Hong Kong

I literally can’t overstate how much aura Hong Kong has. I feel like I’ve been living in a sexy 90s movie for 5 days.

For sure one of my new top fave cities in the world. It has the energy of everything I love about London, but cheaper food, warmer vibes, and greenery without going on a 90 minute journey to the heady heights of Epping Forest. 2 hours after arriving I asked Claude about the software engineering job landscape out here (difficult if you only speak English so don’t worry).

The two things that made it feel super magic were (1) the geography and (2) the evening energy, so I’ll tell you about both.

Nature’s stairmaster

When I pictured Hong Kong I always assumed it was just a city with a lot of skyscrapers, and it was only in the final 10 minutes of my plane journey that I found out how geographically mental it is. It feels like the kind of fake city that people build on video games. The water in the bay is giving computerised levels of blue and sparkly, the mountains are mad lush and feel like when you mess around with terrain on Sims 2, and then the city sprouts out the side of the hills and feels mega blade runner. Hands down the most beautiful flight landing I’ve ever done.

It’s wild how easily you can hop between a super dense center city to an insane hike, so we spent a lot of our time here doing that. High Junk Peak to Clear Water Bay, the Morning Trail, and Lamma Island to name a few (the route names are also giving video games to me). It gave me the same vibes as what I loved about San Francisco, but it felt much greener with a touch less fog. Only downside is that my knees are truly shot from walking down all the hills we hiked up.

Hiking is a big thing for Hongkongers, and I’m so into all the wild shit they do whilst walking up hills. Some examples include

• A tiny grandma skipping up the hill blasting Temperature (Sean Paul) out loud
• Dogs getting fed freshly peeled boiled eggs on the slope
• A squawky pet parrot carried to the top in an upturned umbrella
• Wild headgear contraptions with wings to avoid sun exposure. It’s very Bene Gesserit energy.

Night time

Hong Kong felt very Paris in this sense. You know that energy where it’s a warm evening, and everyone is out on the street having a silly time. All the bars are spilling onto the streets, people are sat on random steps everywhere, and the energy is just chatty and warm and everyone seems really cool and hot. The energy you get in London when it’s the first properly sunny day of the year. The things that stood out:

1. Alleyway pints
   • We sat on camp chairs outside every night, rotating between a beer spot and a wine bar. It was super nice to do silly shit every night and just soak up people bopping about. I deffo missed that in Taiwan - there wasn’t such a culture of chilling outside with a beer in the evening, and the only bars that did that were mostly for foreigners and served Hoegarden. Here it felt like everyone was out and enjoying the vibes.
2. A big Saturday night
   • I just love to combine incongruous activities. We started with a tiny tiny jazz bar which was so packed that the owner told us to sit on the floor. Was basically on top of the double bass players foot. IRL jazz is way more my speed because it’s fun to watch people tippy tap their instruments. Singer went off piste and did a Wicked song which was fun. Ass was very numb by the end.
   • The only logical next step was a heavy techno/psytrance night that Max found nearby. The club was on the 22nd floor (kind of wild to see mad views, I think I actually prefer dingy underground).
3. The best bar in the world
   • So one afternoon we’re walking past a mad queue of people outside a bar - the queue is so long I think it can’t possibly be for the bar. We look it up, and it triggers my memory to a TikTok I saw 6 months ago about the best bar in the world with the best olives in the world. We figured we had to check it out on our final day - we waited for approx 20 mins, but for sure worth it. Calling anything the best bar in the world feels kinda cringe but I’m not even mad at it after going. I had a filthy martini, Max had a porcini manhattan (mushroomy). The olives were insane. They also cos more than my dinner and beer combined the night before, RIP.

Snacks

So HK food really shows what a combo of Chinese, British and French influences it is. There were definitely two distinct vibes - super cheap trad HK food spots that kick you out as soon as you put your spoon down, and then more spenny chronically online vibes where everyone is pausing to take their TikTok content. Our top items were:

1. French toast
   • A classic HK breakfast item, upstairs at the back of a meat market - it so good we had to eat it twice. Both times accompanied by a corned beef egg sandwich. Max is hooked. Imagine the best eggy bread you’ve eaten, a touch of condensed milk, and the perfect combo of chewy and crispy.

2. Mango Mochi
   • You know when something is so tasty all you can say is FUCK. I thought this would be some mango paste or cooked fruit situation but no, it’s just mad fresh mango wrapped in chewy gooey mochi vibes. 11/10.

3. Korean BBQ
   • I’m really jumping ahead for my trip to Seoul. Mental juicy short rib and endless accompaniments. Shoutout to Esther for wildly good HK recs.

4. Roast goose
   • Eating anything with bones with exclusively chopsticks is hard work. I feel so inelegant. HK goose wins over ham flavoured Taiwanese variety.

Honourable mentions to dim sum, fresh pineapple bun, tapioca desserts, and wonton soup.

On to the mainland

We’re now on the train to Yangshuo in mainland China. Saying goodbye to the sweet sweet comforts of Hong Kong (the English language, using Google Maps, normal sit down toilets and decaf iced oat lattes). Posting this blog has involved much juggling of VPNs. We’re spending 3 days in the Karst mountain (Avatar vibes) before continuing around China. See u there :-)