Hong Kong - Don't Lick The Birds

I have to admit I wasn't wholly enthusiastic about Hong Kong. This is partly because I’ve already been away from home and my husband for a while, and I’m starting to get homesick; it’s also because I’ve actually been finding it uncomfortable to breathe here. I’m told it’s the pollution and the weather, and this is probably true: visibility improved significantly today, along with my breathing.
Desperately lonely, I sent an email to a few friends begging for reassuring words. I received the following order from a friend:
“Just get out you – go look at some bird markets or something. Don’t lick them.”
So I went out. I left the University and I walked. And walked. And walked. Here’s a snippet of what I saw:
- A sign advertising “Adoption Day: Puppies and Pensioners”. I’d like to adopt a pensioner, but I don’t know how I’d get them through Customs.
- Lots of signs telling me not to feed any birds. So not only should you not lick them, you shouldn’t feed them either!
- Lots of birds – the ones you’re not supposed to feed. They’re everywhere!
- A Museum of Teaware. Yes, such a thing exists! It’s located in a lovely colonial building – one of the oldest in Hong Kong – and it’s actually rather good.
- The whole city, from the top of Victoria Peak. Whenever I go abroad I seem to go on trams and up high things, and if at all possible I combine the two. I went on an extremely steep tram climb up the Peak, and despite lashing rains and the sort of winds that turn your umbrella inside out, the view was spectacular.
- A lovely lady called Jill, visiting from Michigan, who was kind enough to hang out with me at the top of the Peak, and take some photographs to prove I’d been there
- An Irish bar serving Japanese beer and showing Italian football
- A taxi driver who spent the entire journey driving whilst reading the paper and hacking up phlegm out of the window
- An escalator that runs down a hill and across several streets. Apparently Jill’s friend “travels” to work on this every day.

I still have a love-hate relationship with this largely down-at-heel, consumer-obsessed, polluted city, but now there's a little more love and a little less hate.