Looking over Shek O

The Trail Head (follow these signs)

 My first hike of the week, along the ridge of Victoria Peak, was by all measures pretty easy.  Eager to continue making the most of free time and good weather, Jake and I headed for the Dragon’s Back on Hong Kong Island.  This trail was at one stage voted the best hike in all of Asia so was definitely worth a try.  We go the MTR to Shau Kei Wan station and from there got the number 9 bus towards Shek O, asking the driver to let us out at ‘To Tei Wan’.  Luckily for us a really lovely local lady knew where this was and said that we should sit on the top deck of the double decker bus to take in the views - and that she would call us down when we got to our stop.  Great hospitality.  The views from the top deck of the bus are definitely worth it if you can also keep track of where your stop is (or alternatively can get a local person to help you).  The bus stop has the sign that I have shown above, so you know you are in the right place.

From the bus stop the hike took approximately four hours with a few stops for photos and snacks.  It winds its way along the ridge of the Dragon’s Back, with amazing views of Shek O and Stanley, before dropping down through bamboo forests and winding its way past Big Wave Bay village and ending up in Shek O, a fishing village with some great restaurants and a beautiful beach.  Once again I took my instructions from David Pickerell’s “Historical Hong Kong Hikes” book, but the Dragon’s Back is well marked - just follow signs for the Dragon’s Back and then for Shek O.  Seeing as you are walking along a ridge from which you can see the total extent of the hike, it is pretty difficult to get lost.  After grabbing some food at a great Thai restaurant at the main roundabout in Shek O village we were able to get the number 9 bus back to Shau Kei Wan station.  A really excellent hike to do - reasonably challenging, great views and a beach and good food at the end of it.  Photos below:

Shek O from the Dragon’s Back

Looking Towards Stanley

Me and Jake with the view from Shek O Peak

Big Wave Bay

Shek O Beach

View over Victoria Harbour from Victoria Peak

On the Peak Tram

With the midterms finished I was finally free to get exploring again.  My first stop was a hike along Victoria Peak - as possibly the top tourist attraction in Hong Kong, I felt that it had taken me far too long to get there.  Earlier in the month I bought a book called “Historical Hong Kong Hikes” by David Pickerell, so the routes that I took are those described by him.  After getting the peak tram up to the Peak, along with a load of elderly American tourists, I got some photos and then headed West along Mt Austin Road which follows the ridge of Hong Kong island.  After 20 minutes or so I came to another viewing point (this time with very few other tourists) which looked south over Aberdeen and the outlying islands of Hong Kong.  The walk up until this point had been fairly easy going - uphill, but along a paved road, and would therefore be worth doing for anybody at the Peak, just to get the view South as well as the standard view North.  From here I left the road and continued West, along a marked ‘fitness trail’ that began to head downhill to the Pinewood Battery, a British fort that had been designed to guard the harbour against invasion, but had fallen when the Japanese invaded Hong Kong in WW2 and has been abandoned ever since.  The shrapnel scars are still clear all over the fort.  The road continued downhill from the Battery and after about another 20 minutes I reached the University of Hong Kong where I was able to have a quick lunch with a friend that I had me at the British Council.  All in all the hike had only taken about two hours so was well worth it - though the latter section is all downhill on steps and is probably not great for anybody with bad knees.  A good introduction to hiking in Hong Kong - easy to follow and encompassing some important parts of the island.  Photos below:

View over Victoria Harbour (looking North)

View over Aberdeen and Lamma Island (looking South)

Pinewood Battery, abandoned since Japanese invasion in WW2

Another view of Victoria Harbour

The old Victoria City boundary

University of Hong Kong (HKU)

The Cenotaph, Central

September ended in a flurry of adventures and activities that October, as the month containing mid term exams, was always going to struggle to live up to.  I have been very lucky with midterms - with only one exam right at the end of the month, compared to some people having four or five, though in true HKUST standard there has been plenty of other assignments and tasks to do.  Ever the optimist, I like to think I have made the most of the month however, despite not being able to have any grand adventures.  Academically it has given me the impetus to knuckle down and work hard at a far earlier stage than I would usually, while as a ‘Hong Konger’, I have been able to explore a bit in the gaps in my schedule.  October has been the month where I have really been able to settle down and start to consider Hong Kong as home.

