Part 2: Hong Kong from awe to professional

How do you describe the shock that a country bumpkin like me gets when arriving in city like Hong Kong. Let me describe my six days of amazement in Hong Kong.

Day 1: Friday Night. We take a boat over which drops you off in a big mall. It is night time. There are lots of white people everywhere and there are lots of Hong Kong people everywhere. There are lots of people. We are met by Josh's friend, Kevin, who when sized up for a first impression, sports a stylish bleached out spiky hair cut, dresses formally cause he just got off his finance job, is obviously not at all fazed by the ultra cosmopolitan whiz around him, but still sports a bit of an air of climberness in the way he hold himself relaxed and quite open. We follow him around the mall, end up at a long taxi line and eventually jump into the one of what must be 100,000 taxis driving around Hong Kong. Up the hill we go, zig zagging up concrete canyons, my nose stuck to the window as 30 story building is followed by 50 story building is followed by 43 story building and so one for a good while. We step out into the cool night in front of yet another tall building which looks unimpressive from the outside. Up the elevator to the 10th floor, through a door and into an ultramodern swank bachelor pad with white couches, oriental rugs, nice artwork, and a very chic kitchen.

[Kat on the boat to Tung Lung] Day 2: Time to go climbing. I didn't know it too much before, but Hong Kong isn't just a big city. It is a very narrow (and tall) big city with "mountains" (read hills) surrounding it. Hong Kong is actually a series of islands with the majority of the city built up on small sections of two of them. The cool thing is, the city stops abruptly and then it is wonderful wooded hills. And it has climbing. Lots of it. This link is built by a Hong Kong climber Stuart. We managed to hook up with him and climb two days while we visited. Very friendly and has created a great community in Hong Kong.
[Hiking to the crag] On this day, the plan was to go to Tung Lung Island and climb at the Technical Wall. Hong Kong has this wonderful mix of organized cosmopolitan city with rustic Asian chaos. We took the escalator down the hill (more on this later) hopped a taxi in front of starbucks, went on the modern freeway along the water, and then jumped on a little chinese ferry/ fishing boat for a 30 minute ride out to the island. A very nice ride with views of the modern skyline and sleepy islands. Off the boat, hike a path for 15 minutes, stop at a ramshackle hut for dumplings and lemon tea, then hike another 10 minutes back down to the water to Hong Kong's premier sport climbing and social scene. [At the crag] The cool thing is, this crag is right on the sea cliffs with waves smashing up against the cliffs. Every minute or so there is a massive explosion of water no further than 2 meters behind you. Very exciting. We climbed on very compact Volcanic Tuff for the better part of the day. Fun routes for sure although my shoulder was bugging me from some yoga I had done a week earlier and this kept me from climbing as hard as I would have liked. Oh well.
Hiked out, took the boat back home. Went out to some chinese food. Yummy.


Day 3: Off to Tsuen Wan boulders. Another surreal place with boulders hovering over the suburbs of Hong Kong. Only suburb here means 30 story buildings back to back. Sharp rock, but cool problems although I couldn't climb too much cause my shoulder was really hurting me. Everyone else cranked though. However, the setting was just so very nice that it felt great to be out with friends doing cool stuff. In this photo, you see Me, Kat, Kevin (blond hair), Stuart, and Indie the dog.
O.k. I like dogs. In fact, being with Megan has given me a love of all things animals and for the most part, I get along splendidly with almost all critters. Indie is the exception. Call it wisdom, or call it humor, but Indie doesn't get along with Americans. Brits- no problem. Hong Kong folks- no problem. Americans- now we have a problem. I spent a better part of two days trying to get this dog to like me. His tail would be up and wagging as he stood around the crag letting people pet him and give him snuggles, but when I come within a foot of him, the tail drops, the ears flatten, and jowls lift up. I back up, the tail goes back up. He would let me pet him, but he sure didn't like it. I tried offering him food, give him gentle pets, petting him when his owner Stuart was close by but nothing worked. Same thing with Josh and same thing with another American in the posse. He broke my heart.

