Nick & Vicky on tour: Jet lag? What's jet lag?

Those that have read my earlier work might not be so surprised about this particular post. But seriously, just how difficult can it be to sleep through the night unaided? Well, if my experience is anything to go by, pretty bloody difficult.

You don't get problems like this when you go to Mallorca for a week. This will teach me to go all Oriental. (NB - Tang's buffet is Oriental, however I've yet to experience jet lag issues whilst dining there).

Anyway, this jet lag probably goes some way to answering the question as to why there's not been many blog updates so far. It's the strangest thing, because logically writing a blog in the middle of the night might seem like the perfect cure for insomnia. But the strange thing is that, even though you're awake (and I mean, properly awake, none of this casual drifting back off to sleep business), somehow you just can't do anything. Except moan about the fact you can't go to sleep, something which seems to come really easily.

The first night I think we both expected it. Yes, we woke up at 4am, but we eventually slept again and woke up at 2pm. It felt like the whole day had passed us by but, fair enough, we'd travelled half way around the world. The second night we woke about 5.30am. We got up, went out to see the t'ai chi (see below) and came back to the room about 9am, felt totally exhausted and slept until 3pm. Hmm. Last night, we stayed out late, deliberately, and I think I went to sleep around 1.30am. And then woke up at 5am...

Today, we've got to just bite the bullet. I've stayed awake and am loading myself up with Red Bull, Diet Coke and Pro Plus (I feel it necessary to cover all bases). Vicky's asleep as I write, but once I'm done with this, I'll wake her up and we've said we'll stay out all day to force the issue - but I think we all know that at 5am tomorrow morning, I'm going to be wide awake... again.

Chi in the Park

Surely the only advantage of our non-sleeping is the chance to see the t'ai chi being performed in the morning. Normally, if the paragraph in the guidebook starts with, "you'll have to get up very early in the morning to catch this..." I would immediately skip over the whole section. But, it turns out that "very early" is my new friend! So off we went to Kowloon Park, which is very close to the hotel.

Kowloon Park's a bit like Central Park in New York. A beautiful, manicured park right in the middle of the hectic city. It's not as big as Central Park, but big enough that I was worried that we might not find the t'ai chi, so I asked William to mark a few places on the map the night before where we might be most likely to find it being performed.

To be honest, if he'd put a hundred crosses on the page, he wouldn't have marked all the places that t'ai chi was going on. It felt like the entire population of Hong Kong was in that park at 6am in the morning. Do they sleep? There they all were, in soft shoes and tracksuits, throwing some big, slow shapes (Victoria would be proud).

The first group we found was about 50 people, all gathered outside the swimming pool. Someone had brought a ghettoblaster and some 'classic' Chinese music for everyone to perform to. It was strangely disorganised - people joining in, people leaving, others just walking through the middle of it all on the way to the swimming pool - it was just kind of weird...

Later, we walked round the park and found others doing it, this time without music, in smaller groups and generally looking a bit more hardcore. In fact, every path, every flat piece of ground, had people doing t'ai chi. Trust me, it's a revolution.

Street-fights at Thai Orchids

The previous night, we'd gone to meet William, Denise and Myra who'd been helping us to plan our sight-seeing in Hong Kong. First stop was the office and a little chat about the latest situation with the stands. I'm not sure we moved the topic any further forward however, since we worked for at least 10 minutes, I guess it would be OK to put the flights and hotels on expenses now...?

We managed to get in the highlight of our trip so far, having our picture taken in front of the famous microwaves that we always see on the Thursday morning videoconference. Worryingly, one of the microwaves on the racking there is the very model I bought from Comet for the flat. I'm not saying that I don't trust these guys to test them properly, but perhaps Ian could unplug the microwave when he goes to check up on the flat? Thanks.

Perhaps not too surprisingly, we ended up drinking & eating outside Thai Orchids, the restaurant just outside the offices. Everything was pleasant enough - guidebooks on the table, lists of things to do being written out (in two languages, to help with the taxi drivers - thanks guys!) and some impossibly spicy beef noodles to eat. But the guys on the next table had other ideas.

"Do you think that I'm a racist, murdering b***ard?"

Was he talking to us?

"No, please tell me honestly. I'm sat here in a South African rugby shirt. What do you think that says about me?"

Yes, he was talking to us. But... what was he on about?

I turned round and said calmly: "all I know mate is that you beat us in the rugby world cup final". And with that, he seemed to go quiet. For a while.