The Cenotaph, circa 1930

St John’s Cathedral

In terms of exploring, I was able to spare a few days to visit some of the must-see areas of Hong Kong, starting with the 'Central’ district of the island.  Firstly, a brief explanation of terms: Hong Kong (roughly translated as 'Fragrant Harbour’) is the name of the island at the south of the territory on the south side of Victoria Harbour, as well as being the name of the territory as a whole.  It was only the island of Hong Kong that was ceded to the British after the First Opium War and the other parts of the territory (Kowloon, the New Territories and Outlying Islands) were added after later conflicts and agreements.  Hong Kong Island is therefore the traditional centre of the territory and is home to the main government and financial buildings, which are mainly located in the district named 'Central’ district of the island - a new name for what was called 'Victoria City’ under the British.  Earlier in the month a few of us spent the day walking around Central to see the major sites, starting at the MTR station exit near the Cenotaph.  As the above pictures demonstrate, Hong Kong has totally changed over the last 80 years - in addition to the obvious differences, note that when I took the top photo I must have been about 500m from the edge of the harbour, such have been the affects of land reclamation.  The building to the left of the Cenotaph is the Hong Kong club, in both its old and new guise.  The building in the background is the Legislative Council building, one of the few colonial buildings to not be destroyed and replaced by skyscrapers.

Hong Kong Zoological Gardens

View from The Star Ferry

Walking from Statue Square, home of the Centotaph, we passed the headquarters of HSBC which was designed by Sir Norman Foster and at the time of building the most expensive building in the world.  Outside the building are two large statues of lions which are named after previous directors of the bank and have become a symbol of continuity in Hong Kong (one of them is literally covered in holes that were inflicted by Japanese bullets during the invasion of World War Two) and have always sat outside HSBC HQ.  From here we came across another of the few remaining colonial-era buildings, St John’s Cathedral.  The building sits, surrounded by skyscrapers, in a small park and once inside, the background organ music and simple English gothic design allows one to feel they have been taken back to a small parish church back home - I can see how it could have been a real place of comfort for the lonely expat over the years.  Near to the church is Government House, home of the governor of Hong Kong throughout British rule, and two parks - the Hong Kong Zoological Gardens and Hong Kong Park, both of which are little havens of calm in amidst the crazy buzz of Central. The latter of these, Hong Kong Park, is home to Flagstaff House, the earliest surviving colonial-era building that was saved to be home to the National Tea Museum.  We decided to visit the museum (mainly because it was free) and (maybe slightly surprisingly) it was definitely worth a look.  To round off the day, we ticked off one of the major tourist sites by getting the 'Star Ferry’ across Victoria Harbour from Hong Kong Island to Kowloon.  The journey is probably the shortest 'iconic’ journey that I will ever take (lasting a grand total of less than 5 minutes) though does, despite its brief nature, give a fantastic view of the harbour back towards Central.  The photo of the harbour taken just 50 years ago demonstrates again the drastic changes that have taken, and continue to take place, here.

View from The Star Ferry, circa 1960

Representing Bristol at the Exchange Fair

In amidst the sightseeing I was asked by the university to do a little bit of ambassador work.  My first duty, along with most of the other exchange students, was to attend the 'exchange fair’ where we all tried to sell our home universities to students from HKUST.  There was a surprisingly high interest in studying in the UK (I had heard that many local students opt for the United States) and it was pleasant to be able to discuss and show off British culture a little - for some reason British culture seems to be quite popular over here and, strangely, Union Flag based clothing is very common amongst local students.  The next duty was a bit more bizarre as I allowed myself to be followed for the day by a filming crew who wanted to get an insight into the lives of exchange students in order to encourage people to study over here.  I therefore spent a day trying not to look at a cameraman who was walking around my lectures and following me around campus before eventually standing on the common room balcony for an interview.  I have yet to see the footage, but I am going to have to assume that it will be cringeworthy in the extreme.  The last of my ambassador 'tasks’ (though I use that term lightly in this instance) was to have a lunch meeting with representatives from the university scholarship office, along with a few of my fellow British exchange friends, who wanted to discuss how to encourage British students to study full time degrees in Hong Kong.  It turns out that the opportunities to study out here full time are tremendous and there are a wide range of bursaries and scholarships on offer - however I just don’t know how many Brits would be willing to up sticks and move to East Asia for four years, straight out of school.  Having said that, apparently there are quite a lot of Europeans who are willing to do it - so there may be some adventurous students who would take the risk.  This was the second time in the space of a few weeks that I had been taken out for lunch by a representative from the university - a really great show of Hong Kong hospitality.

