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May. 4th, 2006 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stakebaitI'm home.
Hong Kong is beautiful. I first got there in the dark, weaving with exhaustion, and the wooded hills looked like ghosts in the darkness, lit only dimly by neon (arranged in Tron-like, weirdly '80s geometric patterns over the skyscrapers and bridges) reflected off glass and water.
Much of the architecture is, to my eyes, ugly at worst and bland at best, on the level of individual buildings, ornament and proportion. But where it is beautiful is exactly where New York, for all its rococco ironwork and redbrown carvings, falls down -- in the way buildings relate to each other, to the hills, to the harbor, to the roads. The expressways dip and curve through overpasses and underpasses and swoop briefly through street level like seagulls. The water laps up to the door of the convention center and the hotels. The hills rise next to the skyscrapers, so that all the way up you can see green almost close enough to touch. Instead of a city where each part cuts the next part off from the rest, Hong Kong's parts open on each other. Even the walkways (covered, but open to the air) branch in and out of buildings and the gas stations are the bottom floors of towers, open with pillars, as if inside and outside there are not at war with each other, more a matter of gentle degrees.
Or maybe I was really sleep deprived. But the last time I fell in love with a physical city like this, it was San Francisco. I guess those hilly seaside towns get me every time. Which is silly, considering how much I hate walking uphill.
I spent a lot of time at the show. It was fine, it was a show. I did get to see the Temple Street Night Market. A better name than experience, though I did get to crack up a local. I was proud. A fortune teller called out "tell your fortune" to me, and I said "no thanks, I'd rather be surprised." And I did buy a jade bracelet, bargaining by entering figures on a calculator. Very ingenious. I think the vendor was the only person I met there who spoke no English. There were baked beans and Cumberland sausage for breakfast along with the congee.
I took the Peak tram and got scared out of my wits by bamboo scaffolding at the top. It must be strong; they use it for skyscrapers. And it's certainly a renewable resource. But it looks like twigs held together with duct tape, if you're not used to it. I took the Star Ferry. I didn't get to see Bride's Pool, which looks, in the guidebook, like a breathtaking bunch of waterfalls and forest. Next time, if there is a next time. I hope so.
Hong Kong is beautiful. I first got there in the dark, weaving with exhaustion, and the wooded hills looked like ghosts in the darkness, lit only dimly by neon (arranged in Tron-like, weirdly '80s geometric patterns over the skyscrapers and bridges) reflected off glass and water.
Much of the architecture is, to my eyes, ugly at worst and bland at best, on the level of individual buildings, ornament and proportion. But where it is beautiful is exactly where New York, for all its rococco ironwork and redbrown carvings, falls down -- in the way buildings relate to each other, to the hills, to the harbor, to the roads. The expressways dip and curve through overpasses and underpasses and swoop briefly through street level like seagulls. The water laps up to the door of the convention center and the hotels. The hills rise next to the skyscrapers, so that all the way up you can see green almost close enough to touch. Instead of a city where each part cuts the next part off from the rest, Hong Kong's parts open on each other. Even the walkways (covered, but open to the air) branch in and out of buildings and the gas stations are the bottom floors of towers, open with pillars, as if inside and outside there are not at war with each other, more a matter of gentle degrees.
Or maybe I was really sleep deprived. But the last time I fell in love with a physical city like this, it was San Francisco. I guess those hilly seaside towns get me every time. Which is silly, considering how much I hate walking uphill.
I spent a lot of time at the show. It was fine, it was a show. I did get to see the Temple Street Night Market. A better name than experience, though I did get to crack up a local. I was proud. A fortune teller called out "tell your fortune" to me, and I said "no thanks, I'd rather be surprised." And I did buy a jade bracelet, bargaining by entering figures on a calculator. Very ingenious. I think the vendor was the only person I met there who spoke no English. There were baked beans and Cumberland sausage for breakfast along with the congee.
I took the Peak tram and got scared out of my wits by bamboo scaffolding at the top. It must be strong; they use it for skyscrapers. And it's certainly a renewable resource. But it looks like twigs held together with duct tape, if you're not used to it. I took the Star Ferry. I didn't get to see Bride's Pool, which looks, in the guidebook, like a breathtaking bunch of waterfalls and forest. Next time, if there is a next time. I hope so.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 03:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 03:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 03:27 am (UTC)You're right, most of the architecture is pretty boring, despite the famous BoC building, but I love the tall needles jutting out of the tropical green.
Also, really good food!
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Date: 2006-05-05 03:43 am (UTC)And cherry red taxicabs!
Why can't I picture you as an investment banker? How little we know of our LJ friends' daily lives.
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Date: 2006-05-05 07:03 am (UTC)Heh, probably because I hated it and those were the most miserable, very bad, no good, terrible two months of my life? Yeeeeah, needless to say, I'm not doing it now.
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Date: 2006-05-08 01:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 03:50 am (UTC)In the meantime, Nyonya (a Malay restaurant in Little Italy) makes awesome Hainanese chicken. It's the best comfort food in the world.
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Date: 2006-05-05 04:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 04:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 03:59 am (UTC)And I don't know if it's silly or not to love a city with hills when you don't like walking them. I've never had much use for hills myself unless I had skis attached to my feet and they were covered in snow, but San Francisco is still my favorite city too.
Welcome home.
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Date: 2006-05-05 04:13 am (UTC)That's as good a reason as any for wanderlust, and better nor some. :)
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Date: 2006-05-05 04:34 am (UTC)I owe you and email saying yes to everything and I have a new draft et al.
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Date: 2006-05-08 01:44 am (UTC)No worries about the email, I was out of contact this weekend anyway.
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Date: 2006-05-05 07:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-08 01:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 11:05 am (UTC)You are such a smartass.
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Date: 2006-05-08 01:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-08 01:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 12:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-08 01:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 01:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-08 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 02:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-08 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 02:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-08 01:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 06:07 pm (UTC)At least in Hong Kong they have a solution for the hills: escalators.
ejg25
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Date: 2006-05-08 01:41 am (UTC)And this is true. Though I never made it to the giant bank of escalators that is supposed to be a tourist attraction in and of itself. Maybe next time.