Eye of Modok

I just spent a couple of days in Hong Kong. Wow! I had a wonderful time!

Hong Kong has a special place in my heart. I used to travel to Hong Kong on visa trips from Japan before I managed to get a permanaent visa sponsor, so for I while I was going there every few months from Tokyo. I used Hong Kong as a hub to go to Thailand and even the US. I nearly always stayed at Chung King Mansions in a youth hostel or small hotel room. It was certainly shoestring traveling but it was good enough for me and had a certain character. That was how I first got on the backpacker curcuit, which I would eventually explore in detail upon my 30th birthday when I left Japan for good. Ironically, I met Salomae during my round the world sojourn and ended up taking a couple more visa trips from Taiwan.

One thing I always enjoyed about Hong Kong was it’s amazing skyline. Every time I came back I was treated to a new really cool looking skyscraper. I was amazed with the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank building when I first saw it. Back in 1987, I visited Bank of America (I have no idea why I needed to go there but the trip remains vivid in my mind) and it was housed in the coolest building I’d ever seen. It was black and had bulding windows poking out. That building is now hidden behind the towers that have grown around it. The tallest now dwarves it.

Kowloon has changed a lot too. Chung King Mansions is in Tsim Tsa Choi on Kowloon, so I know it well. When I last visited in 1996 when I was living in Taiwan and Salomae and her sister Evah were burgeoning pop stars, all of these fancy shopping malls had showed up where the old pier used to be and some of the buildings had been replaced with newer versions of themselves. Now, it is fully developed. In fact, Hong Kong is fully developed, in the sense of “developed country.” I doubt they’ll ever be done putting up the coolest buidlings in the world though. I was amazed to see skysrapers in Kowloon. I stayed in Mongkok this time, a few stops from Tsim Tsa Choi, and stayed nearby a building that would put any going up in Beijing to shame, the Langham Place. I’ve been watching the buildings go up in Beiijing, but it will be 20 years at least to get where Hong Kong is now. And by that time, Hong Kong will still be twenty years ahead!

(c) Sherman Sham