Filming on the balcony

Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra

The next stop on my 'October of Culture’ schedule was the (aptly named) Cultural Centre, where a group of us had decided to see the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra perform Beethoven’s 5th Symphony.  As students we were offered a monumental 50% discount, meaning that the evening cost about £10, which was money very well spent - Jaap van Zweden, the conductor, is apparently world renowned and we were all thoroughly impressed.  The Cultural Centre is in a prime location at the tip of Kowloon and after leaving we were able to make the most of the Victoria Bay skyline - amusingly (and to give you a taste of how the other half live) we noticed that one of the audience at the concert had arrived by luxury yacht which he had moored outside the Cultural Centre.  Alright for some.  After our night at the Orchestra things got a lot more boring as I spent two weeks hitting the library very hard (at least 6 months earlier than I would be used to normally in the UK) in preparation for my midterm.  Things picked up right at the end of the month however as midterms ended and I was able to get out and do some hiking (mentioned in separate blogs), with the month being rounded off with Halloween, which turned out to be the main night of the year when all of the local people come out for a few drinks.

Hong Kong Halloween 2013

I have been here for just over a month now.  On one hand it has flown by, but on the other I have now settled into the idea of this being my home for the year.  I was hoping to do a bi-monthly blog, though it is now the end of September and the title of my optimistically named ‘August Part One’ has been changed to reflect my new monthly blogging pattern.  The first half of September was spent getting used to lectures, making new friends and just getting used to everything in general in order to get a bit of a routine going.

Tai Hang Fire Dragon

Things got a bit more exciting in the third week as it was the 'Mid Autumn Festival’ - a celebration that takes place throughout East Asia and coincides with the full moon and celebrates the harvest through lighting lanterns and eating 'mooncakes’ (a cake which doesn’t really have a direct western equivalent - kind of a cross between a cake and turkish delight).  Festivities were focussed around Victoria Park on Hong Kong Island, which was filled with stalls and lantern displays.  A group of us headed down for three nights in a row to join the large crowds in the park and on the Friday were able to see the 'Tai Hang Fire Dragon’, a massive 'dragon’ made from thousands of incense sticks and supported by a long line of volunteers.  The dragon tradition goes back to a time when Tai Hang village (which has since been swallowed up by the city) was going through a bad patch - plagues, crop failures and typhoons, which were driven back by a fire dance performed by the villagers.  The tradition has continued for over a century now - except (as the announcers made a point of saying) during the Japanese occupation during WW2.

Victoria Park full of lights

Just a rainy, cloudy day really

After the fun of Mid Autumn festival we were presented with our next bit of excitement - the arrival of Typhoon Usagi (named after the fairly tame Japanese word for 'rabbit’).  The tropical storm was set to be anything but tame however - some said it was to be the strongest to hit Hong Kong for 30 years and that the eye of the storm could even pass straight over us.  There is a very well rehearsed preparation over here, with a series of warnings ranked between 1 and 10 in place - though they tend to skip straight from 3 (standby for typhoon) straight to 8, 9 or 10 depending on the severity of the storm.  A level 3 warning was in place for most of the day on Sunday and we received emails encouraging us to stock up on enough food for a few days and to consider taping up our windows in the older accommodation blocks.  On Sunday evening the level 8 was 'hoisted’ (a term that harks back to when typhoon warnings were given by raising a flag), which meant we were encouraged to stay in doors and that most parts of the city (shops and transport) would be shut down.  We watched the storm come in from our balcony and also tracked it on the computer and at the last minute it changed course to the north and struck the mainland (unfortunately killing around 25 people).  There is a popular joke in Hong Kong society that there is a 'force field’ around the territory which diverts typhoons away (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li’s_field) and it seemed like this was in force today.  On one hand it was a bit of an anti-climax, but I guess that you don’t really want to play chicken with a hurricane.

The actual path of the typhoon

After the excitement of Mid Autumn festival and Typhoon Usagi, we got back to normal on Monday (though morning lectures were cancelled).  I was able to play my first game of football for the Civil Engineers side in the week and I think I did an alright job - though the team talk was entirely in Chinese so I don’t know how well I fitted into the overall game plan.  Despite starting at 5.15pm and playing a game of four 20 minute quarters, the intense humidity and heat brought a whole new set of challenges which hopefully I will be able to get acclimatized to fairly quickly.

