Revisiting Hong Kong

When we showed the concierge the list of places in Hong Kong we wanted to see, he said we were 'greedy'- lol!
He was right. Thankfully though, for all us 'greedy' tourists, those hop-on-hop-off bus tours were everywhere and for the two days we were in Hong Kong we got through most of our list.

Repulse Bay seems to be the Mission Bay or Camps Bay of Hong Kong, and is perhaps the place we should've got off the Big Bus Tour for drink. Instead though, we hopped off at Stanely Street, a few bays along. Yellowish boulders lined the beach and, with the historical Murray House presiding over the bay, the area looked rather scenic. The restaurant we 'dined at' in Stanely Beach (which used paper plates and plastic chairs) was overpriced and didn't have Smirnoff Ice :( My fellow travellers though seemed pleased enough with their Hoegardens - if I was a beer drinker, I'd be pretty happy with a Hoegarden too, they are huge!

Riding on the sampan (traditional Chinese wooden boat) at Aberdeen gave us an up-close look at the livelihoods of the fishermen who live on the many houseboats docked in the habour. On the muggy Friday morning some of the boat dwellers we saw were burning rubbish, others were washing their boats and clothes, and some of the boat dwellers were dogs! I did ponder a bit on what the life of a sea dog must be like...

The night view of Hong Kong was the highlight of my day and it doesn't surprise me at all that the city's skyline ranks among the world's best. The Star Ferry took us from Hong Kong Island to Kowloon where we watched the daily 8pm light show. The show was not anything special (not after the fountain show in Dubai), but the view of Hong Kong at night was amazing. I wish my camera had done the glittering panorama more justice!

A cute red cable car took us up Victoria Peak, where we proceeded to get lost in the mall at the peak's summit. The top of a mountain did strike me as an odd place for a mall, but given the scores of people that were visiting Victoria Peak along with us, I can see the logic. Luckily we went early in the afternoon, because as we descended and saw the queues, I think we easily could have been deterred.

Riding the outdoor escalator that cuts through Soho and Hollywood Rd was an experience. The one way outdoor escalator system (don't quote me - is the longest one in the world - ) and changes direction part way through the day. Not at the precise time we needed it to though... We rode numerous escalators in the wrong direction and then had to make the dizzying walk back down  - not so fun.

The mid-escalaor area was packed with quirky little shops and cafes which morphed into trendy nightclubs and bars further along in Lan Kwai Fong. This appeared to be the expat hangout and if I return to Hong Kong anytime soon, I'll certainly be heading back there for a sundowner.

I really liked what I saw of Hong Kong. Some aspects of the city are ultra modern, the high end shopping and the skyscrapers, but interspersed are innumerable traditional Chinese street markets which give the city so much character. The commentary on the bus noted one area where local elderly women can still be found sitting on the streetside reading palms and placing curses on people - oooh! (Lifting curses apparently involves beating a piece of paper with a shoe - that would've been a sight)

It was great to head out of the central city area to see how mountainous and green Hong Kong is. The only attraction we didn't get to was the famous Buddha, so here's hoping for another DXB-HKG sometime soon.

(Trip from July '11)

The Time Paradox : Beijing

The book 'The Time Paradox' by Philip Zimbardo has imparted to me many new and interesting ways to look at time. One insight that struck me was Zimbardo's views of the relativity of time and specifically how our perceptions of time affect the way we spend it. He says that any given task will swell in to the time frame it is given and this affects our perception of the task and our usage of time for the task. For example a student given a three week due date for a essay will percieve that (due to the time frame) the assignment must be fairly complex and timely, and will most likely use the full three weeks for this task. (Even as lots of students do, if they leave the task to the last minute, they will still percieve that the three week essay should, at least appear, to contain three weeks worth of work). The three week timeframe will swell the task's percieved importance. Students given the same task but just a one day timeframe would have very different perceptions about the task.

When I'm flying, sleeping at the wrong times and spending time down route, I'm either gaining or losing time and either maximising or wasting time. My flying job is so time focussed that it offers most appropriate senarios to reflect upon what Zimbardo calls our most precious commodity - Time.

On more layovers than I'd like to admit, I do nothing. Quite literally Not A Thing. Fortunately, there are also the layovers where I do so much in the same (usually short) amount of time that I am sure time must of stretched somehow to allow for it.

Recently I had one such "wasted" layover recently in Beijing.

The flight departed at 4am. I arrived at the hotel in Beijing at 5pm that day, after a 6.5 hour flight. I lost 4 hours (as Beijing is 4 hours ahead). Due to the ungodly departure time from Dubai, when I reached Beijing I crashed out until 12 midnight. Being a vegetarian I find Chinese restaurants and supermarkets frightening at the best of times and wasn't about to venture out at midnight for food. Despite the dairy and gluten, I ordered a pizza. The mini bar's red wine, pringles and chocolate, and HBO's string of midnight romantic comedies kept me happy untill 5am when I fell back to sleep. At 9am I awoke - groggy -, looked at the clock and decided not to meet the girls at 9:30am for shopping. I slept on and off until 5pm. Each time I awoke, the dilema of whether to get up or not presented itself. But each time, a quick decision in favour of sleep won out  - (the reasoning being: it would be better to sleep as long as possible now as I may not be able to sleep before the flight anyway).
At 5pm though I did arise. I showered, ordered an iron, extra water and began my layover with all of 3 hours left! I spent those 3 hours at Starbucks, then packing and getting ready for the flight. The flight back was 7.5 hours, I gained 4 hours on the way back, arrived home at 5:30am and woke up at 12pm ready to face the world. Phew! I'm not sure on all the numbers, but I know there was not a lot of "useful" hours there and those hours watching TV and eating are hardly useful anyway.

