Without an H

Postcard from Hong Kong

Dec 17, 2012

This isn’t really a postcard from Hong Kong, since I’m back in Saigon as I write this, but I always send postcards late, if I send them at all, so let’s call it a postcard from Hong Kong.

Anyway, I spent last week in Hong Kong, where I met up with some friends from home.  Nobody told me how much like London it would feel.  Hardly a motorbike in sight, traffic that stays in its lane, people waiting patiently at the lights to cross the street, unapologetically expensive bars, ostentatious displays of wealth, identikit shopping malls, and double decker buses.  There are differences, of course – Hong Kong has better weather, street food that won’t give you botulism, and an underground that doesn’t make you wish you’d stayed at home – but it certainly felt more similar to London than to Saigon.  So I suppose that, in some way,  it was good preparation for going home for Christmas.

Unusually for me, I was visiting a new place in the company of other people.  Of course, I like people – some of my best friends are people – but I don’t normally travel with them.  A lot of time was spent was spent catching up, deciding where our next fix of dim sum was coming from, and drinking in those unapologetically expensive bars.   All this human interaction is all very well, but it’s not really conducive to taking pictures, which for me tends to be a solitary activity.  I take my best pictures when I’m on my own and I have the time and space to move about, or stay still, and think, or not.  But I did take some, and here they are: obligatory city skyline, skyscraper detail, bird houses, human houses, tiny tombs, reflections, a mini Mao, masks, many small buddhas, and one big buddha.