dehydration last year). The park was designed just with the right degree of interference with nature so that it was neither a paved road nor was it impenetrable jungle. In the end we were rewarded with a million-dollar view over several bays at the most gorgeous weather. Sweet!

Lotus on the CUHK campus.

The hike at Pat Sin Leng.

Verrrrry steep.

Yes that’s a butterfly on Tilmann’s foot!

That’s where we were!

We got lost on the way down but arrived, still way ahead of the trail schedule in the valley and hitched a ride back into town where we had dinner. It’s been a long time that I have had a day this exhausting and this rewarding at the same time. We went back to Tilmann’s place and watched ‘Waltz with Bashir’, one of my favorites. In a slightly depressed mood we wished each other farewell, a quick reunion and parted.

The next day began too early, at 5:30, only 4 hours after I fell asleep. When I arrived at the airport, though, I was so early that I was offered a seat on an earlier flight. So I arrived in Taipei an 45 minutes early and dragged myself, half-dead, back to the dorm. One thing really annoys me, which is that my left foot is swollen since the big hike and according to the symptoms I have an infected tendon and should get treatment asap. I will in due time, promised. But now I just have to get my well-deserved sleep!

Beach, City, Art

The next day I explored the coast and went on the search of Taiwan’s Dutch history. Selena let me borrow her scooter for the whole day. The Dutch built their first fort in Tainan, which later grew to become today’s city. Unfortunately there is only one wall of the ancient fort left, the rest of it has been restored and looks anything but historic. Being so close to the ocean, I couldn’t let this chance pass to take a look at it and rode the scooter to the nearest beach, where I watched surfers showing off in the warm sea and collected some beautiful shells. When I came home that night I was exhausted and went to bed early to be ready for my following adventure the next day.

The beach near Tainan. Grey sky but warm water!

The only remaining wall of the Dutch fort.

The next day came and I took a train to Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second biggest city. It felt much bigger than Tainan and was accordingly harder to get around. I walked for half an hour before I found a bike rental. Equipped with a bike I went to the harbor (the world’s 6^th largest – who knew) and tried to find something interesting, which was quite difficult. So it came totally unexpected for me to find an art center with the telling name Pier 2. I walked into one of the exhibits where I was greeted overwhelmingly. After I was interrogated about my origin and purpose of stay, one of the workers started to talk German to me and even proudly gave me a tour in my native language. Possibly this also served PR purposes because a bulk of people followed us and took our picture – headline: even a German looked at our exhibit. The exhibit in question was with sculptures and drawings by a (supposedly) very famous Japanese artist. Unfortunately it didn’t spark anything in me and I had to endure an hour-long tour because I am too nice to decline such an offer. In sum, this art center really was a highlight of my stay in Kaohsiung. Other than that I just went to see the skyline and spent a long time writing this blog-entry and the like.

Pier 2 Art District: A woman and a man essentially: wide pelvis and wide shoulders what more is there to say?

Sculpture by a famous Japanese sculpture artist.

Around pier 2

Kaohsiun skyline with harbor in the foreground.

The people on this scooter showed me the way to the train station. Great folks!

So when I was finally planning to head back to Tainan I had to realize that the last train had already left. Without Selena I would have been stuck in Kaohsiung and would have to pay a hostel. Right after I texted her she called me with instructions for a bus back to Tainan, where she even picked me up. And she drove me to the train station the next day, bought the ticket for me and without me noticing even paid some of it. I owe her big time and want to thank her for all she’s done ( I hope you read this!). The train ride home was a long one and I had to stand for half of it. Taking a different route, I had again the impression that Taiwan’s cities were the product of the attempt of giving every Taiwanese a roof over his/her heads and not more. Saying all this I must say that I am of the conviction, though, that architectural beauty is highly cultural dependent and many Taiwanese people might actually find their homes beautiful. This means in consequence that my humble opinion has little weight. As long as Taiwanese people feel comfortable in their homes and streets there is little reason to change their looks. And there is one important lesson which I have learned so far: whenever something is unusual, uncomfortable, untasty or whatnot I tell myself: “you get used to it.”

I came home late, only to skype with Sarah and cleaning my room, which I had left as a mess. Hong Kong is calling and I was trying to get a good night of sleep but my vacation schedule interfered with that plan. Oh what the hell.

Cross-island travels

Friday afternoon I rushed home to pack my stuff and cleaned up my room until I realized that I would not make it to anywhere down south until late at night so I changed my mind and rescheduled my departure for Saturday where I left so late that I could only take the high speed rail (poor me).

Taiwan’s high speed rail is quite convenient and so fast that it covers almost the whole island in 90 minutes. On the way south I got to see a lot of the landscape of Taiwan’s west coast and I must admit that despite years of traveling and living abroad it struck me as being not particularly beautiful. The landscape on the west coast is essentially flat and there is hardly any spot from the train where you would see some undeveloped area. Bulks of high-rise apartment buildings line much of the train tracks and scattered in between are some orderly arranged rice fields. Admittedly this judgment is most likely a result from a culture shock but I simply couldn’t stop a feeling of loneliness when I was watching these anonymous apartment blocks pass by my window. It’s possible that I am also a small-town child who likes the sight of a pretty old town, which Taiwan’s cities are entirely void of.

Tainan

Facemask fashion

Anyway, I arrived in Tainan around 5pm and was picked up by my couchsurfer. This was my first time on a scooter in Taiwan, which made me feel like I finally moved through the streets like I was supposed to: in the middle of the road with a breeze in my face. Selena is an English student from Tainan who – unusually for Taiwanese people – shares an apartment with her sister. Traditionally, Taiwanese people will share their home with their parents until they get married, which is when they move into a new home with their spouse. Not so Selena and Lili who live in sisterly harmony and have a whole room to spare for me.

Selena’s street.

Taking the trash out is a neighborhood activity.

Tainan impressions

Selena

The first night we just spent walking through the neighborhood and getting some local Taiwanese hot pot and tea. We talked about typical Taiwanese evening activities and I was surprised that she had trouble coming up with anything but watching TV or going to the night market. So for that night we stuck to the former and watched some good old-fashioned Taiwanese shows. The next day I explored the cultural highlights of Tainan and there are certainly some pretty amazing highlights. As a book-lover I just had to go into the museum of Taiwanese literature. There was an impressive overview of different themes and epochs in Taiwanese literature and the museum is housed in a building from the Japanese era designed by a famous architect who apparently had some pretty darn good skills. Inspired by the literature on display I went to the small library in the basement and delved into some genuine Taiwanese literature about Taiwan’s history of poverty and the divide between village and city.

The Confucius temple

An amazing ferry tale tree

The old city gate

Make-up for the concubines

A local hero with a dog on his horse – I found that funny

The rest of the day I spent looking at temples, relics and statues of famous Taiwanese people. I had to return the scooter early because Lili needed it to have dinner with Selena and her dad. When they came back we decided to do something together and went to Taiwan’s biggest night market, where we played darts, bought more and less tasty food and simply had a good time chatting and wandering around.

The night market: eating and playing

Sugar cane juice: amazing to watch but not really tasty (unless you like the taste of plant)