Copyright © Tanya Piejus, 2001

6 February 2001

Hello and kung hei fat choy (that's happy new year to all you non-Cantonese speakers out there).

Just thought I'd drop you all a line as I've got two hours to kill till my plane leaves for Aussie and those nice people at Reuters have provided free internet terminals for bored travellers.

The last two days in Hong Kong have been great. I stayed at a very comfortable, if more expensive than I'd normally pay, hotel on HK Island. Yesterday I took the most excellent Star Ferry back and forth to Kowloon to see the massive apartment blocks, garish neon and bustling streets of the mainland. I breathed in the incense in a couple of temples, declined the soothsayers' desire to tell my fortune (tempting Fate at this early stage, I reckon) watched old men taking their birds for a walk (that's the feathered kind) and did the very British thing of taking afternoon tea at the Peninsula Hotel, bastion of colonial oppulence. I then went to the opposite extreme and had a huge pile of prawns and noodles for dinner at a cafe in the Night Market. I could tell the seafood was fresh - most of it was still moving.

Today I footslogged the Island, starting with the steep tram ride up Victoria Peak. A man in the hotel promised me sunshine today and he wasn't wrong. The view from the Peak is magnificent: the sun-catching skyscrapers of Central, backed by the boat-choked harbour and the crowded streets of Kowloon. I have fallen in love with the Central skyline, especially at night from across the water. They certainly know how to design a building here. Another interesting experience is riding the Central-Midlevels escalator, a long chain of moving stairways and travelators that transports you above streets of crumbling apartment blocks, shops and restaurants. The smells change from pungent Thai spices, to a sudden waft of citrus, to piquant sweet and sour and finally a whiff of garlic. I ended the day in the beautiful and peaceful oasis of the zoological and botanical gardens marvelling at the ingenuity of an orangutan. Shame I'm not here longer.

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