I think Bob and I lucked out. The apartment is in a building that's probably about 40 years old and has some character to it. It's located on Chico Terrace, a tiny street nestled between Mosque Street and Prince's Terrace, a stone's throw from Shelley Street, home of Hong Kong's famous "escalator". That's our building on the left in the picture below. We're on the 9th floor.
Since a huge number of people live in the Central neighborhood and it's a rather steep climb up the hill, a warren of tiny streets and huge apartment blocks, the authorities installed what it calls "the travelator", this clever name obviously didn't catch on and everyone calls it the escalator. In the morning as people head off to work, the escalator takes people downhill until around 12 noon, when they put on the breaks and it reverses course to take everyone home up the hill.
It's not a complete conveyor belt, but a combination of people-mover on the gentler slopes, escalators on the steeper segments and walkways across multiple streets. It's pretty cool.
As we're near Mosque Street, there is, of course, a Mosque nearby, just off Shelley. I couldn't find a lot on it, but it appears to have been built in the 1840s by the Indian Muslim community, with a major restoration and addition in 1915. The mosque itself is off-limits to non-Muslims, but it rests in a nice quiet, yet small plaza. Below is the entrance right off the escalator:
It's quite beautiful, I think:
I'm not the best photographer and I have no idea how to use my fancy-shmancy Nikon digital camera, but I tried for an art shot to give you an idea as to the building's surroundings:
And there's always a reminder of just how human we all are:
Anyway, on to the main event: The Hong Kong apartment. Some background here. Since the city is so densely populated and a majority of the people live in high-rise flats, space is precious. People eat out a lot, so kitchens are really, really small. Now, I don't know if this is the norm as I have not been in a native's home, but I was in about a half-dozen apartments before I decided on this one. Bob and I like to cook, but most apartments here only have galley kitchens with two gas or electric stove-top burners if you're lucky. Sometimes a microwave is optional.
Our landlord is a British ex-pat who works as a financial adviser. His name is David and as one of his first forays into property investment he bought this space and really did an amazing job fitting it out. Everything is brand-spanking new. And I mean everything. It's clean to the point of almost being surgically sterile. This is accentuated by all the tile and marble that seems to rule the roost here when it comes to flooring and counter space. Which is weird because that shit is deadly when wet and when summer comes I believe it rains a lot here. Still, local affectations are what makes a place interesting.
Here's the apartment looking in from the front door onto the dining area, kitchen and living space:
Hong Kongers are obsessed with storage. And with good reason, the price for property per square foot ain't cheap. You can't see it in this pic, but the wall to the left is not a wall, it is floor-to-ceiling built-in cabinets and drawers, from the front door to the kitchen. In fact, when I first walked in, I opened a closet and it turned out to be the fridge door, which is neat when you think about it, but still a little confusing.
Now, there are no closets in this space, and in the master bedroom, no drawers or cabinets. At first I was baffled, but then I discovered that the platform on which the bed rests is home to three storage units, and the bed itself is on a hydraulic hinge which allows you to lift up and store a ton of stuff:
I love the kitchen. It's like a mini-version of the kitchen we have at home in Colts Neck. There's a small counter-space for two stools that Bob and I can have breakfast at and on the kitchen-facing side of the island a built-in washer-drier and a dishwasher. Again, like the fridge and freezer, they are paneled like cabinets so you can't see them.
I am going to start moving in next week after I order things like couch, mattresses, tables. IKEA is king!
Anyway, I walk everywhere and last weekend I got a bit lost because for some reason I left the hotel without my map and without hitting the ATM machine. So, I figured I would just walk west on King's Road, which becomes Hennesy Road to Queensway, etc., etc. ...
Hong Kong actioner superstar Chow Yun Fat is starring in a new flick, "Confucius: The Movie!" (OK, I added that last part, it's just called "Confucius") and the posters have just started going up on buses and billboards. Very cool:
Well, my plan didn't work out and I dogged left when I should have dogged right and found myself walking up hill towards the Peak and not downhill towards the water. Now on the main arteries of Hong Kong there are two things you will not run out of: 7-Elevens and HSBC bank branches. They're everywhere.
Further up the hills and into the "suburbs", not so much. I think I ended up on Leighton Hill, mostly because I turned onto Leighton Hill Road. Mapless, barely fluent in English, let alone Cantonese, I did what anyone else would do: I identified one of the tall cool buildings in downtown Central Hong Kong and walked towards it. This got me to the Admiralty neighborhood where I saw something that made me chuckle:
Gotta love British colonialism, when they choose a name that works for them, they stick with it!
Chinese New Year is begins on February 14. I'm really excited about this. Years ago when I lived in Los Angeles for a couple of years I ran in the Chinese New Year 10K run through Chinatown and Elysian Park. It was one of the more fun runs because -- apart from the smart-ass kids throwing fireworks at you as you ran by -- everyone of my non-running friends would join me for dim sum when it was over. But this will be interesting to see how it's celebrated locally. Already the stores are gearing up and decorations are out:
Lots of red and gold.
I love the advertising here. Mostly because it's such a great insight into things like standards of beauty and the modern expression of older customs and ancient traditions. Take for example this sign for escalator safety on the MTR, local subway system.
It's the Monkey King Sun Wukong, a mythological figure who was much admired by Mao Zedong for his smarts and cunning. In the story Havoc on the Heavenly Kingdom, the Monkey God was summoned to heaven where he thought he would be treated with respect, instead he was given the job of stable boy. Outraged, he declared war on heaven and aligned himself with the demons of earth to wage this war.
As a kid growing up in Ireland, I watched the 1965 animated film of this on RTE, the local TV network. This was back in 1976, when RTE was only one channel, with not a lot of programming, so the film, titled "Havoc in Heaven" was broken up into 30-minute installments and shown over a few days.
I loved this movie. But then, I love cartoons in general and watch them whenever I can. But check this out, it's pretty cool:
I believe Sun Wukong is related to India's Hanuman the Monkey God, he also led a war against the Gods in that mythology and is a bit of a bad-ass. Indie-rock intellectuals will also see resonance in the Pixies "This Monkey's Gone to Heaven":
And there are some ads on the subway that just crack me up. I am thisclose to getting tickets to seeing this version of "The Sound of Music". Oh, come on, you know you want to as well ...
More later ...
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