Oh Hong Kong, you amazing noodle-smelling, sewer-scented total New York City rip-off! This place should be avoided by all means in the summer! As you discover the complexities (or lack thereof) of my repugnant, charmless personality throughout these stories, you will learn that I am not the smartest person on the planet, so the visa errands I needed to run before entering China, I ran them bitches by actual running. Three things here:
Еден: Google Hong Kong – it’s got one of the best subway systems in the world, if not THE best!
Numero dos, like I said, Hong Kong in the summer is like Hell in the… well, every day.
Trois (pronounced perfectly in a sexy French accent): I had ONLY three days to sightsee and erandrun…
d (I ran out of languages… and I did say THREE things): Did I mention that Hong Kong is H.O.T. ?
All you need are two things: this map under this here paragraph and an octopus card. So the moment you arrive in HK, you dive into that marina and get yourself a nice healthy octopus who will shit you a card to use in the metro. Or buy the card at the airport like a normal person.
So, walking around is a wasting of time around (what?). If I have to give you another advice on the matter, don’t be a cheap bastard or… (what’s the female version of bastard? I am trying to be PC here…) pay some extra money and get a room anywhere that is not called a mansion. I am most definitely, without a doubt, talking about, the infamous Mirador and Chungking Mansions…
The fact that Kar-wai had the audacity to title his romantic movie using the name of one of these architectural abominations is beyond me. Beyond! Let me paint you a picture: massive pile of Indian shit. And those motherfuckers eat curry, so you KNOW I’m talking about diarrhea. On an unrelated note, I LOVE CURRY! Imagine the biggest building in the world filled with the smallest rooms in the world (and no, I am not talking about mushrooms, you unfunny-dad-joke-making imbecile). The bottom floors are full of shops that sell anything from the aforementioned curry to the newest 19th generation, 10G network, 2000 megapixel camera iPhone. But Waiguoman, you might say, that phone does not exist! Oh really, whatevertheindianwordformotherfuckeris?! Come to the Mansions and discover a new world or crime, curry and cutting-edge technology. The Indians from the bottom floors will offer you all kinds of hostels taking up the rest of the upper floors for like 20 bucks a night! Once you get into your room, you will see that if you fart, that thing will haunt you all week! There is no space for the fart to travel! Hell, there is no space for the fart to get out! Not literally, figuratively. But man, it’s not that far off.
During the day, my lower-floor black Asian brothers peddle tech and curry, but during the night and early morning hours, you do not want to be around. This place looks like the gathering of the druids. And by druids, I mean the shiftiest people concocting the shiftiest deals in the world. I seriously thought that if I run away with at least one kidney, I am the luckiest guy in the world. And if seeing these scenes was not enough, a day before I flew to Hong Kong and a day after I had already booked my room, I read an article about a tourist who stayed in one of the countless Mansions’ hostels and was murdered there.
The two weeks before Hong Kong were probably the most anxiety anyone has ever felt outside first dates. I had the money, I had the plan, baby, I was ready to go. But then I started reading about return tickets… apparently, it is very common for the airport/customs authorities to ask you about your return ticket, and if you should not be able to provide one for them, they could very easily refuse to fly you out. My ONE WAY flight went from Skopje to Istanbul and then Hong Kong…
I found a list of countries that will let a Macedonian moron enter them (holy shit that is a double entendre if I ever heard one) without a condom visa. So Macedonia has a deal with Hong Kong whereby a Macedonian citizen can visit the place for up to fourteen days, utterly visa-free. My future Chinese boss intended to use part of this time to apply for my Chinese visa in Hong Kong, as it is easier to get it there, and then get me in China. In case I was refused this visa, I had no choice but to go back home. You see, reapplying can only be done months later. In my head I was already shuffling between Macau (Macedonians can kick it there for 30 days visaless) and Hong Kong for eternity never attaining the almighty, omnipotent and extremely elusive Chinese visa.
I had plans, man! First one was to bookmark several websites that sell cheap (or even fake) tickets. Basically the cheapest way out of the place, just so you have proof that you will eventually leave their country. Another one was some kind of a ferry from Hong Kong to Macau, and I even had a bank statement claiming I am almost rich, just so I can prove to them I am not a broke tourist who will leech their economy dry (is leech even a verb?). I am sure I had at least two more options that I can’t really remember right now.
So get this: I arrive at the greatest airport on the planet, which at the same time happens to be the smallest airport on the planet (probably). This is Alexander the Great, which has since been renamed due to political disputes with other countries who claim the dude to have been of their nationality. Wait! Alexander is actually its second name! So this dude changed its name more times than Bond… James Bond. on a mission [I was watching Craig’s Bond shadows of electricity (movie-电影 literally: electrical shadow, Chinese is funny) at the time of writing]. I go to pick up my ticket and at check-in straight away the girl asks me about my return ticket. Gut-wrenchingly anxious and perspiring pungent pellets (diluted with the aroma of Old Spice Swagger), but with the coolest and friendliest face of all time, on the spot I invented a story whereby I travel to Hong Kong to meet my friends and then travel around in other neighboring countries that don’t demand a visa. (HA! Genius! I don’t have any friends!) The girl didn’t know that visa was not required for Hong Kong, she called a person and learned this fact. She let me go. It never occurred to me until now the irony of only smelling my Swagger when anxiety manifested itself in the form of sweat streams down my armpits.
After that little… tiniest fraction of an incident (but a full blown-JFK-assassination-proportions-scandal in my head), nobody, NOT ONE airport authority or customs officer asked me about anything again. And so I met Ashley at Hong Kong International Airport, we took a bus to the great peninsula of Kowloon. Tsim Sha Tsui. One of the Mansions… don’t remember which one. Not important. They are the same.