[Fish in a bucket]
Day 4: Tourist Day. I was told one thing I had to do while in Hong Kong was hike up The Peak. The Peak is the hill right behind Hong Kong. The city stops and the forest starts and it is all very lovely. The beta I had was to take the escalators up to the top. And then turn right (or was it left) and find your way up.
A brief note about "The Escalators." Hong Kong is very dense. It is on a steep hill. There are a few small roads that wind their way up. However, they don't seem to have much traffic which seems strange since there must be roughly 1-2 million people that live on the central hill. Why is this? Because some genius figured out that Hong Kong could install a whole series of escalators that go down the hill in the morning and up the hill the rest of the time. Want to go up a few flights? No problem. Want to take the whole thing? No problem. Elevated walkways over most of the street mean that there is no backup waiting to get across roads. What a great way to move people around. Just picture yourself grabbing your coffee and Hom Bow in the morning, hopping on the escalator and riding it down to work in the morning. This is the greatest thing ever.

So... after some struggle, Josh, Kat and I made our way up the peak to the Peak tower. There is a shopping mall near the summit. A few escalator rides up to top of the mall and there is a look out which one must pay an addition 3 dollars to go see. I was feeling cheap and wanted to spend the money on coffee instead so I didn't go, but Josh and Kat went up. I waited downstairs for a while. Waited a little longer. Sat around for a while. Watched the water fountain and then finally saw the two of them coming out of the mall looking pretty cute together. I asked them how it was and they looked a little awkward. Finally Kat tells me that while they were up there, Josh asked her to marry him and that now she doesn't feel like Kat anymore but like she is living in a dream. It felt great to be around them. The energy was quite exciting. [Minutes after the big moment]
The rest of the day was spent checking out touristy things, eating noodles and going to Mong Kok, the Chinese part of town for dinner and climbing anchor hardware. Below are a bunch of photos of the area.



[Did he choose the right career?]







[Look closely at the text- this whole district was a "paradise"]







[crab fried in garlic and chilis... and beer]










[I liked the glove on the post. I was trying to take this photo and the guy who owns the shop also thought that it was funny that there was a glove on the post. He came over, moved it around a bit and started yelling at everyone and laughing]





[Of course, we had to have champagne that night]









Day 5: Wake up. Pack up the backpacks with climbing gear. Take the escalators down to the financial center. Dodge people in suits. Get on the subway. Ride it under the water through the city and get off, where else, a shopping mall. Funny story here. Josh and I really wanted coffee when we got off the subway and looked all around for a coffee stand. After searching and searching, we realized that only place to get a cup was at the McCafe. This is what is it called and you know what, the coffee was pretty good.
We jumped in a taxi which took us to the base of Lion Peak. After a very sweaty 45 minute walk up Lion Peak, we arrived at Lion Rock. A very nice 60-80 meter high chunk of granite on top of Lion Peak. Great climbing with an amazing view of Hong Kong.
We finish climbing reverse the commute back into town, again dodging people in suits and arrive at Kevin's in time for some yummy chinese food at this little dumpling place.

Day 6: Another tourist day. This time alone. I listened to my Jimmy Jim (code word for ipod shuffle) and walked all over the place. I think the greatest thing was seeing the candy mall (there are malls for everything- radio controlled cars, guns, shoes, cooking supplies)... no wait. [Plastic bowls with fresh fish. One of these kept jumping out of his bowl. I tried hard to capture it but missed the shot before he was cut in half by a large knife] The greatest thing was going into the wrong bathroom at the huge public park. It was the man's room all right, but it also had a secondary mission as the bathroom to "tap your feet in" when you are in the stall. I was checked out like a library book while visiting this local haunt.

And then on the 7th day, we left Hong Kong. We took the boat back to Macau which now felt very sleepy. Took a taxi to the airport. Had 3 mimes help us with our luggage (Macau just has too much money- they hire mimes to help you at the airport). And jumped a plane for good old Bangkok.

Good bye civilization, hello bedlam.