First week in King Kong...

Sorry, that is Hong Kong !

Its been exactly a week since I landed here. Thanks to a survivor-like experience on my earlier trips abroad, I did pretty well this time. Found my way to the hotel, found edible food to eat, called up home and all that. Luckily I had a batchmate here who helped me with the initial setup and first few queries.

HK is a city of sky rises. Now I haven't been to Shanghai or Chicago which have a similar reputation so I don't know how it compares internationally. But I guess there are more buildings with 20+ floors in my neighbourhood than the whole of Mumbai. My hotel has 32, my office building has 50. Oh and the building next block has 100+ !
It must be easy for HongKongese parents. When the kid gets pesky just say "Count the floors in this building". Agle ek ghante tak shanti!

HK is also a city of emigrants. People of all nationalities converge here which also makes it a heaven for international food. However I must confess that, without causing any offense, I do not like the Chinese food. The Chinese food, not the Indianised version of Chinese food one gets on Ahmedabad roadside and Mumbai restaurants which is about as Chinese as Mallika Sherwat in Myth. I am sure you must have heard about the Naga fetish for canine meat. And incidentally, I think dogs and Halley comet sightings are equally rare here.
Chinese food smells. Since I don't like the smell of sea food , and the food seems to consist of marine cockroaches, you can easily guess what the smell of local restaurant food does to my nose.

The two things I love about HK compared to Mumbai are the ease of (and comfort in) strolling around and the spacious taxis ! I mean, you could sit down, lie around or play ping pong. And the driver won't even know. Of course, every once in a while, I have to twitch my nose, think of Reshammiya and say Muck-donaall-rode ( all 'd's as in 'dil') when the address is Macdonnell road. And it takes some amount of time to get used to traversing the zig zagging flyovers.

I am still thinking about buying the SLR. With so many nomenclatures and stuff, I will be lucky to have one in my hand next weekend. Then I can click some better photos as I am already beginning to feel constrained with my point and shoot. And walking around with a point and shoot fitted on a tripod is funny to say the least.

Akele hain to kya gham hai,
chahe to hamare bas mein kya nahi ...