Chek Lap Kok

This was my second time in Chek Lap Kok airport, the first was 3 weeks ago Hokkaido-bound. The last time I visited HK, Kai Tak was still the airport, i.e. quite a long time ago. I was therefore curious about what HK was like now, and also intended to undergo some retail and food therapy after Hokkaido.

HK International Airport is very impressive and efficient, and you can read all about it from the links, but I'll continue with my trip. As soon as I walked out of the terminal, the humidity hit me. Mercifully the temperature was around 26C, down from the 30s a few weeks ago. On the bus I overheard a Cantonese couple bantering and a group of American girls chatting in their nasal accents. You notice when your mind tries to make sense of overheard sentences, which it couldn't do in Japan, so it just relaxed.


The airport bus dropped me in Mongkok about ½ hour later. You notice right away that even though it's night, it's as bright as day due to the artificial light of hundreds of advertising signs and shop lights. And even though it's around 2200, the streets were thronged with a mass of humanity walking, talking, looking, working, nattering away into their mobiles, or texting.


It took a little time to find the entrance to the building for the hostel because the street signs are non-existent or hard to find; the locals just know what street they are on. The hostel rooms are actually rooms within apartments. Thus a hostel may span many apartments within the high-rise. Down near the harbour, in Tsim Sha Tsui, is Chungking Mansions, synonymous in the backpacker dictionary with cheap to tolerable dives. I had picked Mongkok to be closer to the shopping action. The room's just under twice the width of the bed, but has air-conditioning and an attached bathroom/toilet so small that when I shower the spray wets the seat.


You don't want to look too closely at the back streets and other dark corners of HK or you will get sanitary revulsion. That's the price of the extreme population density of HK.