A Day of Firsts

[written on Thursday 19th June]

Seeing as today is my birthday, I thought I’d take a little ‘me-time’ (and no, that’s not what every day here so far has been, smart arses). For the first time in about a week, the sky wasn’t the colour of gruel, the island across the water from me wasn’t shrouded in mist and, good lord and all the apostles, the sun was shining! Right: time for action. (picture to remind you, as well as me, what the island looks like in the sun!) Though I knew it would be extremely touristy and probably a huge anticlimax once I got there, it seemed like as good a day as any to go to the top of Victoria Peak – the highest mountain on HK island (standing at 552 metres for all you fact-sticklers) – by taking the Peak Tram (which featured in the Clark Gable film Soldier of Fortune – another piece of trivia for you. Ok, I’ll stop.)

The guidebook only tells you how to get to the tram terminal from the ferry piers which is not where I was going to be when I came out of the MTR, so I figured I’d just head to Exchange Square which is closer, and from where, according to the crazy Chinese A-Z Clifford gave us, a shedload of buses depart. One of them will definitely take me where I want to go.

Feeling like the world was my oyster, I carefully inspected the details on each bus stop stand, eagerly awaiting the moment I would be rewarded with the words ‘Lower Peak Tram Terminal’. Though I did get some very odd looks from a number of locals (possibly due to the squint that appeared in my eye while trying to decipher the likes of '香港仔' [which actually means Aberdeen]), the destination I was looking for wasn’t there! The closest I came was the #15 bus which goes to the top of the Peak, eliminating the whole tram ride that I was trying my hardest to take.

Now, the majority of people in Honkers live on the north side of the island (no, no – that’s just an observation – I’m not bombarding you with facts again, honest) presumably because most businesses have their base offices there and also because the MTR doesn’t serve the south side, and who wants a longer-than-five-minutes commute? However, for the purposes of research, the fact that the south side is where the beaches of Honkers are and because every blasted bus at the Exchange Square terminus seems to go there, I thought screw the Peak, my first first of the day can be ‘Packer gets the bus to Stanley’. And yes, it is a supremely lame name for a town, but unfortunately that's what the nineteenth century British Secretary of State for War and the Colonies was called after whom the English named it. (Of course, it did already have a Chinese name, but we Brits don't care about that - we like to name things properly, in words we can pronounce without having to learn any of this foreign nonsense - pfft!)

And I have to tell you, my ride on the #260 (express) was jolly pleasant! Sun was still shining, it was a single decker so I didn’t get travel sick and for a lot of the journey, we travelled along the coastal road which (without wanting to sound like a gushing girlie girl) was very pretty, passing through the delightfully-named Deep Water Bay and Ocean Park and the not-so-well-named Repulse Bay. Ironically, a lot of American expats seem to live there in huge high rise apartment buildings of pastel blue, yellow and pink.

Took me about 25 minutes to get there, but then I was out in the heat again where I had a good old browse in the street market stalls, took me a little promenade along the seafront and had a small chuckle to myself that there was a Pizza Express, a pub called the Smugglers’ Inn (‘The Real Local Pub' apparently), another pub called the Pickled Pelican and a diner-type place called Main Street USA (really pushing the boundaries there considering it was on Stanley Main Street and was a US-style eaterie.)

It is quite disconcerting sometimes how separately the expats and Chinese seem to co-exist and how you can just stumble on a weird little bubble where all you see are white faces - you know who you are bitchy teenage American girls giving me the evils in Starbucks - restaurants/shops blatantly geared towards the paler-skinned amongst us and, which really made me laugh at the role reversal, a coach-load of Chinese tourists.

Still, it was very nice to pass an hour or so there away from the madness of Central and then I thought I’d happened upon the answer: a bus that would take me from Stanley all the way to Victoria Peak (and I could just get the tram back down). Brilliant! I’d been there for at least seven minutes when I saw that all the timetables for said miracle bus referred to Sundays and public holidays. Dammit. The bus only runs on Sundays and public holidays. So I walked all the way back to the terminus where the #260 was not looking very express-like and as time waits for no Packer, I got on the #6X on impulse (clearly buoyed by the fact that I’d survived my bus journey into the unknown the week before).

On the return trip, I happened upon a cunning plan. Using my Chinese A-Z, I was able to suss out the route my 6X was going to take and where on this route I could interchange with one of those magic, disappearing, take-me-to-the-lower-tram-terminal buses. A-ha! Buses 3B, 23 and 40, I’ve got your numbers!

So you’ll be thrilled to hear, without too much drama, I also managed to achieve my second first of the day: riding the Peak Tram (or funicular railway as it is technically). Bloody tourists and their bloody photo-taking. Tsk, tsk – I live here, you plebs, out of my way. The ride doesn’t actually take very long, but is very impressive – especially at the point where it’s practically vertical and you’re lying in your seat (that a few minutes ago you were upright in) praying to God that the cable doesn’t snap.

At the top, the amazing views of the ridiculous amount of high rise apartment blocks and sky scraping office buildings are well worth the effort; the nasty tourist shops full of tat and the overpriced shopping malls are not. But you can escape that nonsense by going for a little walk to the actual top of Victoria Peak. Yes, you’re right. Of course I didn’t do that! I did take some pictures though, as the air was definitely less humid up there, meaning you can stay outside for longer than 2.5 minutes. I’ve devoted a separate blog entry to the pictures as their inclusion on this one would make it ridiculously long, and I wouldn’t want to bore you so soon after starting this thing! Oh ok, here’s just a little taster for you impatient people.

My plan thenceforth was to bus it back to Central and then pick up the MTR to go home and lie down (too much fresh air, you understand) but the queue for the bus was about 75 people long. Hmmm…not interested in that. My eye caught sight of one of the little light buses that only seat 16 people (another of Hong Kong’s innovative transport solutions - picture below) and are much faster than normal buses (due to them stopping less frequently and their size is more conducive to a lot of the little windy roads). It was enticingly empty and had no queue.

Figuring it probably went close to where I was headed, I decided to indulge in my third first. And no, I hadn't been put off by my plans being diverted earlier by the shortage of buses that would "definitely take me where I want to go" - some people never learn!

We sped down the steep hilly roads and hairpin bends at the speed of knots - I know, because there’s a big LED display in the bus that tell you how many kilometres an hour the driver's doing. Not really sure why… Before I’d barely had time to get my book out, a load of people were getting off and I realised we were already at the MTR!

Sweet. One stop and I was home to get ready to be wined and dined by the lovely Mr Colin.