Hopalong Hong Kong

HONG KONG – Here’s the deal: When folks fly from the United States to this side of the world (or back the other way), it’s not unusual for them to stop in Hong Kong to change planes. Usually, that means a few hours in Hong Kong International Airport – which, as anyone who has been there will tell you, isn’t such a bad deal. Great dim sum, for one thing. But what if you don’t take the next plane out? What if you say to yourself: “Hey, as long as I’m here, how about doing 24 hours in Hong Kong?”

So for those people who might not want to waste a chance to enjoy one of the globe’s more fascinating cities, that’s what we’re going to do: a 24-Hour Hong Kong Experience.

My guide is Denny Ip, a 39-year-old Hong Kong native with a London education. Using cabs, public transport and any guidebook, you can easily do all this on your own.

We didn’t really do 24 hours. You think I’m nuts?

But we came close, and 24 was the plan – which is why this adventure starts well before dawn …

4:42 a.m. – Market values

It’s as dark as Hong Kong gets. This is a city of Neon Everywhere, but not at this hour.

We’re on Flower Market Road in Kowloon, and the lights that light the flowers are white and cold.

The flowers, being flowers, are, nonetheless, pretty. The people who work here have no interest in us. We stay out of the way.

Around the corner is a goldfish market. It isn’t exactly a legal market, I’m told – actual stores selling fish legally are in the actual Goldfish Market on Tung Choi Street nearby – but this bit of off-the-books commerce has been going on here for a while.

The goldfish are in clear baggies half-filled with water, sitting right on a sidewalk that’s lighted only by occasional streetlamps.

“A few minutes ago, there was nothing here,” says Denny. “Now it’s packed.”

A customer with a kid in one hand picks up a baggie with the other. The seller points her flashlight at the baggie, illuminating a swimming thing, and customer and kid have a conversation. The baggie goes back on the sidewalk.

“By 7 o’clock,” says my new friend, “all this will be gone. Let’s find some apples.”

We almost get run over by hand trucks at the Yau Me Tei Wholesale Fruit Market.

There are mangoes from the Philippines. Watermelons from Malaysia. Oranges from Australia. Dragonfruit from Vietnam. Durians from Thailand.

We find some apples. They’re from the United States.

Also for sale: tangerines, several, still on the branch. It’s how they’re sold.

“This,” says Denny, “brings good fortune.”

By 8 o’clock, the fruit crates that spill into the blockaded street will be gone, and so will the blockades. The street will be jammed with cars headed for the tunnel that will take them under Victoria Harbor.

Which, says Denny, is exactly what we’re about to do.

“We’re going to go to Hong Kong Island and have some Chinese tea.”

6:20 a.m. – If tea is your bag …

We’ve gone beneath Victoria Harbor via the Cross Harbour Tunnel.

“Straight ahead is Wan Chai and Central,” Denny says.

Wasn’t Wan Chai the red-light district?

“It still is …”

We don’t stop until we’re in Central.

“This,” Denny says, “is the heart of Hong Kong.”

Lin Heung Tea House has been beating here – serving dim sum and tea – for at least 75 years, and it looks and feels like every bit of it.

“Regardless of what time you come in here,” says Denny, “you’ll be the only Westerner in the restaurant.”

There are 15 types of tea. Fifteen. We are brought a pot of one of them. Denny goes through a succession of procedures of emptying and refilling the pot that I don’t understand.

There is nothing gentle about this place.

“A Chinese restaurant has to be bright, and it has to be noisy,” says Denny. “This is what Hong Kong is.”

Strangers share tables; some talk; others read their morning newspapers. Women push carts between tables, most of the carts filled with baskets and tin pots of things that steam.

Denny says something to a woman who hands over an order of buns from her cart.

“This,” I declare, “is a gigantic bun.”

“Nowadays,” says my friend, “there’s only about two restaurants that make this.”

There would be other things – fish balls, spare ribs, pork dumplings.

This is breakfast.

