Weekend Excursion (1): The Eastern Beaches

This Saturday, the sun was shining radiantly after a week of Dutch april weather (read: some clouds, more wind, lots of unpredictable rain, and not so much sun). I decided that this was a good moment to explore the Eastern beaches and to walk from Bondi Beach along the cliffs down to Corgee beach. Here are my impressions.

Bondi Beach is the biggest of all Sydney beaches. It is situated in a beautiful bay which is spoilt by drunken backpackers and people with too many tattoos, too many muscles, and a deeply proletarian take on life. And I don't mean the surfers: they are serious in what they are doing and have my respect. "Was wäre Wien schön ohne Wiener", Georg Kreisler once sung. Yes, this is also true of the most iconic Sydney Beach.

After walking along the cliffs, the next beach, some 2 km further, is Tamarama Beach. Small and secluded, it has a much nicer atmosphere. And impressive 2 vs. 2 footvolley action on a regular beach volleyball field. More than amazing what these guys (and one girl) do with their heads, breasts, and feet. A nice place to rest.

Then, one arrives at Bronte Beach, which is again one of the major bays. But it is much nicer than Bondi. There is a green park in the middle of the bay, with real trees, and at the southern end, there is one of the many Sydney ocean pools. A small saltwater swimming pool where you can swim when currents and wind make it impossible to swim in the sea. It is big fun. You get a fair share of the waves and they fizz on the surface like champagne bubbles. People scream like in Rocco Siffredi movies. And it's free.

Finally, you pass by the Waverley graveyard, which is directly on top of the coast, and make it down to Corgee Beach. And there, it is time for fries and a beer. Cheers!

The Art of Surviving

I have been silent for quite some time. Two weeks full of conferencing, teaching and a weekend of canyoning. This latter experience proved to be quite strenous and above all, nerve-wrecking.

It was a post-conference weekend in the blue mountains with some 10-15 people, organized by the Distinguished Professor Paul Griffiths, my host at the University of Sydney. Paul is not only a terrific philosopher of biology, but also an enthusiastic sportsman who likes bushwalking, climbing, canyoning/abseiling, surfing, and all the other outdoor stuff. Some weeks before, Paul suggested that I join him for canyoning. One of his first emails regarding the weekend read as follows:

"Elena and I want to do Devil’s Pinch canyon on Saturday. Jan and Brett have expressed an interest in joining us. I can take a couple more people, but this is not something to be taken lightly. It takes all day and begins with a steep, 400m ascent to the top of the cliffs followed by descending a deep, narrow slot in the cliffs using ropes and swimming through pools which are pretty cold even in summer, as they never see the sun. The longest abseil is 26m into a dark slot where you can’t see the bottom!"

This scared the hell out of me, but Paul was quick to calm me down. "You will be fine." When I asked his colleagues, and they started laughing. "ABC almost died on one of Paul's bushwalks. DEF bruised her ribs, GHI sprained his ankle, ...The helicopter had to come a couple of times."

They didn't make this up.

Still, I thought that it would not be very manly to chicken out at this point. So I got up on Saturday morning at 6:15 in my tent at Newnes in the Blue Mountains. A pleasant environment in a valley where they used to do extract shale oil before it got too expensive. This was in the 1910s and -20s, by the way.

We walked up the ridge and did the safety drill on a gorgeous lookout point with some rocks. If you have never done abseiling before, it feels quite strange to trust your life to a rope and a single metal carabiner. Also, my moves at the beginner's rock were far from convincing. My trip mates, however, were not only experienced canyoners, but also seasoned liars. "Great, Jan!" "Like a pro!" Well, you do need confidence for abseiling, if not much else.

We walked down on the ridge and worked our way through the scrubs into the canyon (entrance on the picture below). My nose spectacularly hit the ground when I leaned on a dead tree while moving downwards. Ouch. At this point I felt that I should perhaps just walk back and just realize that I was not made for extreme challenges. But then, we were at the top of the gorge and it was too late to turn back. On the wetsuit, the harness, and the helmet.

And then the first abseil of your life is 25 meters down into a dark waterhole that you can't even see.

(Not my picture, of course, but that's the spot.)

I did better than expected. The worst moment is when you are attached to the rope and you have to lean into it, to trust it. Once you are descending without doing something stupid, things work pretty much automatically and I could actually apply the techniques I had learned before. And the canyon itself was, of course, amazing---a deep gorge, 1-2 meters broad with 20-30 m high walls. Or even more. I did not make photos, but more than enough impressive images can be found here. I have copied one of them into the blog.

I also learned that the length of an abseil is not always a good predictor for its difficulty. The next one was shorter (15 meters), but everything was wet and I slipped while moving down the edge where the rope was anchored. I fell with my bums on the rock and was pretty uncoordinated. For a split second, I saw the horror in Paul's eyes. "Don't you ever let go of that rope!!!" Then, I slowly got on my feet and started descending again. I made it to the bottom, albeit in a somewhat clumsy way.

