A city walk to Whampoa Gardens

I didn't finish yesterday's post as I was tired and had to have a nap. Tim sent a message he was outside the building at around 7.45pm, I'm glad of this as I was debating whether I was too tired to meet up that night but once I was outside again I felt more alive. It was great to see Tim again after so long, he showed me the around the area and then we went to a bar called Piss 2! for a drink and got me up to speed on his life for the last 2 years and his travels around Canada whilst he was there.



Le Piss!

Today we met for lunch near where Tim is working, at 1pm so I thought I'd walk from Mong Kok to where he worked in Whampoa garden to get more of sense of the city rather than busing straight there. Mong kok is messier part of town, a cheaper area, but the roads aren't too bad traffic wise. I walked down Nathen road, the main drag towards Hong Kong island, after a while it becomes a bit less messy and the shops become more westernised, there is a section of a few blocks where every shop is a tailors or watch seller, many people asked if I wanted a suit, and I was tempted as it would be a much better price than in UK but I'm not an impulse buyer and with something like that I'd want to have time to research exactly what I wanted, but from their point of view they just wanted me to pick a fabric, pay the money and thats it, they didn't understand why I wanted to think about it. I took refuge in a Starbucks and sat in a quiet corner with a view onto the busy street with a good coffee and danish listening to classical music. I pushed on and thought about the suits on the way to Whampoa Garden. Kowloon Bay was full of sea mist making Hong Island a whishy washy vista, everything blended together, the water, the buildings, the sky. I met Tim at the prescbied location and we got some lunch and sat and the waterfront in an area that all used to be ship yards until it was gentrified and is now a place the middle class live.

Bamboo scaffolding



Kowloon Bay, looking towards Hong Kong island



Whampoa Garden



The ship is a shopping precinct



The most colourful view today

 

Tim

 

After lunch I walked back to Nathen road and decided I would buy a suit, I just had to find the first one I spoke to who had a good selection of images printed out to make design choices easier, after being distrated by another one I went into the shop to ask about prices and they assume you are going to buy, and then you have to go back a few times for fitting. I was being hastled, I didn't know what suit I wanted, this one didn't have any designs printed out to make it easy, instead I was meant to google it and I just had no desire to research suits at that time, you're constantly researching when travelling and I really didn't want to do anymore, my feet here hurting from walking in shoes that are good for a few km but after that start to cause trouble, and just then I'd run of energy to run the guantlet of rolex sellers and tailers to find which one it was. So Instead I turned left into the train station and went back to the tiny cupboard flat, I was looking for something fresh, bananas or some fruit but with increasing discomfort from my shoes the nearest thing I found was coconut juice milk stuff in a 7 Eleven, it was actually nice. Got into the flat, shoes off!
I can't buy things when I'm hastled! All I really wanted was an adapter plug to charge my laptop up! I have found a cable that plugs into the router that I can use but have to unplug the internet whilst charging the computer. Still, its a work around solution.
I'll meet Tim again later after he finished work, work hours are 10-7 here. It's 6.30 here and getting dark.