Tourist in Hong Kong, part 1: The drive, the nostalgia, and the peak.

This yarn depicts the first part of my day of tourism in Hong Kong. Stay tuned for the rest when I have more free time. Namely, when classes don't murder me. There's plenty of pictures to share.
=============================
So, for all of these days talking about integrating myself into a new culture can take a backseat for a moment. Yesterday, I got to play the Hong Kong tourist game. On slate for the trip were 3 of the stops that Hong Kong is known for internationally: Victoria Peak, Stanley Market, and the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Sha Tsui.

And part of this, since I still felt like a tourist or some kid at a boarding school finally let out, was refreshing. Appropriate, even. I didn't know the sights. I didn't know Hong Kong for what everyone else knew it for... So now, for those who had visited, I had the chance to relate, albeit superficially, because I still really didn't notice anything substantial about these places. Amidst the company I made, the memories tethered to these experiences had a lot more to do with the "who"s and "how"s of the journey than the "where" itself.

It began like all other tours do: on a bus. With my newfound friends, I was able to marvel at the city from the lens of the bus' slightly shaded windows, overlooking the compact cars and massive traffic jams. After all, with 7 million people crammed into the land size of 423 square miles... Which really is too large of an estimate, with plenty of islands in the New Territories to the north still being mostly uninhabited.

And as funny as the driving style is  here (British, for one; compact, for two; amazingly skilled, for three), the cars, going at whatever pace their drivers' hearts desire, don't seem to have the slightest dink on them. Which tends to look extremely impressive, given that no model seems to predate the year 2000. Many of the businessmen drive Mercedes and Beemers... though Toyota, Volvo, Volkwagon and Honda are the predominant brands overall, I'd estimate.

As we drove through town, the ability of the buildings near the financial district in Kowloon to eclipse my view left me astonished. It was outstanding, and the architecture here was something I've never experienced. Truly, it showed the bounds and capabilities of human achievement in the field. The height, the shape, the aesthetics, the way it met the sky at some inane height, it all swiped my breath from me, no matter if corporate office or residential apartment (people LIVE at those heights).

I wouldn't want my hung towels to fall from the roof here. This building was dwarfed by those in the skyline, too. This is considered a building in the outskirts of the hub. THIS is second class architecture.

The reason I had time for this link of ridiculous thoughts? Well, the unremitting lines of cars gave ample time for this introspection.

Notice the gloss of these buildings. The building fading into the background... It's pink! Pink windows all the way up. Only here.

THERE IS A HOLE IN THIS BUILDING. And it's supposed to be there. The only thing there? An elevator shaft. I don't even understand the science behind it. Seems like a dangerous move in Jenga, too.

(1) Again, the modular shape is outstanding, and kudos to the developers here for stressing, or perhaps even demanding, sound, cutting edge (literally) buildings. (2) Remember the eclipse thing? This is post-eclipse. I perceived the sun moving toward, behind, and emerge from the other side of this building, all in one-yard movements.

----------
Oh, and speaking of measurements: our adorable tour guide, Kevin Chan (not related to Jackie, he stressed. But still looking for his millions in the lottery.), gave us some interesting, slightly arbitrary rules for measurements here, much to the chagrin of the Europeans in the back of the bus. Though speeds are in kilometers per hour, liquids in liters and mL, and distances measured in kilometers, houses are measured in square feet. This points to the layered and complex history of Hong Kong being distinctly Chinese in culture, yet owned by the British fully until the mid-'90s and idolizing of American culture. The British measurements of feet for house measurements were retained somewhat arbitrarily, but the other traits mirrored the standard European measurements, which is typical of the rest of Asia. I still haven't quite gotten the conversions perfectly, but for the first time, I have to take all of those conversion factors from high school seriously to talk to others here. They don't have any idea what a gallon of gas means. And I'm just fine with that, considering current prices.
----------
We finally edged our way back to consistent movement toward Victoria Peak, aided mostly by an underground tunnel... Rather, an underwater tunnel. This tunnel, built in the 1940s somehow, allows for the cars to drive under the harbor. Very impressive, and crucial to the city's growth and expansion into Kowloon form the old Hong Kong island.

Kevin assured us that some of the cracks in the walls were typical, and that "the construction company in China assured us we had another 50 years before replacement." ... How do you replace an underwater tunnel? It seemed like an off-kilter quip to a seemingly integral part of the city's commerce for the full-fledged belly laughs he engaged in. Either way, he loved his job. Good for him.

We briefly fled through the financial district some. Lines of these buildings engulfed us. We were in the middle of the beast.

And, as captivated as we were by the prospect of being surrounded by de facto walls on either side, it allowed us, for once, to stop looking up and look down at the life occurring here. Because, well, life occurred here more than simply up. The density of life really allowed us to look in any direction and see something interesting. Street markets here and there looked to attract away from the gleaming billboards of distinguished shops, the clutter and panging of everyday life in full throttle as we took our day off from this life.

