Initial Impressions
The Athanas family have all been Hong Kongers for a few weeks now.
Getting to Hong Kong
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| At the airport getting ready to join Joe in Hong Kong |
It is a 16 hour flight to Hong Kong from Chicago. Bring something to read and download a whole season of your favorite TV show, because you’ll have plenty of time to watch it. It also helps to get on the flight tired, because sleeping is an excellent way to pass the time. Also, drink lots of water and get up to go to the bathroom often. That will keep you from getting dehydrated, stretch your legs and help with the jet lag. Although the Hong Kong airport is huge and crowded, it is easy to meet people there. As Spiro says “Only in Hong Kong does a 5 ft. 10 in. middle aged white guy stand out in an airport.” From the airport, which is on another one of the 250 islands that make up the Hong Kong SAR (special administrative region), you can take a taxi (30-40 minutes to Hong Kong Island) or the MTR (which is a subway system). The MTR Airport Express takes just 24 minutes and is very convenient. It lets you off in the basement of the IFC shopping mall, where you can catch a taxi, bus or subway to your destination. With three giant suitcases, three sets of golf clubs, and three carry-ons, it took two taxis to get the Athanas family home.
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Where we live, High Cliff
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Our Place
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| View from our condo at sunrise |
We live on the 63rd Floor of a very tall building that is on the top of a mountain in the middle of Hong Kong Island. The view from that high up is simply amazing. Spiro said that the first thing he did when he arrived in Hong Kong was “just stand by the window admiring the view. Sure, I'd seen it before just a few months earlier in March, but it was different, and strangely calming to look out at the endless skyscrapers and city streets sprawling with people and automobiles for the first time as a Hong Konger.”
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View from Peter’s room
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| View from our condo at night |
Happy Valley
The very first thing that we did as a family in Hong Kong was to take the 25 minute walk down the mountain to the Happy Valley district, which is directly below our condo. Happy Valley is kind of like a small town in the middle of a huge city. Happy Valley is the home of Hong Kong Island’s horse racing track and has lots of green space. It also has a handful of restaurants, pubs and shops. We went to a pub and had burgers, watched sports, played cards and conversed. Hong Kong felt like home in a hurry.
Bowen Road
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View from Hiking Trail
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Walking down Bowen Road
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Bowen Road is the best place to jog in Hong Kong. It is a flat road that winds along the side of a mountain for about three kilometers from Mid-Levels (which is the crowded district where most of the ex-patriots live) to our condo. There are spectacular views of the city below. Bowen Road connects to awesome hiking paths that wind through the mountains in every direction. Our first full day as a family of Hong Kongers was spent taking a long scenic walk along Bowen Road, through the Botanical Gardens and then down the world’s longest escalator from Mid-levels to the central business district (Central). We ate lunch at a New York style delicatessen called Morty's. An interesting thing about Hong Kong is that when someone’s food is ready, they bring it, whether everyone else’s food is ready or not. Stella, being so well-mannered, did not know whether to start eating. After a few uncomfortable minutes, Peter pointed out that none of the rest of the family had the slightest desire to eat whatever healthy thing she was eating, so nobody would be offended if she started! All were satisfied with the meal, especially Spiro, who was very pleased by the amount of bacon on his sandwich. “It was tasty. Bacon.”
The Exploding Computer
After thinking long and hard about whether our computers would self-adjust the increase in voltage, we decided it must be automatic and plugged one in. BANG! We blew up a computer. It turned out that some computers adjust automatically and others have tiny switches in the back that must be switched. We were then off to buy a replacement computer. The Wan Chai computer center is five floors of tiny shops selling computers and electronics. There must literally be hundreds of them. After visiting several shops and doing a lot of haggling we finally settled on a fair price. Once we paid, the salesman said, “Did you want a hard drive with that? The hard drive will be extra.” Thus started another exhausting round of negotiations. We learned our lesson and no other computers exploded. We have since been back to the Wan Chai computer center for many other purchases.
Bespoke Suits
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Spiro and Peter getting bespoke suits
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Hong Kong is famous for having the best tailors in the world. The boys of the family have all had perfectly fitting suits custom made. Our tailor is located on the other side of Victoria Harbor from Hong Kong Island in the Tsim Sha Tsui district of Kowloon, which is a peninsula that comes down from the Chinese mainland. A cool thing to do is to take the ferry across the Harbor. The Harbor is filled with giant container ships, ferries, tiny pleasure boats (called junks) and an occasional Cruise Ship. After a couple ferry trips, we figured out that it is way quicker to simply take the MTR, which zips through a tunnel under the Harbor. We have spent even more time at our tailors than we have at the Wan Chai computer center!
