Travelog 1: Lost in Translation

Kowloon: Friday Morning: Day Two

I love being a Gringo, a Xeni, a Gori,  a traveller. A passenger. Somebody who is deliberately out of place in a place they probably have no real right to be, but you are there anyway, and you're only there to find out about things before you move on.

Some of the places I've had the best time being a gringo include Mykonos (where I became a part time masseuse, part time club hostess, part time English teacher for a few weeks), Bangkok (where I would love to live for a few months because the place is just madness), The Hague (only for an afternoon, but that half hour with Vermeer's The Girl with the Pearl Earring all alone was sublime) and Philadelphia - where an afternoon with my uncle took me from the Neshaminy burbs, to gang territory to the Mutter Museum in the space of a few hours.

It's all experience.

I've done it before, this gringo thing. I'll do it again. It's something I live for. This feeling of wanting to find out about stuff. The feeling of being lost, and getting lost, only to find out more

So here I am in Hong Kong.

This Hong Kong trip is something I've planned but not planned. It's been six months in the offing, and I've really thought about is how do I get my sorry arse from the airport to the hotel. Literally, that is it. As I've done in many cities in the past, I've plonked myself down for a few days and finding out what happens from there.

The nine hour flight was both effortless and easy, thanks mostly to a box set of Riverdale, which was surprisingly nostalgic and fun. I used to love Archie comics as a kid. Nearly sent off for the sea monkeys and everything.

I was seated next to a Hong Kong grandma who's English was as fluent as my Cantonese. We smiled and nodded to each other. Meals were problematic for her. Our most prolific conversation went something like this:

Grandma: (Pointing at the snack box) ??
Pand: Sui Mai. (I know my Sui Mai from my Shao-long Bao)
Grandma: Sui Mai? (As if to say "What is this shit?")
Pand: (Nodding) Sui Mai (As if to say, it's not going to be Hu Tong Dumpling good, but it's better than nothing)
Grandma: (To the cabin crew) Sui Mai. (In resignation that this was airline food and there were still three hours of the flight left)
Pand: Sui Mai (Wishing that they would offer me another Bloody Mary - the one with lunch was wonderful - and yes, it was only eleven a.m. Melbourne time, but it was midday somewhere and tomato juice has lots of electrolytes in it - and they were serving doubles.)

She was a nice lady. She gave me her Weis Bar. She couldn't eat them. The cold got to her teeth. I never say no to an extra Weis Bar.

I've been here less than 24 hours, but I like it already. So far, it's been easy.

The trip from the airport to the hotel was seamless.

Buy a ticket. Get on a train. Get off the train and go to the well signposted courtesy hotel bus. Get dropped off at the door of the hotel. Simples. You don't get that with a transfer or a taxi. $20. Better than the Skybus - then again, anything is better than the Skybus... don't get me started on a Melbourne Airport Rail service...

The rail trip was great. Looking out of the window, a line from PJ O'Rourke came into my head. "Commies love concrete". There is a lot of concrete here. But it's concrete with character, so it is forgiven. Hong Kong has been back in the hands of the Chinese for over 20 years. I wish I'd seen Hong Kong before 1997. Just for the comparison.

The hotel is fine, good even. I've been upgraded. My deluxe room on the 16th floor looks over the Waterloo Road and a large, noisy construction site. Being up near the top shields me from most of the noise. To room is spotlessly clean, the decor tidy and functional and there is a kettle and a safe. The bed is not unpleasantly hard. The pillows thin but workable.  The English channels on the telly involve a generic BBC and ABC channel and that's it. The wifi is fast and reliable, so Netflix might be getting a bashing in the evenings after a day of exploring. I love that if I reach up and stand on my toes I can touch the ceiling.

Being tired from the flight, all that was in me was to source out some dinner and retreat for the night. The concierge gave me some directions to a local place across the Nathan Road.

I was the only gringo in the place. Thankfully the lady serving has good English. A feed of chilli wantons, Beef and flat rice noodles and an eponymous mint and lime slushy and Pand was left a very happy girl. Lime and mint slushies and chilli wonton are possibly some of my most favourite things.



A trip to a local bakery on the way home secured me something for breakfast. The 7/11 found me some milk for my tea. I'm not even going to try find an almond decaf latte here. What's the point of that?

When in Rome. Or in this case, when in Hong Kong...

So, today's plan. Go across to the island. Make my way to Central. Maybe take the Star Ferry over. Life is always better when you're on a boat.

I've got an agenda for this trip. This includes:

• Eat with the locals.
• See a temple a day.
• Find a museum to discover.
• Learn how to say'thank you' in Cantonese in the next day or so. 
• Write every day.

For I get to pretend to be a travel writer for a few days.

Yep, I'm as happy as a pig in muck.

Today's song:

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