British Council awards ceremony

With September seeming to come to an end as soon as it started, there was time for two last events.  On Friday night I was invited along to the British Council’s office in the Admiralty district of the city to a presentation to receive an award I was lucky enough to win to study out here.  The presentation evening was well represented by people from the educational, diplomatic and business sectors and was a good chance to mingle, not just with the aforementioned important people, but also with some students from the other universities in Hong Kong.  A group of the 'scholars’ who had won the award went into the city afterwards to visit the 'Ozone Bar’, at the top of the tallest building in Hong Kong, which is the highest bar in the world, and from there on to a cigar bar and LKF.  It would have been a great way to end the month by itself, but with one day to go I am just gearing up for a couple of days in Taiwan - which will be blogged about very soon.

Ozone Bar

Departing Victoria Harbour

My new 6-day timetable out here doesn’t give me much time to explore further afield than Hong Kong at the moment, but in some ways this might prove to be a blessing in disguise.  I’m hoping, for the time being, to make the most of my Sundays by getting out to explore the parts of the country that most visitors don’t have time to see.  The first of these places was the island of Cheung Chau, which is south-west of Hong Kong island and a 30 minute/1 hour journey boat journey away from the Central Piers (depending on which class of boat you choose to take).  As with so many things here, you can even pay for the journey on the ubiquitous octopus card (the Hong Kong equivalent of the London oyster card).  The boat journey itself is pleasant as you leave Victoria Harbour and pass the much larger Lantau Island (home of Disneyland and the Airport) before arriving at the small port on Cheung Chau.

View over the town

Blue Girl beer in the harbour

The island itself is tiny and is nicknamed the dumbbell because of its shape - it consists of two peaks connected by a spit of land where the main town is located.  Arriving at lunchtime I made my way to one of the numerous fish restaurants on the front for an extremely reasonable lunch of scallops with a cold local ‘Blue Girl’ beer.  The town was busy, though had an overwhelmingly relaxed atmosphere, with fishermen selling their wares alongside little gift shops - a Chinese Padstow if you like.  Having said that, its not THAT quaint - somehow McDonalds have managed to establish themselves here as the first thing you see when you get off the ferry.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the first life they find on Mars is a drive-thru.  From what I gather, the town becomes exceptionally busy in May when the 'bun festival’ takes place - a festival that seems to be based around building 60-feet high towers of what used to be bread rolls but, after a series of baked catastrophes, have been replaced with more structurally sound bamboo and plastic.  The reason for this tradition I do not understand - though I will endeavour to come back in May to find out.

From the restaurant I headed along the coast past the edge of the town on a well marked path up to the northern peak.  On my way up (a very hot and sweaty journey despite the marked path), I passed lots of pretty little beaches and coves.  The journey took about half an hour from the town and the view from the top was great - looking back over the island itself as well as some of the major shipping lanes and on to the skyscrapers of Victoria Harbour in the far distance.

Quiet beach looking over to Lantau Island

A secluded beach at the north of the island

The town of 20,000 people is a remarkable testament to humanity’s ability to settle anywhere - it can only be a maximum of about a hundred metres wide, flanked on one side by the beach and on the other by the port, and you get the feeling that in an intense storm the waves would just pass from one side to the other.  There are no cars allowed so people get around by bicycle (or boat where applicable), meaning that it is a great place to walk around and is popular with daytripping locals keen to get out of the mad rush of the city.  The beaches are pleasant and I probably would have stayed for a swim had the weather been a bit better - though the water can’t be TOO good for you considering the island’s proximity to the shipping lanes and the ominous sight of distant power stations on Hong Kong island on the horizon.  What doesn’t kill you, eh?

After a few hours of walking around the north of the island I descended back into the town, via a few local temples, for a drink before heading on the fast ferry back to Central.  From what I gather, there is more to see on the south of the island including some stone age rock carvings and an old pirate’s cave - not to mention the Bun Festival, so I will hopefully come back.  In conclusion, well worth a day trip, even for people only coming to Hong Kong for a handful of days.