When we leave – our bill, for two, totaled about $9 – I am happily full, and dawn has broken.

7:32 a.m. – Balance and breathing

The heart of Hong Kong beats tentatively in the pale morning light. The shops and most restaurants in Central are closed. Yes, it’s Sunday – I should have mentioned that earlier, and will again when it matters – but they’d be closed at this hour anyway.

The double-decker buses, a holdover from the British colonial presence, are running. There are other remnants.

The largest park in Hong Kong remains Victoria Park.

“If you hear shouting and music,” says my friend, “you have tai chi.”

Everywhere in this vast park, there is music and there is tai chi – sometimes done solo, sometimes in clusters, sometimes in squadrons.

Tai chi is …

“Like shadow boxing,” Denny says. “But breathe in, breathe out.”

I ask if I can try it.

“If you want to,” he says. “It’s a way of bridging gaps.”

A small group, about six people, is taking instruction. From the side, I try to match everyone. The instructor sees what I’m doing, nods slightly in approval and is too polite to break into convulsions of laughter.

“It’s very awkward in the beginning,” says Denny, “but if you don’t start, how do you learn?”

The instructor stops, everyone stops, and he begins to speak.

“He’s talking about how the energy is flowing.”

This clearly is way beyond me. I spot a woman down the path who is exercising alone; standing close enough to share her energy flow but at a respectful distance, I try to duplicate her moves.

My friend senses hopelessness and checks his watch. “There are a lot of things to see,” Denny says.

The sun pokes through gaps in the wall of tall buildings that line the park. I can hear traffic. Hong Kong is sounding like a city.

9:03 a.m. – People eat this stuff?

We’re in the Wan Chai District. In a way, there are three Wan Chais: residential, red-light and ordinary commercial.

This is ordinary commercial. And within it, the extraordinary Wet Market.

Everything is fresh.

“The art of Cantonese food is the freshness,” Denny says. “It has to be fresh. If it’s not fresh, the price drops ridiculously.”

There are a dozen different versions of tofu – “different tofu for different purposes,” he says.

Then, a tease: “The farther we go into the market, the more interesting it becomes.”

Live fish flop. Live snakes slither. Live frogs hop. Live turtles, live snails, live crabs.

Offered for sale are fish heads so recently severed, the gills are still moving.

In Hong Kong, food is not bought to be stockpiled for later in the week.

“Our refrigerators at home,” explains my friend, “basically hold Coca-Cola and ice.”

The walk continues, to the Dry Market: vegetables, eggs, nuts.

At one stall, noodles, more varieties than we knew existed – then, boring clothes. The market quickly ceases to be interesting.

But things are looking up.

9:47 a.m. – The view

The oldest public transport on Hong Kong Island is the Peak Tram. It has been carrying passengers nearly a mile up Victoria Peak since 1888. Until 1914, Chinese were not allowed to ride it. Some remnants of the British colonial presence are best gone.

It takes eight minutes (and about $2.50 one way) for the tram to make it 4,592 feet up a surprisingly steep grade. Aside from the mechanicals – a steam engine first provided the power, but now the cars are towed by cable – it hasn’t changed much since 1888.

“It’s still fun,” says my friend. “It’s something a tourist must do.”

Tip: Sit on the right side going up.

Up top, you’re greeted by a variety of enterprises (including a Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum) and one of the great city views.

Even on a hazy morning, the mix of gray skyscrapers, green hills and Victoria Harbor water ranks up there (literally) with New York from the Empire State Building and Paris from the Eiffel Tower.

We’re back in Wan Chai. We talk about old images of Hong Kong.

I mention a movie, “The World of Suzie Wong,” about a Wan Chai working girl.

“There was no Suzie Wong,” Denny says.

I mention “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing.” I sing the theme song.

“I’ve never seen it,” he says.

He is, on the other hand, a fan of Jackie Chan. So am I.

Gaps are being bridged.

10:47 a.m. – A way of life no more …

Hong Kong, as an international port, began in Aberdeen, as a hangout for international pirates. It hasn’t been that for centuries, though things there are still evolving.