More dangerous than the abseiling were actually some rock scrambling passages in the canyon. If you blow it there, then you do not fall 20m into a deep constriction, but you will definitely break some bones and earn a helicopter ride. Thanks to the excellent advice and assistance from my teammates, this was not necessary. And I was not unhappy that time forbade us to do a third and fourth abseil. Down a slippery waterfall, with double belay and other stuff that sounded intimidating. At least to a novice like me.

It was quite a walk back along the river, but we were back in time for dinner. Self-made pizza from the wood oven. And on the next day, when we were driving back, we stopped at the Pierce's Pass lookout. I had survived the canyoning trip, and now it actually started to feel like holiday.

Shit is happening

The weather on Sunday is as friendly as on Saturday, and I go for another outdoor excursion. Combining a metro and bus ride, I end up, together with lots of Hong Kongers, at the beginning of a walking trail which is as busy as a shopping mall at the rush hour. Yes, Hong Kong has lots of unspoilt and beautiful nature, but when millions of locals are getting out of their homes in the weekend, even those places get a distinctively urban flair.
Speeding up my pace, I manage to escape the main crowd and soon, I am on the top of Dragon's Back, in the Southeastern corner of Hong Kong Island, close to Shek O. The views over the coast and the sea are amazing. If it were not for the skyrocketing apartment buildings here and there, I would believe myself at a pristine, peaceful island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

Also, you will now understand why this post has such a strange title. You may have to zoom in.

I continue my walk via an easy track on the hills and make it soon back to the bus and the city. I plan to travel back with the tram instead of the metro, but it gets stuck in the abominable traffic. When I notice, after one hour on the tram, that I have not yet made significant progress versus the center, I leave it and change to the MTR. Ten minutes later, I am within walking distance of my hotel.

Foodwise, I stick to the sea and enjoy some Taiwanese street food in the suburbs (fried dumplings, delicious) before I meet some fellow philosophers for drinks dinner. Mariangela, a PhD student at HKU whom I have met in Groningen in summer, is in charge. We meet down in Central and take the famous Central--Mid-Levels escalators to an expat bar with happy hour. This quirky form of transport---an 800m long sequence of escalators between the CBD and the nightlife area---avoids zigzagging roads and shortens travel time considerably. You may describe it as Hong Kong's response to the elevator system that links hills and valleys in Lisbon. 

While Aberdeen and Ap Lai Chau yesterday felt like mainland China, the streets and bars in our destination neighborhood are mainly populated with tourists and Westerners who live in Hong Kong. Also, there are no traditional Chinese places, but lots of hip bars and cafés.

Later on, we have a dim sum dinner at a Michelin-star decorated restaurant in Causeway Bay, a bit east of the center. The food is excellent---the refined version of the popular food that I had on the first day, with diligent and balanced use of spices.  Moreover, the bill is not as huge as I feared. Probably it helps that we stick to tradition and drink tea instead of alcoholic drinks. 

This night, I don't make it late. 1. FC Köln have their three points and do not play. Also, the next day, I have to give a talk and to conduct an experiment at Lingnan University. The time of leisurely explorations is over, the real work begins.

In Australia (Intermezzo)

Philosophers and logicians like to joke about the truth conditions of sentences of the form "In Australia, ...".
Famous examples include:

• In Australia, the most dangerous animals live in the water (e.g., crocodiles, sharks, and above all jellyfish).
• In Australia, the Sun stands in the North at noon. 
• In Australia, low pressure systems spin clockwise. 

So it has been guessed that "In Australia, ..." is just the negation operator. That is, a sentence of the form "In Australia, X is the case" is true if and only if X is not the case under normal conditions.
I would like to add an example of my own: In Australia, bars are open from 4:00 to 16:00.




Spotted five minutes away from my place in Marrickville. The cafe/bar is next to a 24/7 fitness studio. I have been told that the average sporty Australian gets up at some point between 5:00 and 6:00 (=in the middle of the night), does his running, surfing, weightlifting or whatever, takes a shower and then heads on to work. Where he leaves at 17:00 at the latest in order to have drinks at a hotel (the traditional Australian word for a pub) until the sun sets. This has a very important social function. I have even spotted a fully dressed bridal pair in such a pub. In the weekend, drinks start earlier, of course, and can take up the entire afternoon.

Then, around 19:00, it is time for dinner. By 21:00, restaurants and bars get empty and the cleaning brigades start to do their work, by 22:00, the liquor store is closed, and by 23:00, you cannot even get a fucking French fries.

For years, I have been complaining about the Dutch office and meal hours, but I am ready to offer my apologies. These Australians make them look like bloody novices.

I have started with an intellectual joke about Australia, and so I will conclude this posting with a flat one. Just because I genuinely like it. "Which music do Kangaroos listen to?" --- "Hip Hop."

