Hong Kong is still hot, sticky, and intense. And full of high rise. It must help that I’m staying right in the middle of Tsim Sha Tsui, that most touristy of neighborhoods at the tip of the Kowloon peninsula. I ambled through the spelunks of the Chung King Mansions and the hostel on the top floor where I stayed the last time around is still there. I did not take the elevator up but instead fled back to the street and was dripped on by window air conditioners. There are definitely more nice looking high rise apartment buildings than there were ten years ago, but there are still a lot with unfinished dirty concrete façades. Hong Kong makes me think of the conditions described in the Cyberpunk novels of William Gibson et. al. Another impression that keeps crowding into my mind is the Cold Chisel song Khe Sanh, but that is mainly because I flew from Sydney to Hong Kong myself ten years ago. It’s one of those songs that turns out to be a lot nastier than it seems when you first hear it. Too bad it’s not on the iTMS.

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