hopping into hongkong 2

Since Carlos wanted to get a memorabilia to add to his collection, we took a brief stop at Hard Rock Cafe. Some of the guys bought a t-shirt each for keepsake while I put on one for the camera. I still liked the Hard Rock at Bali where it was bigger and they had a whole lot more merchandise than the one at Tsim Sha Tsui.


Since HK is such a small island, it's pretty much easy to hop off the train station and walk around the area and see lots of stuff. So after HRC, we walked towards the Central area at Wanchai. I'm not sure if this was normal, but HK seemed to be foggy/hazy all the time. Must be the tall buildings causing the stuffiness, coz I don't remember Tokyo being like that.


There were many people that time who were there to take pictures too. I'm not sure if they were HK-ites but I saw this middle-aged lady dressed quite elegantly with her little black dress with lace and strands of pearls around her neck smiling for the camera. Her hair coiffed up, and with matching accessories, she looked kinda out of place. But since everyone else were taking pictures, I decided to get the guys to pose for one too.


On the way back, we passed by the Hong Kong Museum of History and saw this banner with a rather interesting title. Running from late March till early June, the Contemporary Hong Kong Art Gallery displayed works of art depicting the distinctive language which is affectionally known as "Chinglish".


I can personally relate to that as Malaysians speak Manglish just like the Singaporeans with their Singlish. Owing to their British colonial backgrounds, these countries are a place of mixed identities where people are caught between the "East" and the "West". Even though we are taught the Queen's English at school, spoken English is commonly mixed up with the local language, ending up as a form of English foreigners find hard to understand.


At 8pm every night, the buildings across the harbour light up in synchrony with background music, resulting in the famous Symphony of Lights. This multimedia light and sound show which involves buildings such as Central Plaza, IFC Tower, Bank of China Tower and HSBC main building is a popular tourism attraction.


From there we walked through the Avenue of Stars, which is modelled after Hollywood's Walk of Fame. Located along the Victoria Harbour waterfront, it honours celebrities of the Hong Kong film industry. Stars whose names I've never heard of have their palm prints immortalised on the pavement along with those who are more internationally recognised. So we tried to match our palm size with actors like Jackie Chan, Andy Lau, and Chow Yun Fat.