We passed the Hong Kong border at about 11.30 pm and got on to a bus filled with tired people returning from a hard day's work. It's crazy, the work ethic here! One of the scene that stuck with me on the first night is driving past a group of manual labourers, at midnight, literally, and they were unloading things a truck into a shop, their naked upper bodies glistening in the humidity of the night.

We were dumped in Mong Kok by the bus, and we had to travel to our hotel by cab. The cab driver answered our questions politely, and laughed at my Cantonese, recognising immediately that I was a 'yau hak' (foreigner) when I asked him 'Kei to lui ah?' (how much is the fare?) to which he gave me a bemused look and realisation set in when he said, 'Lei ke yee si hai, kei to tsin hai mai?' (Oh what you mean is, how much is the fare, is it?)

Didn't we just say the same thing?

Now, for those who are not Cantonese speaking or are actually Caucasian who look Chinese (don't worry, I am banana too!) basically lui is the Malaysian/Singaporean way of saying tsin. 

After apologising for my Cantonese, we found out a few things from the friendly cabbie:

1) Hong Kong is really safe. This was evidenced by the throngs of people still walking the streets at this hour of the night. There are policemen on patrol everywhere, and they have some of the coolest police uniforms I've seen!

2) Don't bother bargaining. The cabbie was saying that in Hong Kong, unlike Malaysia and Singapore, prices were reasonable and not jacked up ridiculously to cheat the gwailo's money. I found out later the cabbie mustn't have been coming out much, because a lady in the famous Women's Street ripped us off completely!

3) No, he doesn't know where Jackie Chan lives.

4) Straight cab ride for 5 minutes = HK $15. That's the last time we take a taxi.

We arrived at our hotel, the DSH, a place which turned out nicer than we expected. We unpacked and then got ourselves ready to walk around and hunt for supper.

We did not realise that we were actually situated near the (in)famous Miu Kai or Temple Street, a kind of area like Petaling Street, brimming with fake goods and dodgy characters. My friend got solicited by a 60 year old hooker while we were walking the streets:

'Yau ma?' (You looking for a good time?) from a person old enough to be our grandmother.

We said nothing, but suspected that her good time wasn't a round of mahjong, and no, we wouldn't even play mahjong with you, auntie.

I wish I could read Chinese and stop walking into massage parlours looking for good seafood. Honestly.

Hong Kong is vibrant, and is literally an Insomniac City. There are tons of neon lights hitting the pedestrians like sunlight and the city is as pulsating at night as it is in the daytime.

We wandered around looking for supper, and ended up having wan tan mee. It was pretty good, with large wan tans filled with whole prawns. Note to the first time traveller: They don't do it kon lo (dry) over there. Or, actually, they don't do it well. If you asked for dry wan tan mee, the sauce they give you is oyster sauce. And you thought Singaporeans offering you tomato ketchup in your dry wan tan mee was bad! 

On the walk back to the hotel, the peculiar thing we noticed was that you couldn't walk five minutes and not see a 7-11 store. Man, they sure take their convenience seriously round these parts!