My first 24 hours in Hong Kong

Mr Tom Hanks has done many a great role that I'd love to live out. Embarking on a space mission, living on an island, or actually having enough co-ordination to play ping-pong.  Sadly the pair of Toms shoes that I stepped into in Hong Kong, were from the Terminal.  Thats the one where the dude gets trapped at the airport, for years.  Fortunately for me, it was only over night, and it was in the rather awesome Hong Kong International. Kind of like Heathrow Terminal 5, but on steroids.

As I stepped into the daylight this morning, it emerged that Hong Kong was on alert for Cyclone level eight.This basically meant that no buses could run, and all the things I'd planned to do today were closed! 

Now I don't know if it reached level eight, but we did have a typhoon and it was pretty bad, as this roving reporter will try and tell you.

six things I learned in Tokyo

1. 

They have green Kit-Kats.

 2.

This dude is called Luffy, and he's very popular.

 3.

If you can't knock it down, build around it

  4.


These two people have been to 117 countries.

 5.

Restaurants must have plastic food at the door.

6.

They love it when you visit.

The coolest place on Earth

I am sure that there have been other moments in my life where the phrase “it could only happen to me“ would have been justified, but none seems quite as appropriate as this morning.  I was sitting on a stool, observing a workman trying to rescue all my worldly goods from the locker in my Tokyo hotel room.  They had become detained by a cheep combination lock some two hours previously.  His method was as simple as it was in-effective, first he tried all one thousand possible combinations, then he poked it several times with a paperclip.  Every so often he would pause to call someone on his mobile.  I wondered to myself, how could a hotel equipped with hi-tech heated toilet seats and vending machines that give out cans of hot chocolate-be defeated by such old skool technology?  Finally he reached for the pliers and liberated my possesions.

earthquake damage

This was the only low point, in my otherwise awesome week in the Japanese capital.  I have found the city to be friendly, clean and relatively easy to get around.  Of all the cliches that are bandied about regarding Tokyo, the idea that it is efficient-is most definitely true.  There is almost a ruthlessness to its  enforcement.   Take this afternoon for instance, I cannot tell you whether the ailing elderly gentleman on our subway train was simply drunk, or having a heart attack; either way he was quickly removed from the train and we sped off.  Life or death could not get in the way of our onward journey.


Check out the Shibuya crossing from Lost in translation.

mission control

Senso Temple

The “must do“ things in this city generally fall in to two categories, the historic and the cutting edge.  They sometimes seem rather more adept at showcasing the latter rather than the former.  If you can imagine walking down Brighton Pier to get into Westminster Abbey, then you can pretty much understand what it is like to visit the Senso Temple- a sacred place surrounded by stalls selling junk food and candy floss.  A leaflet in my hotel told me of a free walking tour around the Imperial Gardens (below), in English.  The words “free“ and “in English“ had me sold. 

On the cutting edge side, the city is a dream come true.  Akihabara/Electric Town is one of the funkier places in Tokyo.  A strange mix of massive stores selling technology and Japanese pop culture.  

Akihabara - funky town

Ginza - some fine shopping

Tokyo Disney Sea - This place is awesome!