by hot air or escalator
we spent our last day in yangshuo surveying it regally from above, as we decided to take flashpacking to the next level and splash out on a hot air balloon trip. i've never been in one before, and the views over the karst peaks stretching into the distance before succumbing to the mist made standing directly underneath a blazing hot gasburner for an hour worthwhile as a one off experience. more, however, one for the photojunkies (you know who you are) then the verbose.yangshuo to shenzhen was a ten hour bus journey on what we had been told was a sleeper bus. i've had some odd, and strenuous, bus journies in my time but as we followed the conductor's barked instructions and took our shoes off to get onto the laminate floor of the bus it became clear that this was going to be one of the stranger ones. the bus had been split into three rows of bunk beds; so far so normal, even ingenious. what gave it a surreal air, however, was the fact that all of our luggage was squeezed into the thoroughfares between the rows of bed. this meant not only that it was a claustrophobic's nightmare, hemmed in as you inevitably were by bags, boxes and backpacks, but also that any attempt to transit up or down the bus involved foregoing the corridors and clambering in and through peoples mini beds, as they balefully glared up at you. it was actually quite a comfortable and easy overnighter, but definitely one of the odder ones i've done.
so on to hong kong. i don't really know what to say about the place; shops, skyscrapers, more shops. if you had longer there are average hikes you can do but it is the city you visit, not the mediocre countryside. as a city it is certainly bright lights, but the rows and rows of chanel and louis vuitton boutiques made it feel a little distant for me. this feeling of exclusion is reinforced by the fact that it is a vertical city; everything, from bars to shops to schools, is hidden away up vast skyscrapers. you enter innocuous lobbies and gingerly get into lifts to be presented with a variety of mini shopfronts emblazoned by the floor numbers. we were fortunate enough to meet up with a friend of mine who is working in hong kong and so went for a drink on the 30th floor (no windows, just amazing views and overly casual leaning punishable by death) in a bar that we would have never even have guessed existed if we had walked past its front door a hundred times. it's not even that you're an outsider looking in; the places to look are not even at eye level.
it was a good few days of relaxing, dubious bag shopping and fineish dining (7 eleven pop pop chicken, yes please), but hong kong is definitely a city where the amount of money you have to burn is directly proportional to how much you can take out of it. judgment reserved until the bank balance grows a little.
posted by bicrom @ 7:58 pm
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