As we drove in to Hong Kong on a local bus, I was excited to see the city we had been researching for weeks now. Turn by turn there were new large superblocks to be seen, towering above the beautiful mountainous landscapes. As we got further into the city, the traffic picked up and the possibility of ever finding our hostel at Chunking Mansions felt minute.
The Chunking Mansions are, to use China Mieville’s words, truly a city within a city. The building is recognizable by a giant flashy gold sign from Nathan Road and only able to be entered after being bombarded by local tailors, camera salesmen, and purse-makers screaming for your attention. Once inside, you feel slightly disoriented as you enter alleys filled with vendors (most selling phones or food) and search for the elevators to the building block you need. It is evident that everyone inside these halls knows each other somehow, and is a part of a tight-knit community. An obvious outsider, I felt quite uncomfortable and intrusive.
Having survived the debacle of getting almost students and their luggage up an elevator, we checked in to the Australian Guest House of floor 16. Once we checked into the hostel, if one can even call it that, it was time to rest off the jetlag. I had been halfway across the world from Mexico to DC to LHR to Hong Kong, crossing too many time zones to count: it is safe to say my body was exhausted.
I pondered about my first impressions of this large city, skeptical about whether I would grow to like it. From my first impressions, I had not found this my kind of city: the thousands of people in the streets was overwhelming, the faded colors of the superblocks made them appear quite mundane, and the amount of advertising and technology seemed endless. I’ve never been one for a fast-paced city, but I could tell this is exactly what Hong Kong is and fell asleep hoping that I would find its charm sometime soon.
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