Eventually, we made our way out and up to Victoria Peak, which is the US equivalent to Beverly Hills on the way up. A few of us marveled at the cars here: to be frank, those who drove Porsches around were the everymen. I counted a few Ferraris, many Maseratis, a Lamborghini, and even a coveted Aston Martin. No Rolls, but hey, there's a limit there. One in a million gets that distinct pleasure in a lifetime.

After all, being "one in a million" here means that you have 6 doppelgangers.

How scary is that.

The climb up brought us eventually to a parking garage for buses, and we were told to follow Kevin to the best viewing spots to see the skyline from a mile above sea level or so.

We walked in, took an elevator, and somehow landed in a mall.

A mall. At the top of a mountain. Where trees outnumbered people in every other location in its expanses.

Corporatism could be frowned upon here, and I could go into a fuming rant about the incorrigible draining of culture to standardized McCulture, but rather, I faced a new conclusion: the malls, these floors of floors of boutiques, clothes, food, whatever... It's just as much a promulgation of Hong Kongian culture as any street vendor. Because let's face it, if one lives in Hong Kong, they'll buy fish at the local open air market sometimes, but they'll also supplement their wardrobe within the schizoid confines of these escalators. As artificial and stuffy as it may seem to have my panorama of the Hong Kong skyline tolled by any number of tea chain stores or a wax  museum (yes, a wax museum), it reflects what the people here do. They all live in any number of indistinguishable boxes with the same indistinguishable windows in the massive indistinguishable complexes with the same cookie cutter pools at the bottom, but waking up every day to that life probably implies a tolerance to standardization... of life. Every 7-Eleven here will let you grab the same lunch, and every mall will electronically transfer you up and down floors. It's not sad; it's life. It's expected. The benefits of standardization just seem to resound more with these people: there's ample comfort, there's plenty of safety and little real crime, and there's no housing shortage, for sure. Homeless people are trace to none. It's a tradeoff with variety, economics would dictate. Monopolization of culture? Perhaps to an extent. But it's a voluntary one.

Either way, the mall had its little perks here and there. One of these being the availability of American food. Marking our entry into this region just a week ago, some of us longed for familiarity. Anything. And we found it.

Burger King.

And as I mentioned earlier, there was something about these familiar logos, brands. Even though we were far away from any culture we had previously experienced, without shelter from the anything-but-embracing hand of urban Asian life, sitting there, in near silence for a moment as we sat in what could have been any Burger King at any of its locales - though this one haphazardly located at the top of a mountain in Hong Kong - and felt... comfort. There was comfort in familiar flavors. This Burger King meal would undoubtedly meet our expectations. Considering my expectations have been lashing around wildly without footing for the past week, it allowed me to calm some. Offer a comparison point, even. We sat there, all taking in the same collections of thoughts. This was a world where Burger King could represent home... Even if home meant trans fats, barbecue sauce, and ketchup-glazed pickles being tossed to the side of the tray. The illusion of the brand let us be regular American kids in regular Anytown, USA.

For just a moment, we could be content with the familiar.

And after what really was a feast, we rode the escalators, winding up in right-angled rounds to the observation deck. And with the blip of the Octopus card, we were at the summit. The view... I could hear gasps. Like desertmen stumbling into an oasis, we drank in the sight.

The magnificent heights, the harbor, the haze of mid-day... It was a portrait of humanity.

 And it went higher, too.

 Another view. The air lighter, and colder, it all seemed like a mirage. But we were there. Under those stories upon stories of metal and plaster, people inhabited the ground. Somewhere. But dang, it was hard to remember that. As if all life froze.

 Foliage on the mountain? Beyond dense. Multi-layered. Roads winded underneath, occasionally.

 Notice the shadow of the peak creeping to the city. As if the dozens of stories of buildings didn't already shade everything.

Suspended, we were, from the rest of humanity. From this vantage point, all you wanted to do was look. Not look, though. Gawk. Rub the eyes a little to remind oneself that this wasn't a dream, maybe. It all seemed surreal. In the war of attrition between the mountain and the people, the mountain was winning. But man, the people were sure getting closer.

I wish I had a picture from 1990 or something to showcase this.

But this wasn't the end of the awe-inspiring dance through town. To come, there will be a look into the tourist underbelly that is Stanley Market, where no ceiling existed, but also existed, and Hong Kong's skyline by night. Oh yeah, it was a feast.

To be honest, I'm running low on extended metaphors, so this seems like a good ending point for the moment.

And the flowery language aside, I'm amazed by this city. Every piece, and the intricacies of activity that composes its populace, blow me away. The buildings are a reflection of the people: they're brilliant, in a word.  Simply brilliant. The same minds that concocted these buildings share space with the mall-goers who can buy toy helicopters, share space with the market salesman who make a living by haggling their trade's worth to people they will never see again, and share space with the minds that took Hong Kong from a British afterthought to the crown jewel of capitalism.

Brilliance runs 7 million deep.