So Little...

(View from my hotel window - the most exciting place I visited was the Starbucks across the the road)


Luckily I have another Beijing trip for comparison. Similarly on this trip we also arrived at the hotel at 5pm. I slept till 7:30pm, met some of the crew at 8pm and went for dinner in the city (the traditional Chinese restaurant needs a blog of its own). We then went clubbing at Mix and got back to the hotel at 4am. The alarm rang at 7:30am and at 8am I met some other crew in the lobby and we drove nearly two hours to the Great Wall. There we took the cable car up and down and spent about 1 hour taking photos and walking between the forts of the wall. On the way back we toured Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City. We arrived back at the hotel just before 5pm. I slept untill 8:30pm and then headed back to Dubai.
I did so much in the exact number of hours that I later was to do so little.

What I find interesting is that if I entertain the perception that 'there's not much time on the layover', I quite successfully can fill an entire 36 hours doing nothing. If however I percieve that there is lots of time, I am equally as succesful in maximising those hours with sightseeing, dinner, clubbing, shopping whatever...

Sometimes I think that our short time frames on layovers are a blessing. The lack of time forces me to maximise it; I'm up and out asap - no time for recovering from jet lag or settling in as I would do if I was on holiday, its go, go, go.
At the end of the layover, it really is just about perception. As I have proved to myself so much can be done in a day, or so little and its just a matter of deciding which it is going to be. And though I'd always like more time on layovers, more time could also just make for more time to waste!

Or So Much...

Tianamen Square, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall of China!



J'adore La Sacre Coeur!

The Sacre Coeur Basilica in Paris may just be my favourite place in the world. The Roman Catholic church sits on top of Montmartre hill and prizes an expansive and magnificent view of Paris.

On a blissfully sunny afternoon last summer, a fellow crew member - a good looking Polish guy with lingering blue eyes and fantastical ideals - first introduced me to the grand white church "with the best view of Paris". It has been my favourite place ever since.

When he met me in the lobby, he surprised some people with his rather eccentric outfit; soft shoes, tight black pants, a tucked in blue shirt, large sunglasses and a cigar! Different yes, but I quite liked it. We were in whimiscal Paris after all.

Debating art, parallel dimensions and the sometimes stifling life in Dubai, made for animated converstations as we got lost in central Paris. We stopped for wine, sushi, coffee and browsed a few shops that caught our eye along the way. Eventually we did find the Pompidou, only to discover it was closed. Quelle surprise! It was a weekday!
We headed back down to the underground and traversed town, seeking Salavdor Dali. The Dali musem also proved to be difficult to find. (Whether this was due to our jetlag, wine or unfocused wandering -I'm not sure).
I rather enjoyed being lost in Paris: the musings of M, the little streets and Parisian buildings kept me well intrigued. He showed me the boutique hotel where he had stayed in Paris, and not far from there was the Dali musuem. Ahhh:)  I loved it!
As someone who likes to dabble with the paintbrush (though not very well), I am so inspired by great art and in absolute awe of the great masters. Although Dali's art is very different to the sweeping vistas and entrancing portrait paintings at the Louvre, I admired his art just much - especially his ballerina sculpture.

At the restaurant at the bottom of Montmartre hill, we had wine outside and M smoked his cigar. (The cigar was quite fitting now - and looked rather chic central in Paris)
We ascended the hill as the sun settled and watched pink and orange hues light up the sprawling buildings of Paris. M thought we should grab a bottle of wine and drink in the rocks and trees like the French teenagers. I didn't think so. We circled the basillica instead and slowly descended the magical mount. The sky had by now turned that lovely electric twilight blue, and little yellow spheres from the streetlights lit the way down the winding streets. We had dinner on the way down and sat at a sidewalk table to watch the parisians and their dogs and mopeds go by.

Paris is such a romantic city and its easy to get swept up in dreamy ideas and romantic nostaglia. I thought at first I must love the Sacre Coeur because of the magical afternoon I spent there with M, (but sorry M its not).
I've been back twice since (most recently last week) - to the same restaurant, been served by the same waiter, drank the same wine and both times, the same sense of awe and almost magnetic serenity rushes over me. I think what I love about the basilica is that it really is so close to the gods. Sitting on the hill -at the highest point in Paris, not only does the church have an unobstructed view of the city below, the city has an unobstructed view of it. From the steps below, looking up at the church, you can see nothing above or beyond it. There is the church, the sky, the clouds and the sun. The basilica is like an offering or opening to the heavens.

I think I can accuratley say I LOVE the Sacre Coeur and, judging by the hundreds of people I always see there, I think lots of other people do too:)

(Summer trips in 2010, 2011)