Ok, it was time for some drastic rescheduling. After yesterdays delays I had to reassess. The answer was in reality quite simple. I had been planning on going to Macau today. I’d been told it would be a full day, but was wanting to try to fit other things in as well. Therefore it made sense to scrap that. It was a shame. Apparently it’s a good place to visit, but given there was still plenty to do in the local area, it could wait. Breakfast was a quieter affair this time. Tam had beaten me this time and was engrossed in a paper. It gave me the opportunity to look at my maps and work out where I needed to walk and what transits I needed to get for the different things I was planning. Today was really going to be largely a non-Hong Kong type of day.
I was starting with some shopping. Nearby was the Harbour City Mall. Now this place is enormous, even by American standards. Several floors and stretching on and on and on. Fortunately they have been fairly sensible in the way that they have let out the units. Shops of a similar ilk have been kept together, rather than having to walk from one end to the other. This struck me on generous to the shopper, especially their feet, but it also meant that there wasn’t the chance of drifting off into other shops that you don’t really need to visit en route somewhere else. I don’t think that it has anything to do with a desire not to encourage consumerism, more a case that they are just very organized. If it was seen in a person it would probably be considered a mild form of OCD. A place for everything and everything in its place. (Before anyone complains I personally think that everyone can so OCD elements at times, so I’m honestly not trying to make any statement here!)
While their organisation skills may well be excellent, what was a severe disappoint was their opening skills. Maybe everyone in Hong Kong who doesn’t work sleeps like a log and really struggles to get up in the morning, but it is quite annoying to have turned up at Harbour City Mall to find that 90% of the shops were shut and going to be for at least half an hour, some even more. Opening time in Hong Kong seems to be 10am at the earliest. Some shops, whose owners are clearly extremely slumberous only just about manage to open in the morning. This was clearly going to be an issue and I wasn’t going to hang around wasting time for shops to open and mess up another day. Given they open late, they stay open late. I’ll come back at the end of the day.
I was heading to Lantau Island again with unfinished business. I’d swapped a few things around so that it wasn’t a one stopper, and it also included shops as well. I was comforted by the thought that at least by the time I’ve made it over there the shops there will be open. They were! City Gate is Hong Kong’s Outlet shopping center. I’d walked past it yesterday on the way to the cable car. It’s near the airport and I’m sure that it’s where it is to catch people who have a lay over. It was far more my sort of place, and had good priced clothing and electronics. It wasn’t as big as the other mall, and didn’t have a major selection, but maybe they will expand it.
One of the things that I was still trying to get used to was the cost of everything. Converting HK$15 to the pound is easy enough, but you can easily forget how cheap that makes things. Spending HK$800 might seem like a lot, but it’s very little given the amount of traveling I was doing.
The major visit of the day was to Hong Kong’s newest attraction. Disneyland. I can imagine the groans, but I’m over here and it’s not like I’m going to get the chance again quickly. It’s not what most people would imagine. As a park, in comparison to the others, it’s tiny. Definitely no more than half a days worth, which was good as it was about lunchtime when I got there. The other advantage, and again this may be timing, is that it’s empty. Well empty compared to Disney standards. Queues for even the main rides for almost non-existent. The longest I had to wait was 15 mins, and that was a combination of bad luck and having to wait for the English speaking guide. Getting to the park was quite nice. Disney has its only little loop on the MTR that it has sole use of and they run special trains. As you would expect with Disney, they have really gone to town. Their trains have different windows. Mickey Mouse windows. There are statuettes of the characters between the seats and, well the normal MTR seats are comfortable, but these take comfort to another level.
The entrance to the park is the same as all the others. You don’t mess with a winning format. Additionally it means you instantly know what you’re looking at. However in this case something wasn’t quite right. I was standing on Main Street, looking down at Cinderella’s castle and I really felt that was exactly what I was doing. Looking down at it. It was tiny. It wasn’t that Main Street was particularly long, if anything it was shorter. As I got nearer, it was clear that is was no illusion. Cinders castle had clearly been lopped. I don’t know whether it was due to building regulations but there were several levels missing, giving it the feeling that someone had stamped on it and squashed it someone and I felt that if I stood on tip toes, I’d be able to see over it. This really summed up the park. Small and the feeling that for one reason or another there have been restraints on its creation. I’m not too surprised given that they are taking a largely uninhabited island and building a massive theme park on it. I’m sure that the last thing the authorities want is that the view from the Big Buddha is that of the tops of a load of theme park rides.
I stayed to the end, Disney fireworks always being well done and me loving fireworks. It was now time to head back to the shops that were late opening. Half an hour later I was back more or less where I had started the day, and disappointingly with the same feeling. Many of the shops that were opening late in the day had clearly decided to shut early in the day. Maybe the peak shopping time is 12 to 6, but if so, it doesn’t give people much of a chance, though must be a nice relaxed lifestyle for the shop keepers. Even more amazing was one shop that gave me a quote for something and almost as soon as I had stepped out to think about the price, shut. Clearly they didn’t need my trade. Someone else got it instead.
Disappointed with the more conventional way of shopping, I returned to the Temple Street market. I’d seen some pictures that I wanted to buy as souvenirs and knew the price I was willing to pay. It’s not difficult if you set a price in mind and given things are so cheap anyway, it’s not difficult to get a bargain and still leave the seller feeling that they haven’t done too badly out of the deal either. One of the things that I have noticed is that they have lots and lots of original oil paints of more or less the same scene. These are clearly mass produced, but each is slightly different and each is clearly done with oils, meaning that it’s not simply a printing press churning them out. Maybe somewhere there are loads of art students who are given the same painting to produce as coursework and the markets get to sell them afterwards. I wasn’t going to let it tax me too much; it was time to call it a night.
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