It turned out that he was, in fact, English (of course) but he was with his South African friends and was wearing one of their rugby tops. During their conversation, they obviously got talking about what it meant to be South African, and that's when we got involved. I had my back to them whilst they carried on this conversation but apparently he changed back in to his own shirt whilst sat at the table, a sight that Vicky said was just... lovely.

Eventually they moved on, but better was to come from the taxi drivers. The first we were aware of was some shouting and scuffling coming from the end of the road. It went on long enough for me to walk down there (along with most people in the Quarry Bay area) to see what was happening. What was happening was two taxi drivers fighting in the street. I only wish I had photos, but let's just say that they went though phases: for a while, it would seem as though they had worked out their differences, and then one of them would lash out at the other, and then they'd be off again.

Back at the table, Myra explained why it had happened. It turns out that they queue of taxis on that particular street corner is unusual for two reasons. Firstly, taxis that queue there will only charge you one toll for crossing the harbour - normally, taxis charge customers double toll to cover their return journey. Secondly, because of the particular geography on that corner, taxis joining the queue do so at the front and customers take taxis from the back of the queue, nearest to the office blocks. When that taxi leaves, all of the taxis reverse down the street a bit and it starts again.

Inevitably not all taxi drivers are aware of this peculiar arrangement and innocently drive up and join the rear of the taxi queue... and then have a fight with one of the taxi drivers who's been waiting there for ages to get to the rear of the queue.

To be honest, I reckon the whole gag is organised by the HK tourist board as a form of street entertainment.

Back to the Peak

I remember just how upset Ben was with me that day. It was my first trip to Hong Kong, two or three years back, and we hadn't had time to go and visit the Peak, overlooking Hong Kong island. So I made Ben get in a taxi with me and up we went. He was upset because the day was quite cloudy and he said it would be "pointless" go up there because we'd "see nothing". I was adamant that we should go: surely it's the one place that everyone should go on their first trip to Hong Kong?

He was right: it was pointless. Cloudy and polluted, I could hardly see my hand in front of my face, let alone Hong Kong.

Yesterday, I went back there with Vicky, and this time it was just perfect. The view is amazing when it's clear and photographs can't do it justice, nor just how steep the Peak tram is that gets you up there (when you're not going up in a taxi with Ben shouting in your ear). I'll put the other photos on Flickr, but here's the obligatory photo of me next to the tram.

Finding the food court

Apparently our location here in TST should mean that we can easily find traditional food very near to the hotel. Actually finding that food has proved much harder than expected. Yes, we found Starbucks, but that's hardly traditional (even though we've been back there more times than we're prepared to admit - and, let's be honest about it, some muffins may have been consumed). But traditional food has been harder to find.

Myra told us that there's a food court in the shopping centre joined onto the hotel. It would would have been easier to find that food court had the shopping centre not been the size of Scotland. And yes, there are maps everywhere around the centre, but I think you must have to go on some kind of special training course to understand them - yes, they are in English but the diagrams don't appear to correspond in any way with your surroundings.

We found it in the end (not before passing at least one Starbucks and managing the resist the temptation to visit...) and it really is a world of happiness. From the bakery which we'll have to visit when I wake Vicky up soon, to the Indian kiosk, there was so much choice. And so cheap too - Vicky had a large plate of prawn rice, I had some sweet & sour pork with rice, with drinks - and it came to HK$78 - around £4.50! (Mr Tang, note that you seem to have competition...)

In addition that that, and those super-hot beef noodles from Thai Orchids (above), we've had some street food in the form of super-hot, super-spicy pork & shrimp balls. So, aside from those Starbucks relapse moments, we've kept it quite traditional and authentic.

Well, until last night, when we went out and had a McDonald's. All these noodles just leave you dying for a burger.

Batman begins... again

Turns out that the next Batman film, Batman - The Dark Knight, is not only being filmed in Hong Kong but it's been filmed this week. It's caused a fair amount of adverse publicity, which surprised me - the South China Morning Post (not yet available in Rickmansworth) is full of stories every day about it. The latest 'scandal' is that the film's producers have asked the local skyscraper owners to leave their building's lights on over the weekend to aid filming. Cue stories about why Hong Kong businesses should indirectly fund the filming, about the CO2 impact of leaving the lights on...

All I can tell you is this. I've never watched a Batman film in my life (something which I know will surprise Ian). But I've seen the plane flying over the island as part of the filming, so I know that I'll be going to see this one.