The Blog of E.M. FitzGerald

Now that I am back in the States, and away from Asia for a bit more than a week I have had some time to reflect about my experiences in Thailand. I have already spoken gads about Muay Thai, Phuket, the people, lifestyle, etc. There is however, one thing that during my time in Thailand began to define the country. Since I was in-country I thought it a bad idea to get into political observations as I didn’t want to be deported because of my views. I am of course talking about the Red Shirt protests that happened, and were broken up by the Thai military in Bangkok.

Better late than never. When I got to Thailand, the Red Shirt protests were in full swing, and the protesters had situated themselves in the shopping area of Bangkok. Since these troubles had been going on before I left, I didn’t bring any kind of red shirt with me on my trip, not wanting to get myself mixed up in that mess. When I arrived in Thailand, it wasn’t a topic on my mind at all. I planned to avoid Bangkok like the plague, and as such I wasn’t concerned should that topic arise.

And, it did arise. The people of Phuket (who come from all over Thailand) had very strong views on the issue. For the most part, they didn’t support the Red Shirts. The general feeling I got from the Thai people I encountered who talked about the protests said that it was a bunch of Thai people from the north who didn’t actually live in Bangkok doing the protesting. They were causing far more problems than they solved, and should have stopped a long time ago. The Thai economy was descending at a rapid rate because of the protests, and in the country that is dependent on tourism, that is a big deal. The general opinion was that there were better ways to achieve a victory for the people than closing down part of Bangkok with general insolence. When the military did come in and brake up the protesting, there was a clear sense of relief that swept through the country. It hadn’t been the first time the military had come in to put down a protest, but it was one of the best documented cases. As such, the backlash to the Thai people and their economy would clearly last for at least a year, something that everyone on Phuket knew was coming.

My own personal views on the subject are hard to define. Thailand is not my country, I don’t know the people or the politics so coming to any conclusion about the situation would be inexcusable on my part. Had I lived in Thailand, been a Thai citizen and understood the situation with greater clarity, then maybe I would weigh in on the frustrations of the people in that country. As such, I am not in that position, so I find it best to keep my mouth shut as it is quite clear that I do not understand the situation. If only this were a general rule that people in our followed, keep your nose out of business that’s not yours!!

The last couple of days in Hong Kong seemed to last forever. It was sunny, which was quite nice but since we had already done all the tourist stuff there was nothing to do but shop. I hate shopping, with nothing less than an unholy zeal. I don’t need to buy anything, and yet it seems that all there is to do in Hong Kong is shop. What a bummer. In the last couple of days we visited a few malls that had free xbox 360 games to play, and spent way too long there because we were bored. The same old routine kept us going. Wake up late, walk around, eat lunch, find somewhere to go, go there, spend as much time there as possible, eat dinner, go to Starbucks and have dessert and coffee, go to 7-11 to buy water and other foodstuffs, return to the hostel room and watch bad Hong Kong TV before a night of miserable sleep. Can you tell I didn’t really enjoy Hong Kong? You would be right on the money.

Finally it was the day to leave. I had a double espresso the night before to keep me awake so that I could sleep on the plane. Getting to the airport was simple, we just walked up the street a ways to the bus stop and got the same bus that we had taken to the hostel back to the airport, the good ole’ A21. Getting the airport we had 2 hours to burn, so we walked everywhere. Nick discovered that one cannot bring water onto the plane anymore (news to me), and we eventually boarded.

Luckily it was not a full flight, so we had a seat in the middle of our row separating us. This provided a space for all the pillows and what not. I merrily put on my eye shades and ear plugs, and set in to pass out. I managed to nearly get there too, I was just on the edge when I was woken up by the damn Cathay Pacific stews. They were serving lunch or something along those lines. I was not happy. I try my best to sleep on planes and usually don’t, so when I am nearly there and get woken, I am obviously upset. Anyway, I ate the shoddy airplane food.

The service from the flight attendants on this flight was piss poor, and they were very rude. I will never be flying Cathay Pacific again, the curs. I watched an abysmal film called “Clash of the Titans”, which to be honest was nothing better than a 2 hour waste of my life. After that I dallied around a bit, finally settling on a few episodes of Top Gear that I had already seen, as well as a biopic about Steve Mcqueen which I found to be quite interesting. By the time that finished, the plane was landing and I was back in the States.

Of course then there was immigration which took a solid 30 minutes because of undermanned booths. In addition, for some reason customs was slow as hell too, all of which added to my prior annoyance. Needless to say, I was not enjoying the flying experience. Luckily I escaped the airport and caught the airporter after about 20 minutes. Whisked away from Thailand, Hong Kong and SFO, I was on my way back to the bay.

