As you approach Hong Kong by bus, driving between the misty islands that lead from the airport to the mainland, you see huge – really huge – apartment buildings shimmering in the distance. Everything is a deep dark green like Kerala, a far cry from the sun-baked yellow-green of Victoria. Coming into the city the main street is ablaze with a multitude of neon signs climbing up as far as you can see (see photos). The streets are teeming with people but immaculately clean. All the cars are shiny. Everything smells slightly sweet like Peking duck, though there is the occasional humidity-and-sewage pong that reminded us immediately of Mumbai.

We eventually found our hotel buried on the sixth floor of a residential building after managing to avoid 14 separate Indian men who wanted to sell us a “copy watch, real fake handbag”. It was the only hotel within budget and it turned out to be more of a basic hostel than a hotel. It was clean, at least. We had a small room containing the hardest double bed in the world, a single bed, the sandals of the previous tenant and, for some reason, a whiteboard.

After a tasty but underwhelming meal, we had a beer and pondered the politeness of people we’d met that evening and the immediate cultural differences between continents. If you live in the US you’re either hard or soft (at least according to Baz Lurhmann). If you’re hard, you’ll probably get what you want in life and if you’re soft you’ll probably get walked over. Literally. I remember once in New York some suited asshole knocked a large coffee cup out of my hand as he strode briskly by me, and marched on without a word of apology – no doubt late for a meeting with some other suited assholes where they would collectively discuss with much relish how exactly they were going to screw the poor. It’s similar in Mumbai – people literally push past each other in pseudo-queues and fight their way to the front with little regard for others. I’ve never had to psyche myself up for buying aspirin in a pharmacy before, but I did in Mumbai. One incident comes to mind. On the evening of the Ganesha Chaturthi festival the Mumbai streets were crammed with literally millions of people. While trying to navigate through the masses, I was surprised to see a small toddler asleep on the path. Everybody stepped over him as they passed by, a hundred people a minute. His mother sat by, made no attempt to move him and seemed to exhibit no fear at all that he might be trampled. To me it seemed very strange. Maybe this helped prepare him for later in life when he might have to buy some aspirin.

Here, even though the population density is similar to Mumbai (and higher than New York) it is completely different. People will stand out of the way to let you by if you look in any way hurried. If you have to ask the bus driver a question, the people in the queue will wait behind you until you are finished rather than push past you onto the bus. There’s a mutual respect for fellow man. We wondered whether this was due to a history connected with socialism as opposed to western individualism, but as people we talked with told us that mainland China was similar to NY and Mumbai, if not worse, we were left without an answer.

We spent the first day exploring the streets and markets of the mainland part of Hong Kong, then checked out Happy Valley Racecourse on HK island that evening. We were completely unprepared for the view of Hong Kong island as you emerge from the built-up city. Across the harbour sits the most spectacular cityscape I’ve ever seen. The number of skyscrapers is just unbelievable and their density on the small island impressive. Nothing apart from possibly Sydney Harbour Bridge comes close in terms of sheer awe at a man-made spectacle.

The racecourse is buried deep in this tall metropolis. We took a ferry across and got half-lost trying to find it. It dwarfs all the Irish racecourses put together – the spectator building rises to 14 floors. Tens of thousands of people mingle around by the floodlit racetrack edge, betting more money in one evening than most European racecourses do in a season. The atmosphere was electric. We came out with $130 profit at the end of the night, not quite the windfall it sounds like (€13) but it paid for our food. I was impressed with their system that managed to service so many people with bets/food/drinks with little stress. The only thorn in the system were the Irish and English people who refused to conform. You had to fill out your bet on a little lotto-style slip, and then hand it in. The terminology was a bit different but they had a leaflet to explain it all. However, despite this, the English and Irish we saw – all of them – refused to fill out the form and would walk up to the cashier and say “7 and 2 reverse forecast”. The cashier would look confused and a long explanation would follow, holding up the queue, after which the cashier would fill out the form for them. Several times, they presumed they had won a race only to find out they had placed a completely different bet than they thought.

Other activities included taking the almost vertical tram up to the peak of Hong Kong island. This provides a fantastic view of the urban sprawl and the landscape, but it wasn’t as impressive as the view from the mainland. When the English ruled, the Chinese public were banned from visiting the peak. It was reserved only for the Queen’s officers and their assistants. The only locals who were permitted were the ones who had to carry the officer’s sedan chairs. They more than make up for that now, however, and not only do they visit in huge numbers but they’ve also built two large shopping centres up there. Later we checked out the night market on the mainland – which was meant to be “traditional” but had 8 stalls selling dildos (and right beside the temple too).

On the penultimate night we met up with Dan, a very hospitable friend of my brother’s who has lived in HK for 13 years. We pub-crawled through the Temple Bar of Hong Kong island – an area we very much regretted not seeing until so late in the trip – talking to him and a series of his friend about how great Hong Kong was.  We planned to go for a meal together but just stayed talking and drinking in the pub instead. We had a really good time and made lots of plans for things to do on our last day, none of which actually happened as we were too hung over. They’ve all been moved to the to-do list for next time.

I think it’s safe to say that we really liked Hong Kong. As I conclude this entry, we’re halfway through a 12 hour flight to Heathrow, where I can hopefully grab some internet and get this up. Everyone in the big smoke – see you very soon.