On a visit just a few years ago, Aberdeen Harbor – on the island’s southeast shore – was still what it had been for generations: a picturesque semi-slum home to hundreds, maybe thousands of boat people, families who made their livings, and lived, on the water.

Something’s happened. On this pleasant morning, only a few houseboats remain.

“There’s less and less boat people, because there’s less and less fishing,” Denny says.

Part of it, he says, is there are better ways to make a better living: “Now, even the fishermen don’t want their children to be fishermen.”

For about $6.50, sampans still take tourists on rides through the harbor, but there’s less to see.

Surrounding the harbor with the dilapidated boats are undilapidated condos. Many of the owners work in Central, a 30- to 40-minute drive. Sometimes the traffic adds an hour to that.

“The people who live here,” says Denny, “can afford to be late.”

11:44 a.m. – The first beach

It got the name because British guns were able to “repulse” the pirates. A hundred years later, in 1941, the British surrendered here to the invading Japanese.

Today, Repulse Bay has the most popular beach in Hong Kong. On summer weekends, especially, sand space can be tight – partly because of a local quirk.

“They never go in the water,” Denny says of the local residents. Westerners do, but not the Chinese: “They play volleyball, they run around – they never go in the water.”

Here, too, are statues of deities, a couple of them immense. Most familiar: the Goddess of Mercy.

“Wherever there’s Chinese in this world, her statue will be there. There are so many stories of who she is,” Denny says.

One version: She used to be a man.

Alongside the Goddess of Mercy is the Mother of Heaven. And nearby: the Long Life Bridge.

“Every time you go over the bridge,” he says, “you add three more days of life.”

I walk across the bridge.

“You have three more days of life,” Denny says.

I’m grateful. I think.

12:29 p.m. – A taste of Stanley

On what has become a bright, sunny afternoon, we have lunch on the terrace of what may or may not be the oldest surviving colonial-era building in Hong Kong.

Purists say Murray House has had too many revisions (the chimneys, for example, are from another building) to be the same Murray House that began life in 1844 as a British barracks.

Still, any historic building torn down, warehoused for 16 years, then reassembled on a harbor spit and still possibly haunted (there’s a bloody history), is inherently interesting. And so it is with Murray House, home to a Pan-Asian, but most enthusiastically Thai, chain restaurant called Chilli N Spice.

Why Thai? Hong Kong is an international city, that’s why.

I ask Denny a question I should have asked hours ago: “You know, this is Hong Kong. Can I get a suit made today?”

I should have asked hours ago, Denny says.

Stanley is a trendy area, like trendy parts of San Francisco. Stanley also is home to another market – clothes, mostly, and every possible piece of souvenir-quality art.

“It’s not the cheapest,” says my friend, “but it’s all in one place.”

I leave everything in place.

“So we’ll continue our journey on the southern part of Hong Kong …”

2:42 p.m. – The best beach

The image, the Hong Kong we think we know, is congested, intense and exciting – an Asian Manhattan with slightly better Chinese food.

But here, less than an hour away, the city has vanished, and it’s a revelation. This is Hawaii.

This, Shek O, is a gorgeous beach.

Says Denny: “You should be the only Western person here.”

I am the only Western person here. It doesn’t matter.

There are small restaurants in the little town. If the clock weren’t ticking on this goofy “24 hours” madness – whose idea was this? – I’d just find a place to wash down a warm dumpling with a cold beer, watch the water until sundown, then grab a cab back to the city …

But no. Instead, I have to take notes.

Why would anyone go to Repulse Bay?

“Repulse Bay is convenient.”

Oh.

We have to leave, but on the way back from paradise we stop once for a cliffside view of what we’ve just experienced. Still don’t believe it.

3:54 p.m. – Faith and free trade

We’re again among the skyscrapers and shops in Central, driving along Queens Road Central. With 80 percent of the stores closed, it really does feel like a Sunday.

