| How to get over jet lag Posted Sunday, 19 March 2006 | ||||||||||||||||
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| Upon arrival at Hong Kong Airport Wendy and I had managed against all the odds (but with the aid of some Tamazapan kindly prescribed by my doctor) to have an hour or so's kip. I would have got more but for the fact Brokeback Mountain was playing on loop on the seat back telly. As I've only seen it twice already and never three miles over Kazakhstan it seemed wrong to turn up the opportunity. So we land at 8am fairly knackered on the other side of the world ( Quick airline reccomendation - If you have the chance fly Qantas, do. You get loads of stuff for free including a snack bag - which is now my dirty laundry bag - and free socks and toothpaste - the bag they came in is now my camera case). Anyway, the law of combating jet lag demands we now stay awake until Hong Kong nighttime which is 15 hours away. As our hysteria mounts at the awful reality of our situation we pass Hong Kong's new Disneyland and a collective light bulb is switched on. Why not journey through extreme tiredness in the comforting and tranquil surroundings of a theme park? And so it was, within three hours and after finding our room (16 floors up an enormous tower block surrounded by enormous towerblocks) we arrive at the gates of, not Disneyland but, Ocean Park. It's an Asian version of Chessington where gravity defying rollercoasters jostle slightly uncomfortably for attention with slightly bemused animals in slightly second rate conditions. And so we rode the Crazy Mine Train, or some such - the only rollercoaster that zooms out over the pacific. And boy, it's been years since I've been on a rollercoaster and they are proper scary! Then we saw all the animals. This one panda took great pleasure in sitting down eating bamboo, getting up and then thinking better of it and just sitting down a chewing on more bamboo. Apparently it is exceptionally unnutritious so the poor mite probably couldn't be arsed to anything more strenuous. As the day wore on we just got more and more mad. At one point I began laughing hysterically while Wendy was trying to sleep leaning up against lamposts. We couldn't take it. So we headed back to the Yes Inn Hostel only to find the lock wouldn't work. It was too much. We almost cried. We couldn't possibly end up sleeping in the corridor next to a hostel on our first night? But luckily a combination of my in depth Cantonese and knowledge of lock technology (or rather, speaking very slowly and looking desperate to the night porter of the towerblock) summoned a hostel person who finally got us indoors. We slept the sleep of the jet lagged from 1 am until 2pm the next day. First impressions - HK is big, busy and has more neon that Brighton - that's for sure. Everybody's going somewhere and me and Wendy look like the sweaty tourist scum we are. But HK does have this odd British air to it. The main road, for instance, is called the Kings Road, there is a Boots at the end of the street and, on the restaurant we were at tonight, there were 5 different ways to drink Ribena including Ribena Ice Fruit Granita. They seem to be obsessed by Ovaltine and Horlicks as well. It's like the 1950s or something. Anyway I'm boring me know. I shall tell of more Hong Kongy things later but I leave you with this: My one word of Cantonese which always brings out a smile - em guy si - thank you. Benedict | ||||||||||||||||
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