New Years in Hong Kong

A few people have emailed and asked me what New Years in Hong Kong was like, and so I feel it behoves me to give a full and detailed account of it.

We left a freezing cold Huizhou in good spirits on Monday morning (remember that Monday and Tuesday are my weekend), to travel to Hong Kong by taxi-bus-train-taxi.

The trip was fairly uneventful, other than that I finished my book. 1412. It's a goodie. Read it.

On arriving at our hostel, I realised why I have for so many years been loathe to find the cheapest place, and why I should never have backtracked on that decision this time. Chung King Mansions, despite its illustrious name, wouldn't look out of place in Hillbrow. Ok, that's not true, because it's a lot cleaner, and nobody was dead, but the point is it looks seedy and rank.

Our hostel was on the 16th floor. No wait, sorry, we've booked out your hostel, you're on the 15th floor. What - you've got seven people, which is the number you booked for? Sorry, you're on the 14th floor. Please wait here half an hour while we kick the people who are in there out and clean the room. Now, can you prove that you booked? Yes, I do have this piece of paper in front of me with all your booking details. Ok, that's 1200HK$ please. No, we don't take credit card, despite the fact that you booked online and paid your deposit by credit card and the website says we take credit card. Sorry, I don't understand you. It's too expensive for me to accept your credit card - you have to pay cash. Yes, I know it's going to cost you more, but... Simon, please come explain - he doesn't understand.

At which point I lost my temper with a little old Chinese woman and two guys from Ghana.

So the day didn't start well.

From there, the girls went off to get their hair cut and coloured and stuff, and Tristan and I wandered about for a while.

Now this was my third trip to Hong Kong, but I think the first time that I've seen the really cool funky commercial wealthy side of it. We took a ferry over to the island, watched the Macau helicopter ferry landing, and generally got to be overawed by the vibe.

Lunch was expensive pizza and very expensive coke, followed by a visit to a bookstore - with ENGLISH BOOKS! YAY! (which I think Tristan regretted once I got inside, and I will regret when I get back to the real world and have no money left)

A quick ferry trip back over to Kowloon and a walk to the mansions, where we met up with the other guys. Tristan went off to do some shopping, and I got stuck into one of my new books.

"Enough!" I hear you shout - Enough of this random warble about your day. Tell us the juicy parts. Give us the meat of the story. We came here for blood dammit!

Fair enough.

Alan, one of the guys here, arranged very expensive tickets to a very exclusive party, where the theme was "The Bond and the Beautiful", and everybody wore tuxedos (except us, who, being teachers... didn't). I did however wear a formal Chinese outfit that I had made up specially for the occasion, which at least more or less fitted in.

Back to the party, in all its detail. We had a wonderful dinner on a patio overlooking the harbour, from which we later watched a massive fireworks display at midnight. There was also a buffet breakfast served at 3am, which was perfectly timed.

Otherwise, there was free champagne, a great deal of dancing, and a lot of talking to various people.

Post breakfast, those of us that were left pushed on to another bar, which I will never be able to find again, where the remainder of the night was spent talking and whatnot.

I caught a taxi back to Chung Kings in daylight.