Eventually we find Possession Street.

“This used to be the waterfront,” says Denny.

The British landed here in 1841. Today, it’s not even close to the waterfront, which, thanks to an ongoing progression of landfills, continues to creep northward toward Kowloon.

“Sooner or later,” he says, “it’s going to be the Victoria River.”

Central’s Hollywood Road, which has nothing at all to do with the movies, was built to carry troops. Today it’s a street known for its antique shops. Here, too, is Mon Mo Temple.

We stop at the temple. Denny explains the statuary and the offerings, then demonstrates the proper handling of the joss sticks that, when ignited, send narrow streams of fragrant smoke toward the heavens.

Not far: Cat Street, where antiques and miscellany have been known to mix with resale of things that have been illegitimately purloined from their legitimate owners (aka, “hot goods”).

Sunday or not, there’s action here: People, many of them obviously tourists, haggle over chopsticks, teapots, swords and various Mao-centric items including wristwatches whose innards animate a Continuously Waving Mao.

There’s also jade here.

Explains Denny: “Everyone thinks jade color is green, right? Jade can be in purple, in white, in green, in red …”

We leave, jadeless, for a quick stop at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank – not to make a withdrawal but to experience a genuine Hong Kong phenomenon.

There are, today, roughly 200,000 women from the Philippines working, mostly as domestics, in Hong Kong. On Sunday, their day off, thousands – as many as 100,000 – gather in Central, many of them on blankets spread on the concrete underbelly of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank.

The sound is precisely reminiscent of a dense shoreline colony of seabirds.

Which makes this a good time for a boat ride.

5:46 p.m. – The Star Ferry

You’ll see old photos of Hong Kong from time to time during a visit here, and the changes are – of course – stunning.

The constant: the Star Ferry.

Launched in 1898 (though some other ferries existed earlier), a ferry ride across Victoria Harbor from the island to Kowloon is, like the tram ride up the peak, an absolute Hong Kong must – for the views of the skylines on both sides, for the innocent fun of it, for the tradition and for the eight minutes of just sitting down.

“It used to be longer,” says Denny.

You can rent the whole boat and party with 300 of your friends (or just one of them, if you’re a romantic) for as little as $800 for two hours.

It’s nighttime when we pull into Kowloon. We’ve been going a long time. I can feel the time slipping away, and I say it out loud.

“Can’t show you everything,” Denny says, in a tone that sounds either suspiciously mocking or rationally weary. “We’ve only got 24 hours.”

Kowloon at night, even on a Sunday, is a neon show, an eye-popping hodgepodge of foot-high Chinese and English characters, some flashing, all trying to get you to buy something – which is, after all, why Hong Kong exists.

We’re on good old reliable Nathan Road, for decades the Hong Kong shopping street. In a little arcade off the main drag, by the window of an unpretentious shop, is an unpretentious sign: “Sam’s Tailor.”

Denny had made a call. Sam is waiting.

6:02 p.m. – Sam

The measure of a tailor is often the customers he has measured. The walls at Sam’s are covered with photos.

Both George Bushes. Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Tony Blair. Desmond Tutu. Colin Powell. Ronald Reagan. Cary Grant. Prince Charles.

Sam – whose name is actually Manu Melwani – has a tape measure around my neck and a quizzical look on his face.

“What do you usually wear?”

“Eighteen and a half, when I can find them,” I reply.

“You’re gaining on 18.”

He sounds like my doctor.

During the week, Sam can get you into a custom suit that fits perfectly in six hours.

“After two hours,” says Sam, “you’d have your second fitting.”

Special orders don’t upset them. Denny tells this story:

“Two years ago, Luciano Pavarotti, the singer, he came to Hong Kong. From the time the plane touched the ground to the time his plane left Hong Kong was about 35 hours.

“One of his tuxedos is two people’s tuxedos, and (Sam) made 12, all completed in that time, including measurements.”

