Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong

Over the years I have become increasingly desensitized to travelling long distances, so the first thought that ran through my head once I had checked in was where I would be going that evening. I had been told under good authority that Stormies in LKF was a great place to start so I had a taxi driver drop me off nearby and approached by foot. To give you some idea as to what this place is all about, it is an extremely dense collection of bars and restaurants, sometimes one atop another, along a series of angled streets. Streets which are perfectly navigable when sober but become more than slightly perilous when you have had so much to drink, operating a door handle seems a challenge. Here's a view of Lan Kwai Fong, to give you some idea of the layout and how busy it gets




I stopped at a few bars along the way. Of course I had no set plan in my mind of where to go, in these situations I tend to aimlessly wander around and pop in to anywhere that looks interesting. I found some of the best, most unique places while going around like this. Now, coming from England and Grand Cayman, I am more than familiar with paying exorbitant prices for everyday items. The only thing on my mind at the moment was alcohol, as I'd sobered up from the flight and had to start all over again.

One of the many things we cannot access on the island is good draft beer. There are a couple of pubs serving Guinness, Heineken and Stella on tap but that is all. Kronenberg, Grolsch, DAB, Becks and Straporamen are all non-existent here, so I was really looking forward to reacquainting myself with these European nectars. At the first bar, a place called Bulldog's I believe, all they had was Becks at about $10 a pint. Not cheap by any means, but not much more expensive than the bars in England where I honed my skills of alcohol consumption. The bar was about half full so the service was quick, I duly obliged by going through 5 pints in 90 minutes.

After this respectable warm up I set off looking for Stormies and found it within a couple of minutes. It was totally packed and I could get nowhere near the place which in my mind is always a good sign. I floated about around the area, most of my time being spent in a German pub which had a great selection of lesser known brands. Since it was my first night and I was starting to feel tired, 4 hours of solid beer drinking will do that to you, I decided to head back to the hotel. Not before stopping at McDonalds though, a recurring theme on this trip would be my drunk cravings for nuggets. Ordinarily I tend to avoid McD's, but to hell with it, I'm on vacation and supposed to do something crazy ;)

Arriving in Hong Kong

I arrived in Hong Kong on a Friday night, although that fact was a complete and utter mystery to me until I arrived in my hotel room. Crossing the Date Line has a habit of messing up my sense of time. Hong Kong airport was a joy to behold with it's immaculately clean, open plan design and helpful staff. I had to queue for about twenty minutes in the immigration line but the airport had free wi-fi so I kept myself occupied. Compare and contrast with Miami which makes no such luxuries available and where the queue at immigration is measured in hours, not minutes. Collecting my bag was also simple so I proceeded on to the taxi rank.

A salient piece of advice I would give to all travellers in Asia is to carry the business card of your hotel with you at all times. If the need ever arises, showing a taxi driver that card is a sure fire way of getting home even if you are completely lost. This method also requires zero linguistic skills in the local language, always the simpler option. I was staying in Central, on the Hong Kong Island side, and my taxi driver got me to my hotel reasonably quickly. Getting a taxi was the simplest solution at the time although many options exist, from taking a bus to either the Island or Kowloon (mainland side) or taking the very efficient train to the city. The taxi is the most expensive option but it is still quite reasonable, I think I paid $40 or so, no $200 Tokyo cab fares here!

My friends in Cayman used to live in Hong Kong so told me to look up their old friend who still ran some bars in an area called Lan Kwai Fong. Once I had refreshed myself, changed into something a little less comfortable I set off for LKF with only a vague idea of where and what I was heading into. I was not to be disappointed

The flight out to Hong Kong

As is always the way when one wants to travel somewhere from the Cayman Islands, options are limited at best. I found a frankly remarkable fare of $600 return from Los Angeles to Hong Kong on United Airlines, direct on the way out and coming through San Francisco on the way back. This was simply too good to turn down. So on a typical Cayman morning I caught the first flight out to Miami on American Airlines and after a six hour layover caught my next flight to Los Angeles, also on AA. I could write novels on the trials and tribulations of travelling through Miami International Airport (MIA), an institution so highly revered across the world that even Americans tend to avoid it at all costs. Never before have I seen such startling inefficiency and poor service in the US, although sadly I am now used to this level of courtesy from MIA's employees. Possibly the most shocking endibtment of MIA is how much better Los Angeles fared upon comparison. Eventually, after some 12 hours of travelling and sitting around, I arrived in Los Angeles (LAX), a step closer to my eventual destination.

I would be spending the night in Los Angeles since my next flight out, the United Airlines flight to Hong Kong, departed the next morning. My cousin and her husband live near Los Angeles and I would be staying with them so we met at the airport shortly after I arrived. We always have a really fun time, our ideas of a good evening are totally conjusive, consisting primarily of good food, copius amounts of alcohol and funny stories. I'd also been wanting to meet their dog for a long time, Meatball the Bulldog. Bulldogs being one of my favourite breeds, along with Pugs and Chihuahuas. No further comment on that last selection is needed. Here is a picture of the 'Ball, living the dream


After dinner at Fogo de Chao and several scotches, Gerrit and I cracked open the bottle of vintage rum I had brought with me and began an epic Guitar Hero battle, a mutual passion at the time. I usually don't sleep at all before a long flight, I have such a terrible time getting to sleep on the best of days it is nigh on impossible for me to enter the land of dreams on a flight without exhausting myself first. This policy yields varying results, from the sublime to the ridiculous. On one occassion I may sleep for all but an hour of the journey, on another I will sit there and try unsuccessfully for the best part of ten hours to drift off. It is impossible to predict.

I was seated in the middle of the plane, with an empty seat on my left. This is always a most welcome sight. The flight clocked in at approximately 15 hours, which is up there on my all time list of long flights. As long as it seems the time passed reasonable quickly. A sustained and determined policy of scotch, films and naps got me through this one. A special mention must go to my iPod Nano, which refused to die on me during this flight. It earned the technological Medal of Honour in my books

The Asia Tour Introduction, April - May 2008

I must admit that although I did keep a running journal of my travels around Asia, I never actually got around to putting my thoughts up onto the internet. So finally, after a year of hard work, hard living and some very interesting developments in my social life, I have decided the time is right to reflect on what was the most amazing three weeks of my life.

Since I was young I have always had a deep fascination for travelling, exploring new cultures and societies and trying to immerse myself in the locale. The old adage that 'A picture speaks a thousand words' is as overused as any but I find it has a particular significance here. No amount of travel books or programmes about your destination can convey the feeling you get when you merely wander about somewhere you have longed to visit. I still get that giddy sense of excitement when I arrive somewhere, or even when I set foot inside an airport. I shan't compare to a child on Christmas morning since I never really believed in Santa Claus, a viewpoint reinforced by my ever pragmatic parents since I was two years old. However, that is another story for another day. Airports get me all excited, they invoke thoughts of travel, adventure and the annual escape from the British winter we have all come to know and love.

With that semi-useful piece of background information taken care of, onto the trip. I decided to use all my available time off school, approximately 3 weeks, to tour some cities in Asia I had been meaning to visit. I had been to Hong Kong before, but many years ago and with the parents. This trip was to be something totally different, the travelling would be intense, my days would be busy but I would be there, doing, seeing, living and hopefully learning a lot about myself in the process. My parents were quite supportive of the idea once I laid out the details for them. The cities on my hitlist were Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei and Shanghai. I booked all my hotels and connecting flights a few weeks before I left. My affection for airports would serve me well, I would become very accustomed to spending time in them over the next month.

Before we get to the trip, a little glimpse of what I was leaving behind for the Easter break