The subway in Hong Kong is cheap, from where we were staying to the airport for example is 15.5 H.K.D.. Also known as $2 U.S.D., essentially nothing serious. Efficient, quiet and crowded, the subway is a great way to get around to the many islands that make up Hong Kong. As such, we decided that it was time for a bit o’ adventure and wanted the subway to take us there. Our destination was to be the Ngong Ping 360, a site where the largest seated bronze Buddha is located.

Getting our cheap subway tickets we rode one stop past Hong Kong Disneyland, got out and made our way to where the gondola pickets up passengers for the ride to the Buddha. The cost of a normal, round trip ticket on the Ngong Ping 360 turned out to be 107 H.K.D., a little expensive and more than I was willing to pay to be honest. Not wanting to let my friend down though, I purchased the ticket and we lined up to get on the gondola. After being seated across from a Chinese couple who spoke no English, we were whisked away and up towards the Buddha.

The Ngong Ping 360 ride takes one from level ground, over a bay where there is a great view of the airport. After that, it is up, up, and away over large hills were the vistas are sublime. However, it was raining. I saw the airport, was entirely thrilled (not at all thrilled) as I sat on a seat that put my behind to sleep. Crossing over the bay was fine, the problem was that because it was raining it was quite wet. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue, but because the gondola has windows that weren’t sealed properly, it rained on us throughout the entire ride up to the Buddha. The rain was also a bit of a nuisance when we got to the top, as its source (clouds) obscured any kind of view. Sure, we were able to look down and see some nice vegetation and a few shallow waterfalls, but nothing picture worthy. I expected to have my face pressed to the glass, watching the world go by outside. I was sorely dissapointed in this regard, as all I saw were beads of water on the windows obscuring my already poor view.

We arrived at the gondola station, got off, engaged our umbrellas and made our way to the Big Buddha. Naturally there was loads of touristy shopping before we got there, but we skipped it all because who needs that kind of stuff? The walk to the Buddha was short, and despite the constant wet descending from above, I was content. The Po Lin monastery is located next to the Buddha, and unfortunately it was under construction so there wasn’t anything to see, monks included. A bit put off by this, we ascended the multitude of steps to the base of the Buddha. Not having worked out since we had let Phuket, this was the sole time I felt my muscles do much of anything the entire time I was in Hong Kong. There were many steps, most had puddles on them which made for a rather squishy experience.

At the top I took a gaggle of Buddha photos, as well as some vista shots. The clouds had parted just enough to get some beauties, lots of dramatic mountains with fluffy clouds crossing over the peaks. Stuff straight out of those wall hangings from China that one sees in museums. We didn’t stay at the top very long due to the weather conditions, and after a bit of time we headed back to eat some ramen before we descended the mount. All in all, it was a bland 30 minute ride up, followed by 30 minute ride down, then a 45 minute subway ride back to Kowloon. All of this mind you, with squishy shoes and wet feet. Joy?

Paris is the original “City of Lights”, but it seems that Hong Kong is trying to give it a run for its money. In the guidebooks and pamphlets I obtained, a certain light show that happened every night at 8 was highly touted as a must-not-miss attraction. Naturally, I figured I might as well go see it as it was free and I am all for free.

Nick and I made our way down to the Avenue of Stars (the rain was still coming down), and waited for the show. There are numerous music speakers in this area, that provide many tourists with a bit of background and some music. Unfortunately, it seemed that the majority of what they were there for was to list the corporate sponsors of the event…in Chinese. I do not speak Cantonese or Mandarin, so it was all lost on me as nothing but a waste of time. The light show was little better. Supposedly there are 40 buildings that light up during the show…mind you that there are several hundreds large buildings in Hong Kong and Kowloon, so a mere 40 is a pittance. Not to mention that the IFC (the building Batman jumped off of in The Dark Knight), wasn’t part of the show. The lights were cool for all of about 2 minutes, then the routine got old as nothing really happened. Lights when on and off, all to a rather mundane and boring bit of musical accompaniment. Bummer.

Earlier in the day, we had paid the 3 H.K.D. to ride the Star Ferry from Kowloon island to Hong Kong island. The ferry lets off very close to the Hong Kong exhibition center, so we went to check that out along with the reunification statue. The statue was a pillar shaped black obelisk, and the exhibition center was nothing special as there was a jewelery exhibition going on that one needed a pass to get into. We, naturally didn’t care for the jewelery or have passes, so we missed out on that. Shucks.