The process, if you’re not a famous tenor:

“We ask the customer what profession he’s in,” says Sam. “For the banker, I would suggest the pinstripe. As you’re a journalist, I would sell you a linen suit.”

How much would the linen suit cost?

“About $300,” Sam says.

How much would the same suit cost in Chicago?

“About $650.”

(I bounced that price later off a top men’s store here. Its price: about double the $650.)

“I’d like to make you a shirt and show you how I make it for you.”

How much?

“Thirty dollars. Up to $85. Based on the quality of fabric.”

And that’s how Manu Melwani got a tape measure around my neck.

(A postscript: The $30 shirt fit perfectly. Should’ve had him make 12.)

6:41 p.m. – Want to buy a Rolex?

The Kowloon night market just off Nathan Road is called the Temple Street Market.

“The real street is not called Temple Street, actually,” says Denny, “but people have gotten used to calling it Temple Street.”

It gets really crowded around 10 p.m. on whatever this street actually is. Now, it’s merely very crowded and mostly local, with people scanning the tables and kiosks for CDs and DVDs, mahjongg sets, carvings, calculators, toys, Gameboys and wristwatches of dubious pedigree.

Music is blaring on dueling loudspeakers. Naturally, much of the music – this being Hong Kong – is in Spanish.

I was here not so many years ago, and there were more food stands. Only a few of these restaurants remain, and they are quiet.

The food bazaar was curtailed, says Denny, in the wake of the spring 2003 SARS outbreak that staggered Hong Kong tourism. Tougher sanitation measures, he says, were part of the effort to restore confidence.

It worked. More people visited Hong Kong in 2004 than ever before.

I, on the other hand, am really hungry.

7:44 p.m. – Sound and light

Sure I’m thinking about food. Dagnabbit, this is Hong Kong.

But Denny, who also looks like a man who likes to eat, is just trying to get everything in.

“Next time,” he says, “even going nonstop, you’ve got to give yourself 36 hours.”

We are on the waterfront, Kowloon side, joining several hundred people who are facing the skyscrapers across the harbor.

Four of the world’s 15 tallest buildings are scattered across the horizon. All four are taller than Chicago’s John Hancock. Tallest is Two International Finance Centre, 102 feet taller than the Empire State Building (and just 98 feet shorter than Sears Tower).

At 8 p.m., lasers of all colors start shooting from the skyscrapers.

“Ahhhhhh …” says the crowd.

A voice on loudspeakers introduces the buildings that are about to star in the show.

Then, it begins. Spotlights! Lasers! Music!

“Ahhhhhh …,” says the crowd.

Three days a week, the narration of “A Symphony of Lights” is in English. Sundays, it is in Cantonese.

But the language of the music is universal, “ahhhhhhh …” needs no translation, and the 18-minute show is fun.

Then we’re off, via the Cross Harbor Tunnel, to Hong Kong Island. We have an appointment.

8:47 p.m. – She touched the sole

“Foot reflexology.” “Foot massage.”

The signs are scattered all over Kowloon and on the island, sometimes with charts explaining, for example, that the arch of your foot is somehow connected to your small intestine and the Achilles’ tendon to your rectum.

Is it a Hong Kong thing? “No,” Denny says. “It’s a Chinese thing. Unfortunately, it was discovered by this British guy.”

It’s a massage, mainly of the feet and ankles. Performed properly, the theory goes, the massager is supposed to be able to identify and address everything that ails the massagee, right on the spot, through your feet.

A bonus: After the massage, according to Denny, “you’ll feel much lighter.”

The clinic of the Enlightening and Lightening Foundation is a third-floor walkup through a stairway littered with cigarette butts.

“This,” says Denny in his truest statement in 16 hours, “isn’t a place tourists would find.”

My reflexologist, a woman named Ada wearing a Santa Barbara Polo and Racquet Club polo shirt, first soaks my feet in a warm solution, then dries them, then goes to work.

“Finished,” Ada says, 45 minutes later.

Denny translates. A few minor problems. “Just the back and the shoulder,” he says. “A little tense, fatigued.”

