The Hong Kong Vacation Part

This is the first part of Robert's and my Asia vacation report. We flew to Hong Kong on 22 December, then on to Bangkok on the 29th, and back to Frankfurt on 6 January, via Copenhagen.

You'll see that it's a very brief summary, and very subjective on top. But hey, it's my party, I'm gonna cry if I want to. You would cry, too, if it happened to you. :)

Choice of Travel Destination

In October, Robert and I had known each other for roughly only two months but at least I didn't have any inhibitions to take steps from there. As I had written previously the choice of moving in with each other was made not long thereafter, and we ended up doing that even before going on vacation together. In my opinion, the latter is crucial to every partner relationship because there is hardly anything that puts your relationship to a test as badly as a common place to live or, you guessed it, a vacation abroad.

So we had been thinking for a while about whether, and of course where, we wanted to go on vacation over Christmas and newyear's. There were virtually no limitations at the time as to where we'd go. We had more than two weeks to spend, so we could be brainstorming ourselves silly, and with Robert's connections to Lufthansa, chances were good we'd get a reasonable price at least for the flights. Sometimes I still marvel at the rebates that airline employees get at places like Club Med. But that's a different topic.

Now, where would we go? Our ideas were widely spread. Australia? Very nice idea but too hot in December/January. A car road trip from South to North California? Definitely a candidate. I have friends in the Northern US but there was no chance in hell that I'd be freezing my behind off in Massachusetts, sorry. Something cheaper, like in the Canary islands? Gran Canaria used to be a gay Mekka but things allegedly have changed, and honestly, even at the time it was big I could imagine much more exciting places to go to. When I go abroad my focus is not having things the same as at home.

I don't know any more how Asia came up but I think it was I who said that I had been wanting to travel to Hong Kong for years, and that because I loved Thai food and had seen extremely beautiful pictures about Thailand, Bangkok would be another city I'd love to see. He hadn't seen Hong Kong yet, Robert said, but Bangkok he had seen in 1993 and he'd love to travel there again.

In case you smirked at my remark about the connection of Thai food with wanting to travel to Thailand, I am convinced that much more often than not, people have the silliest motives to travel somewhere. Due to the Internet offering knowledge about pretty much anything and everything, I think that our perception of the world is both more wholesome and tainted.

Fact is, I had never been to Asia at all. Also, I had seen many things about it. Regardless of the fact that there are vast differences among the countries – e.g., Germans often have no clue about the differences between China and Japan; at least many have realized the difference between Chinese and Thai food –, the Internet makes it difficult at times to realize them. I had read and seen a lot about Asia, may it be respectable sources or articles and books about differences in mentalities, or YouTube videos like Hardgay, Japanese children's toilet training, or Sexy Bejing's „Lost in Translation“ video.

The decision to travel to Hong Kong and Bangkok came almost silently. Robert had asked a friend whether she could book us a convenient and reasonably priced set of flights, and when the pertaining quote was made it was clear that we both wanted to do it.

So the choice was made.

Strangely enough, we hardly did any other preparations other than booking hotels in both cities, the one in Bangkok actually the night before our flight to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong

The flight to Hong Kong was a Lufthansa flight, and we slept well, which is probably why we hardly had any jetlag symptoms. This is true for both intercontinental flights, by the way. Our hotel in Hong Kong, The Harbourview, was located directly at the sea but we had to switch rooms and pay about € 10 extra per day to actually get a room with harbour view. The one we got at first had the gorgeous view onto a dirty concrete wall and a black window front. Charming.


I'll be frank, we both didn't like Hong Kong too much, for various reasons. Don't get me wrong. What I am about to say is not meant to hurt anybody or any people, it is merely my/our perception of the vacation.

Hong Kong is an extremely impressive city, colorful, bright, with huge buildings, it's clean, peaceful, and you can party anytime, almost everywhere. Gay, straight, bi, ladyboys, transgender, you name it, you get it. But from what we saw during the seven days, we think that two days of Hong Kong are enough to see everything that matters and that defines the city. I say this because we think Hong Kong consists mostly of one thing. Shopping. I have never seen such a mass of shopping malls with such a mass of mediocre and ever-same crap.

Robert and I both like to shop, and we both had planned to go on vacation and shop ourselves stupid. Not that our suitcases would have held much more – weight-wise – but that had been our initial plan. But apart from a few audio CDs with JPop, nothing of what we saw in all the malls interested us. And even those we didn't buy. There were two groups of products, the usually (or sometimes more) expensive ones that are boring, and the cheap crap that you'll only buy when you're young and stupid, or drunk.
"But what about all the sites?!?" you might ask.


Yes, there is the giant bronze Buddha statue on Lantau island. Been there. Impressive (though not as impressive as I thought) but extremely touristy. By the way, if you're planning to go, make sure like the new day to go as early as you can, or you'll stand in lines for hours just to buy a ticket. And I am not exaggerating. My estimate is that some people actually stood in subsequent lines for roughly three hours to only get the tram up the hill. It seems like the Chinese don't have any problem with that. I, however, do.

And don't overestimate the whole statue experience. It's just a giant Buddha statue. [shrug]

What might be something for you if you're into fake tacky shit is the plastic tree of enlightenment that you'll see on your left on your way to the statue. That's so bad it's cool.

Expecting and hoping badly that things would be different at least on the outskirts, we went for a trip to Cheung Chau island and to Aberdeen, but we were disappointed. It was all the same to us, sometimes with smaller buildings and fisherman boats but always the same stuff to see and do. Walking around, eating and shopping.

Before I went to Asia I used to say I'm a buddhist. Now that I have seen what that means in Hong Kong, I am hesitant to say it any more. What I have seen in the temples in Hong Kong was just as flat as the whole shopping frenzy seemed to me. You see people burning and shaking incense sticks (and all temples reak of them), and lush statues everywhere, but it looked just as uninspired and uninspiring as the Christian churches look to me in Germany.

If you think that in Hong Kong you will get by with English because of the city's historical background of an English colony, you're partially right. You'll get by but don't expect meaningful personal encounters. Most Chinese people hardly speak more than the absolute minimum. Hotel and airline staff are different, of course, and you can order your food and drinks but that's it for the most part. Even trip booking seemed so cumbersome to me that I couldn't be bothered really.

I am in awe about the city's energy thirst though, for already the sheer mass of lights and air conditioning is overwhelming. It doesn't take long for you to stand in front of the side of a 50-storey building whose color you can hardly make out because of all the air conditioning.

Also, don't be surprised if you run into the same kinds of shop on an entire street. There are actually streets where almost nothing else but dried food is sold, then others with nothing but pets (and the most horrifying clothes for them, I tell you). Again others with electronica, and so on.

And you've got people everywhere. Every-effing-where. Usually walking veeeeery slooooowly in front of you, and somehow they manage to block entire 4-meter-wide sidewalks with two persons or sometimes, if they're very experienced, alone. However, there are well-organized and widely spread walkways, often located aside or in and through buildings. Walking is very common in Hong Kong (if you can stand walking at half your regular speed).

But actually, sadly, this is pretty much everything I remember clearly about Hong Kong.

When we boarded the plane on the 29th of December to fly to Bangkok, I cannot say either of us regretted it. It was time. Actually, it had been time for days, and at the time Robert and I agreed that Hong Kong could -- rather should -- be done in two days, three tops. Keep that in mind if you're planning to go for the first time. Make sure you have arranged for ways to get out of the city for good, not on the weekend though because that's when all the Hong Kongians do the same, and you'll end up standing in line again.