the futility of capitalism: hong kong: memory lane and more

During my recent Asia trip, I spent a few days in Hong Kong, which was great. I was there for the HK Consumer Electronics Fair. This was my first time attending a show of this nature, and it wasn’t very exciting. On the first day, we spent a few hours at a convention center near the airport, and most of what we saw there was fairly ghetto—boring designs, cheap knock-offs of established brands and products, etc. The second day was more of the same, and then I flew to Shanghai. It wasn’t until I went back to HK a week later that I really had any fun.

The view from my hotel window:

One of my colleagues and I were alone for about 24 hours, as our Chinese counterparts were forced to stay in Shenzhen (a large city just over the border from HK) because their cheapskate boss decided that HK hotels were too expensive—lame, especially since Shenzhen is pretty dull. Anyway, said colleague and I got to our hotel in Tsimshatsui, then took a taxi to nearby Mong Kok so that we could walk around and check out Ladies Street—a long street filled with all manner of knock-off goods and cheap Chinese trinkets.

Walking around was fun. Mong Kok is always busy, and that night was no exception. There were people everywhere, pretty girls pushing the latest phones from Samsung and HTC (using hot chicks to push new products is still completely acceptable in Asia, unlike the US), strange and unusual smells and so forth. When I lived in HK, Mong Kok was one of my favorite places to go, if only for the electronics stores. We went to a few, which was nice. Ah, memories…

We finished out the evening by walking along the pier in Tsimshatsui and catching the nightly light show. The show is pretty cool—lights on the buildings on Hong Kong Island are turned on and off and synchronized with music and such.

The next morning, we took a ferry from Hong Kong Island to Mui Wo, a small town on Lantau Island where I once lived. My colleague told me that he enjoyed seeing Mui Wo more than any other place I took him, simply because of its small size and laid back vibe. Yes, I like Mui Wo, too. It was my favorite area on my mission. We lived just a couple minutes from the beach. I used to go up on the roof of our three-storey apartment building and watch ships dock at the pier. It was quiet and peaceful—a major change from the overpopulated places I lived the rest of my mission.

We caught a bus in Mui Wo which took us to Po Lin Monastery. Po Lin is famous for having the world’s largest sitting outdoor Buddha. It’s so big that you can see it on top of the mountain from pretty far away. I went there a couple times when I lived in Mui Wo, and I always thought it was pretty cool.

The best part of the excursion was the cable car ride that we took from Ngong Ping (just outside the monastery) down to Tung Chung, which is near the airport. I don’t know when the cable cars were put in, but they certainly weren’t there when I lived in HK. Anyway, it was well worth the $10/ticket we spent on it.