“She got that from my feet?”

“Yes.”

Including tip, about $20. She makes no reference to “pangs of hunger.”

10:11 p.m. – At last …

The Wong Nai Chung Cooked Food Centre, in an area called Happy Valley, is three floors up.

It is what, in the mall of your choice, would be called a “food court”: a small collection of fast-food semi-open kitchens and a large, shared seating area.

It is slick and modern. When it’s busy, I suspect it is totally devoid of charm. At this hour on a Sunday night, with all but a few tables empty, it is totally devoid of charm.

“It’s pretty basic, actually,” says Denny, who senses my disappointment, “but you come here for the food. You come in here and the food is always fresh.”

Denny orders, but leaves much of the choice to the chef. Out come sweet and sour pork ribs with mushrooms; shell-on prawns fried in salted egg yolk; corn, seafood and egg drop soup; half a shredded chicken with garlic; and scallops and prawns in a warm sauce that resembles homemade thousand island dressing.

I was hoping we’d stop in one of Hong Kong’s storefront places with no English menus and windows full of dripping intestines. Places that stir-fry frogs and snakes and duck tongues. Places that intimidate tourists.

I get Panda Express.

Not really, but … hey, it’s getting to be that time! Time to dance to a Hong Kong beat! Time to get creatively sloshed!

Time to party before I fall asleep!

11:07 p.m. – Well, that’s how it goes

We’re starting our pub crawl on Hong Kong island, the Wan Chai district – “but not in the red-light district,” says Denny, aware of my note-taking – at a joint called “One-Fifth” that looks promising from the outside, albeit a little dark.

A review ( www.worldsbestbars.com) is enticing: “Sophisticated”… “beautiful people”… “clubby soundtrack of funk and soul.”

It’s a little dark because it’s a little closed.

“We’ll go to another place, called `Dragon-I,’ ” Denny says.

Web review: “Latest see-and-be-seen spot for Hong Kong hip society.”

Denny’s own review, when we arrive: “I think they’re closed as well.”

Still on the island, there’s a nightlife area called Lan Kwai Fong. Even on a Sunday night, it’s a happening place: bars with loud music and beautiful people, both spilling out into the street.

All – bars, loud music, beautiful people – look and sound exactly like Rush Street in Chicago. Almost no Chinese. Denny sees I’m not exactly getting into this.

“This is too much like home,” I say.

Back across Victoria Harbor to Kowloon.

“We’re going to Aqua,” says Denny.

The restaurant downstairs is upscale Italian and Japanese. Two-story windows overlook the water, with a fantastic view of the same skyscrapers that, four hours earlier, were belching laser beams and generating ahhhhhhs.

The bar, Aqua Spirit, gets the second-story view. You can feel the music. You can’t see anything.

“What can I bring you,” says a server.

“A flashlight,” I reply.

Denny laughs. “A torch,” he says, “like the ones at the goldfish market.”

That seems like a long time ago …

Denny orders a fruit punch. I order a Tsingtao beer. The tab: about $15, including tip.

The music is Standard Disco Deep-Thump. One couple is dancing. A lone man is at the bar, nursing something. A group of moderately well-dressed, weary-looking local girls is talking above the bass and appears to be winding up a celebration honoring one of them for something.

When they leave, the couple is already gone and the place feels as dark as it looks.

It is 12:21 a.m.

I look at Denny Ip, who, battling to stay awake, is enjoying this bar only slightly less than I am.

“I’m going to give you back to your family,” I say.

We don’t get to the Bird Garden or the tea appreciation demonstration or the herbal medicine market. We don’t hike a mountain trail. I don’t get a chance to haggle over a piece of jade or a Mao watch. I don’t get to see my dinner slither before I eat it.

We’ve conked out before we can toast the 24th hour at the all-night King of Dim Sum.

“There are so many things we can do,” Denny has said more than once during this marathon, “but even in 24 hours, we don’t have time.”

I consider missing the next plane out.