From there we took the subway a stop, so that we could get to the world famous Peak Tram. I have seen the peak building in many a Jackie Chan movie, so I decided that it would be cool to head up there. Not being very expensive, we walked a long ways in the rain and finally found the location. The tram ride itself is not very long, and since it was raining, the peak was obscured by a rather large cloud. Getting to the top, I bought an overpriced chop, and walked around in what turned out to be yet another mall. The only redeeming thing about it was that there was a wax museum there, and I got a picture with Bruce Lee. Luckily for me, his wax sculpture was outside, so I didn’t have to pay the 200+ H.K.D. to get in. Since it was rainy, and the Peak Tower was in a cloud, there was no vista at all. Looking out the windows, I could see about 50 feet before clouds completely obscured my view. We ended up getting some coffee and watching the tram go back and forth up the rails for about two hours, thoroughly bored out of our minds. Tired of the doldrums, we descended the peak and returned to a rainy Hong Kong.

As there was not much else to do besides shop, we dejectedly returned to Kowloon to a dinner, a hot shower and some poor sleep.

Ahh, to sleep in. Well, I slept in to a point I must admit. If you count getting restless sleep on a thin mattress in a shoddy room that is freezing cold, then I lived it up! Amusing how things change so quickly. My room in Thailand was a palace compared to my single bed in Hong Kong.

But I digress, after being tired from lackadaisical sleep my friend Nick and I headed out “on the town”. “On the town” essentially means right outside the front of the building, as our lodgings are located in central Kowloon. To start, we decided to get our bearings a bit and see what was around. Jewelery stores dominated the cityscape surrounding, at least on the ground level. We walked into a Burberry store, one of the 5 within a 5 minute walk to admire? the expensive clothing that to be honest, is a bit bland in my opinion. After scouring the landscape in the rain for something to do (it had been raining non-stop since we arrived), we decided on the Hong Kong Museum of Art, which happened to be directly across the street. We made up our minds quite quickly, because it seems that if it’s raining in Hong Kong, there really isn’t anything to do.

To get into the museum costs 10 Hong Kong dollars, just over $1 dollar U.S.D.. I thought that this was a deal, considering that the building is rather large and there were many exhibits. I do however, tend to get a headache if I am in a museum for too long, and I hoped with all my might that on this day that would not be the case. Walking through the art galleries, I found that my favorite section was that containing the scrolls of calligraphy. I am a sucker for anything historical, and there were many amazing works from the 18th, 17th and 16th centuries. There were other exhibitions as well, but a majority of those were “modern” art, which I still cannot understand for the life of me.

After the galleries, we had lunch at the museum restaurant, which turned out to be quite tasty and cheap. After taking our time with the food, we strolled (or rather hurried) down the Avenue of the Stars which happened to be just outside. Since it was raining there weren’t any people on the avenue, and since it is open to the elements, I got rather wet. Regardless, I got my pictures of the stars of: Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat, Bruce Lee and Jet Li, as well as the statue of Bruce Lee.

From there we headed to the Space Museum, which to be honest was something of a drag. I have been to many a fine space exhibit in my day, which must have skewed my perspective as all the exhibits were routine and there was nothing original. The children all around us loved it though, and they were swarming to the various interactive parts of the museum.

After finishing the 1st round of museums on the trip, Nick and I headed for one of the seemingly endless malls around Hong Kong. This one had an Omega watch store, much to my delight. I have a think for anything that James Bond wears or uses, and in Casino Royale he happened to wear a Omega Seamaster watch. Naturally I went into the store with no desire to buy anything (as I couldn’t afford it), the employees there didn’t know that though. As a matter of course, I went into “fake shopping” mode. Fake shopping is essentially pretending that one has enough money to buy expensive things, trying them on and admiring them as though they were nothing, then politely handing them back to their owners for safe keeping.

The first watch I tried on was the very same Seamaster watch that Bond wore, and of course it was well out of my price range at several thousand dollars. I tried on a few more, the most expensive of which cost about 20k, then left the store with the Omega catalog in hand, which they were nice enough to give me. Happy at my non-purchasing I returned to the mall and looked around at all the worthless things that are generally sold in malls until it was dinner time.

Nick and I went to a mall called iSquare to eat, and the food was tasty and very fast! We ordered and withing 5 minutes it was at the table. I had roast goose and bbq pork on rice with almond milk. A most tasty dinner for less than 150 HKD, excellent. After the food feast Nick and I returned to our room. Tired, full, and content to start another day.