Above is a panoramic photo, taken (in parts and stitched together) from Victoria Peak, a 552 meter high mountain located just behind the CBD of Hong Kong.
We arrived late in the evening on the first day of the Chinese New Year. After we found a place to stay for the evening and dropped off our bags we headed to
Lan Kwai Fong, an entertainment district on Central. The area consists of several streets, each of which is lined with bars, restaurants, clubs and pubs. During the day it is open to vehicular traffic, however in the evening they close the road to cars and the party spills onto the street. The first night we were there it was packed with expats, any
HK locals would have been at home with there family for the traditional new years family dinner. It was a good night, the proximity of the venues encouraged much bar hopping, and the road turned pedestrian mall meant the party continued between bars. We had a few drinks in a few bars, then spotted a pharmacy that seemed to disregard the
hippocratic aphorism
primum non
nocere (first of all, do no harm...) as it had a larger selection of beer and
ciggarettes than it did medicine! The 'pharmacist' was wearing a
white coat, and did have medicines behind him, however he also had a bottle opener on the
counter to open your selection from the drinks fridge. The good part of this is that the drinks here were a
quater or a third of the price of the drinks at the bars. To keep you posted on global drinks prices, I'll quickly review. Shanghai a local beer would be 2-3
RMB at a store and 40-50
ar a bar, imports (well imported name at least, I think they are still bottled here) would be 4-8
RMB at a store, and around 40-60
RMB at a bar. In
HK they had a better selection of international beers in than in Shanghai, I did not see any
HK beers, so you could call them all imported. They ranged from $5-$10
HK in a store (
HK$ is pretty much the same as
RMB), and $40-60 in a bar. Happy hour in
HK usually halves the price, and many places are quite generous with their definition of an hour. We passed one place that was advertising a 3pm till 10pm happy hour, with the motto 'start your night early!'
Anyway, we purchased a few beer and a few energy drinks / alchopops from the pharmacy and hung out on the street for a bit. I forget what the energy alcho-drink was called, I remember it had one of those generic energy drink names, like 'buzz' or 'slam' or 'NRgizer'. It was quite nice however, a coconut Malibu style flavour.
We ended up at a bar, the name of which slips my mind, dancing to some latin house, and there were two old Chinese characters sipping gin and tonics, hanging out in the DJ booth, and showing the kids how its done on the floor. One of them was wearing an old school suit and hat, and the other had a Ho Chi Minh style long beard and glasses.
We arrived at our room at around five, and realised we had to check out at midday and find another place to stay.