Our Golf Club
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| View from Discovery Bay Golf Club |
We joined the Discovery Bay Golf Club almost as soon as we moved to Hong Kong. The Discovery Bay Golf Club is located on the top of a mountain on Lantau Island, which is a large island west of Hong Kong island. To play a round of golf, we take a taxi down the mountain to the Central Pier, then take a 25 minute ferry ride to Lantau and, finally, take a 10 minute bus ride up the mountain to the club. The course was designed by Robert Trent Jones. It is narrow and difficult with lots of trees and elevation changes. There are several holes with spectacular views of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. We’ve already spent many an afternoon hitting golf balls or squeezing in nine holes.
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On the ferry to Lantau Island
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Waiting for the bus on Lantau Island
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The Tour
There is a tour that goes all over Hong Kong by bus and boat. While Joe was at work, the rest of the family went on the tour for two days. It was a great way to see parts of Hong Kong the family might not otherwise have seen.
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| Sampan boat ride in Aberdeen |
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| Floating restaurant in Aberdeen |
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| Man Mo Temple |
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| Man Mo Temple |
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| Spiro and Peter on Sampan boat ride |
The Helpers
Most people in Hong Kong have live-in maids called “helpers.” It is very inexpensive to get a helper from Indonesia or the Philippines. The helper industry is highly regulated and all of the helpers have Sunday off. Because they have nowhere to go, the helpers all congregate on the raised sidewalks in Central and play cards and gossip all day, returning home at dusk.
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Hooray Bar and Restaurant in the World Trade Center.
Table with harbor views at sunset. |
The Food
Hong Kong is filled with terrific restaurants. There are more than one million ex-patriots in Hong Kong, so in addition to Dim Sum, Cantonese, Sichuan and other Chinese food, there is great middle-eastern, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Italian, Greek, German and even Mexican food, as well as plenty of British pubs and New York-style pizza joints. Many times, there will be a fifty story building with three floors of restaurants. It would take five lifetimes to find all of the great places to eat. Sometimes, you’ll see a spot in a crowded building, walk in and find out that through a little door in the back they have a huge outdoor area with a great view of Victoria Harbor.
The Expense
Public transportation and taxis are inexpensive, but other than that, Hong Kong is a first class city and it has first class city prices. The real estate is the most expensive in the world (probably 4 to 6 times as expensive as Manhattan). Want a beer at a pub? Be prepared to pay $8 to $12. Dinner can easily run $50 per person even at a casual place. However, it seems like everybody has lots of money. The restaurants and bars are always full of well-dressed patrons and there are supercars zooming around everywhere. That said, you can eat out on a budget if you go totally native. You have to go to a neighborhood where no ex-patriots live and go to a restaurant where nobody speaks English. If you pick the right spot, you can get a terrific meal for $6 per person.
The Heat
Hong Kong is HOT in the summer. It is 90 degrees everyday with 99 percent humidity. After a while, you just realize that if you are outside, you are going to be sweaty and so is everybody else. Who cares? There is always shade or air conditioning nearby and it certainly beats Chicago winters.
The Crowds
Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places on earth. Everywhere you go, you are moving along with a crowd of people. In a hurry? Tough luck. The crowd moves as fast as it moves. Want to stop and take a picture? Go for it, but don’t be surprised if several people bump into you and then swarm around you as the crowd just keeps on flowing.
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| Joe and Spiro on a double decker CityBus |
The Efficiency
One thing that the entire family has noticed about Hong Kong is how incredibly efficient it is. The MTR and buses are not just clean, they are spotless. The ubiquitous Octopus card is used to pay for trains, buses, ferries and purchases at (even more ubiquitous) Seven Elevens. All you do is touch the card to a plate and you are on your way. Nobody ever holds up the line fumbling for their card. Beep, beep, beep, beep, one person after another goes through and the movement of the crowd is not slowed at all. If you are so inefficient as to not pay for snack by touching your card to the plate, you had better have your cash ready or the cashier and everyone in the line is going to be staring at you disapprovingly. Traffic, like the crowds of people, never seems to stop. Every busy street has raised sidewalks over it. Central has an entire network of raised sidewalks and indoor walkways that connects numerous buildings and keeps people off the streets. Very efficient.
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Getting ready for a night out
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The Freedom
China may have taken over Hong Kong, but Hong Kong still feels as free as ever. Nobody is afraid to express their opinion about anything. Want to drink beer in the street? Go ahead. Nobody cares and it is perfectly legal. In fact, because bars are so expensive, young people just go to Seven Eleven on the weekends, buy beer and then stand out in the street drinking it. They call it “Club Seven.” In certain areas, like Lan Kwai Fong and Wan Chai, from Wednesday through Saturday nights, the party goes from 10pm to dawn. It is very disconcerting to walk out of a bar at two or three in the morning and see 10,000 people partying in the street like they are just getting started.
The Courtesy and Orderliness
Despite the heat and the crowds, even in the “party-all-night” neighborhoods, nobody ever gets mad at anybody else. Everyone is courteous at all times. There is zero crime. Women have no fear walking through a dark alley at 3am in Hong Kong. People wait at cross walks even though no cars are coming. Every once in a while, one or two people in a hurry will just cross. Nobody cares. The other 90 people at the cross-walk still wait.