A local temple in the town

So having turned up just under three weeks ago and completed some lectures, met some people, filled out a lot of forms and scratched the surface of Hong Kong I feel it is time to step back and mull over what has happened thus far.  I guess in times gone by, this mulling over process would have occurred in private, but hey this is the internet age so you are invited to join in too.

Victoria Harbour (looking towards HK island)

Lan Kwai Fong

To summarise, it has been a real whirlwind.  As I hypothesised in my previous blog, dropping one life and creating a new one was always likely to be a pretty crazy process and this has been proven true.  It has been intense, but wonderful at the same time.  Firstly and most importantly, the people.  I think that (for good or bad) it takes a certain set of character traits to want to take part in an adventure like a year abroad and in my fellow exchange students I have met some truly like-minded individuals.  The great thing is that three weeks in I am still meeting them - everyone is exceptionally friendly and up to meet new people and have new experiences.  The orientation events put on by the uni were, in fairness to them, pretty good - I’m always scared when a university puts on a “getting to know each other” session that I’m going to spend an afternoon sitting in a circle hearing everybody say one ‘interesting thing about themselves’.  Instead of this, the uni put on a day tour for the exchange students as well as an array of meetings and free food events etc.  We were never going to need that much encouraging to get to know each other though and within the first ten days I had been to Lan Kwai Fong (LKF), the party district, four times - which my friends from home will probably realise is probably more than the combined amount of times I have been out in Bristol in my lifetime.  This year is all about doing new stuff though, right?  Having said that, I don’t want LKF to play too much of a part in this year - it is about experiencing new cultures and I am very aware of the hedonistic western lifestyle that we tend to export all over the world (whether the locals want it or not).

A whole new level of bedroom view

View over the campus

Secondly, the university itself.  I have never been anywhere quite like it and I am sure that there can’t be many other places like it.  The location is simply stunning, sitting on the cliffs next to Port Shelter, a natural harbour segregated from the South China Sea by a row of islands. As for the institution, I cannot even fathom how much money it cost - everything is new, shiny and above all, vast.  Despite its scale, it also seems to have a human element that I have never quite felt in the UK.  On the first day, for example, the President of the university stood in the main atrium and handed out an apple and posed for a photo with every new starter.  They are also very generous, with a free gym, enormous library, two free swimming pools and even a free copy of the South China Morning Post newspaper (the leading English publication) delivered to the communal kitchen every day.  I had thrown myself in at the deep end a bit when it comes to teaching.  I am taking all fourth year engineering modules (even though I’m a third year student) because they seemed like the most in line with what I would have studied in Bristol, albeit more advanced in their scope.  I also have to conduct a research project over here and I have thankfully found a supervisor, who strangely enough did his PhD at Bristol under the supervision of my personal tutor.  HKUST had no obligation to offer me a project, but having spoken to lots of people and done a bit of convincing they have allowed me to work with a postgraduate student on the Geotechnical Centrifuge, one of the most advanced piece of equipment on campus.  I’m not going to bore you with specifics, but all I will say is that it is quite an honour and will give me a level of knowledge unlike anything I would have gained had I stayed in the UK.  It does have its downsides however, namely that by working with postgraduate students and an extremely motivated supervisor, I have signed away my Saturday mornings to work on the project - which I’m smarting about a little as it severely hampers my ability to get out and explore some other places around Asia.  Fitting exploring around this is a work in progress.

Thirdly, and finally for this post, the city.  Its very tempting to talk in cliches, and you know what, its late and I’m tired, so I shall.  Hong Kong is, in every way, the epitome of 'East meets West’ - from the skyscrapers sitting next to temples, to the McDonalds serving 'Samurai burgers’ and everything in between.  It is also supersized.  There is nowhere else on earth with as many skyscrapers and lots of these aren’t owned by flashy banks (though plenty of them are) - many are used to house the enormous amounts of people who live here.  From a Civil Engineering perspective (and I’m obliged to think in such a way from time to time), Hong Kong is an absolute miracle.  For so many people to live in such tight proximity in such enormous structures (not only the buildings, but the colossal transport infrastructure) and for it to be one of the most prosperous places in Asia is phenomenal.  I have just scratched the surface so far (I have yet to even get to the top of Victoria Peak for the world famous harbour view - I’m biding my time to go at a time when it is truly special) and I cannot wait to dig deeper.  To know that I have a year to do so, despite the hard work that will be needed, is both exciting and inspiring.

Temples and towerblocks