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TRAVEL BLOGS
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August 03, 2007 HONG KONG Trip to Lamma Island and a Night in Lang Kuai Fang
Fanny just finished a two month engineering internship in Shanghai, and since I spent two months there last summer we had plenty to talk about. Although I have never been to her hometown in southern France (she claims only 250 people live there), I have been through the region and I even remembered some of my high school French (much to her amusement).
Enough social topics - some things are best kept private. My friend, Roy, is an investment banker for UBS, and in Hong Kong being an investment banker basically means you are set for life. The trouble in investment banking is that you are worked dogged. For example, Roy had to leave a meeting to meet me for a 10pm dinner on Friday night, and after a couple hours he actually had to head back to work on the 51st floor of Hong Kong's tallest building, the International Finance Center. Nevertheless, it was great seeing him again, and as he will soon be moved to UBS' Singapore location I hope to show him around Singapore next month. Singapore girls love money, and he will be a hot commodity there! I finished up the night in Hong Kong's popular Lang Kuai Fang district (LKF, for shot), which is basically several blocks of open bars and dance clubs. The noise is intense, and you have to look around for drink specials, but it is always a great atmosphere. By the time I got home it was well after 3am and I was dead-tired, but Arsenal were competing in an Amsterdam tournament and I stayed up to watch them win yet again. My biggest concern is finding a way to make up for all the sleep I have missed out on over the past couple of days. Just when I thought I was caught up I went and blew it again! And this was supposed to be my "down-time" vacation in Hong Kong. |
As
we planned yesterday, I met Virginia at 10am this
morning in Tsim Tsa Tsui's MTR station. We made our way
across the bay to Central, where we caught a morning
ferry to Lamma Island. It only took half an hour to
reach the island's docks, but en route Virginia and I
met an Australian girl, August, who was also planning a
day at the beach. Naturally, we invited her to join us
and off we went.
Lamma
Island is famous for two reasons: 1) its laid back
atmosphere (there are only two small villages on the
entire island), and 2) Chow Yun-Fat (the actor from
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Pirates of the
Caribbean 3)grew up here. Funnily enough, he was
actually a post-man in Hong Kong before becoming one of
Asia's most well-known actors. Maybe such useless
knowledge will come in handy on a game show in the
future - you never know.
After
alighting from the ferry we had a 45 minute walk to
reach the beach, and by the time we found it I was
already drenched in sweat. The weather has been terrific
since I arrived in Hong Kong, but the 33C heat means my
sweat glands are always on a short timer. Fortunately,
the water was perfect for cooling off. Plus, since most
Chinese girls are terrified of the sun (the opposite of
Western culture), most of the other people at the beach
stayed under the shade of the trees - leaving the water
to ourselves.
After
several hours of mixing it up between sunbathing,
reading the newspaper, chatting, and swimming, we
decided to try something new and set out on a hike
across the island. This was definitely tough going as
there was no shelter from the heat and we were hiking
over hills the whole way, but the views were terrific.
We
reached the other village on Lamma Island after about an
hour of walking, and were thrilled to see we could catch
a ferry back to Hong Kong from here (it would have been
unbearable to walk back the way we came). From the
fishing village it was another 15 minutes walking
through a sub-tropical jungle that reminded me a lot of
the mangrove boardwalks from Florida. 
At
one point, we saw a five inch spider hanging over the
path, and I was naturally nominated to lead from then on
- it wasn't like I could just say "No". Guys can be such
suckers, but girls are worse for taking advantage of us.
Anyway,
the beach made everything worthwhile as there were more
lifeguards on duty than there were swimmers. I threw my
stuff down and swam out to a floating dock 50m
off-shore. There was a French girl named Fanny
sunbathing there, and with both Virgina and August
sunbathing on the beach I began chatting. 
We
finally left Lamma Island on the 5:30pm ferry, and we
all agreed to meet up later in the evening for dinner
and a night soaking up the Hong Kong nightlife. I was
meeting another Hong Kong friend, Roy, later in the
evening, so everything integrated together quite well.
The only problem was that I didn't put on enough sun tan
lotion, and my back and face are now bright red. There
isn't much I can do about it now, but it will make
carrying my 45 liter backpack tricky when I leave Hong
Kong. Virginia's theory is that I was too busy "talking"
with Fanny to pay any attention to the sun, but I am
still claiming innocence.