Climbing the Peak

I fall nearly dead into my bed and do not set the alarm clock. When I wake up, it is almost 11 o'clock in the morning. A blue sky is smiling into my hotel room. I realize that I should use this opportunity, get dressed and leave. The plan is to climb the Victoria Peak, 550 meters above sea level, and to enjoy the view over Hong Kong Island. 

The first couple of roads, however, keep me caught in the urban jungle of Hong Kong where hyper-modern capitalist structures seamlessly give way to lowly built, slightly run-down dwellings, and vice versa.

Then I work my way upwards into the Mid-Levels, a mainly residential area populated by the happy few. On the way, I spot a tiny coffee bar, Kosyli Bakery, that looks as if they took their business seriously. And indeed, the espresso is more than decent. Actually, it is delicious. Italy first, but Hong Kong second. (Sorry, Croatia. I will reverse my judgment when I am back to your beaches.) Upon request, I learn that they blend Vietnam-grown Arabica beans with local Hong Kong beans. Never thought that you could grow coffee beans so far North, but apparently, you can.
After this delightful intermezzo, I follow roads which climb the mountain in serpentines, squeezed between huge residential buildings with names as tasteful as "Venice" and "Santa Lucia".  But at least, the views get seriously nice. I am asking myself, however, how you can have kids in this area. There are enough green areas, but due to the hilly topography, there is no single place where they could play football or other games. If you live here, you are pretty much confined to your laptop and your smartphone. 

I have mentioned in an earlier post that the future beginning here, in East Asia. This also benefits the traveller. My hotel has furnished me with a hypermodern gadget: a smartphone with all kinds of extra abilities. Fortunately, good old Google Maps is also installed---a feature that saves me a couple of times as I lose orientation in an illogical network of streets. 

Finally, I am on the real walking track in the green, where the locals promenade their dogs, and Saturday morning tourists like me walk up the hill. Soon, I am at the summit, at the former Governor's lodge, and I enjoy the view of the Southern end of Hong Kong Island, and the outlying islands. It has become a bit cloudy, but it is still very enjoyable up here.

A fifteen minutes walk further is the mountain station of the tram that links the peak to the central district. The contrast could not be bigger. While the Governor's gardens were peaceful and quiet, they have built huge shopping malls with restaurants on this part of the peak. A terrible architectonical sin, but not without some perverse fascination. 

I descend at the Southern side of the peak in order to avoid the crowds. I pass by a water reserve and end up in the village of Pok Fu Lam. 

When I use the word "village", it is anything between 50,000 and 250,000 inhabitants. You never know. Even Wikipedia doesn't, in this particular case. I take the bus and leave in Aberdeen, the adjacent "village" and a traditional fishing port.

Here, I have to praise the Lonely Planet series. Often, it contains lots of suggestions that are tailored for the average 20- or 25-year-old backpacker, who is stingy, wanna-be-hipster and wants to get laid. When you follow the LP recommendations for accommodation and food, you often end up in places frequented by that kind of person. This annoying feature should not deceive you into believing that the Lonely Planet is useless. By contrast, it really contains some awesome suggestions which you are unlikely to find in vanilla guidebooks. In this particular case, the LP suggests to take the ferry to the nearby island of Ap Lai Chau (English: "duck tongue"), to walk into the fish market, to buy a fish you like, to watch it being killed by the fishmonger and to take it to the second floor, where various foodstalls will prepare it for you. I follow these instructions meticulously, and the steamed sai-lon (whatever this is) is gorgeous. A whole steamed fish, with some broth and spices (here: lemon grass, ginger) and a bowl of rice. What do you want more? My Chinese table companions tell me that this way of preparing fish is getting less popular these days. Indeed, everybody around me has soups with fish and meat balls in it. Certainly tasty, but what a shame.

I feel like at the end of the world, but fortunately, there is the MTR. A huge, hyper-efficient subterranean transport network with the train stations where atheletes can train for their next 200m run. It takes you from Ap Lai Chau to the Admiralty in Central Hong Kong in just three stops, thanks to a huge tunnel under the peak. In no time I have made it back to the center. I am charmed.

(Finding a station that is so empty was only possible in the New Territories and off peak hours. Usually, it is crowded.)

The day closes quietly. I prepare everything for a Bundesliga night with the legendary ARD radio conference and only leave my hotel for getting a quick bite. Anthony Modeste's penalty goal ten minutes before the end gives the lead to my club, the 1. FC Köln.

The final minutes of the conference are turbulent and wreck my nerves. "Goooooaaaaaalll ...in Berlin!" "Goooaaaalll... in Hoffenheim!" "Gooooaaall in Mönchengladbach!" But Cologne defends the tenuous 1-0 lead in a tense struggle. Three points in the pocket. What a wonderful day.

From Canton to Sichuan. Foodwise.

Upon arrival at my hotel, the reception staff is very helpful and makes sure that I can check in early. I can drop my stuff, take a shower, and after a brief nap, I am heading for lunch. On the receptionist's recommendation, I choose a traditional Cantonese dim sum place in the immediate vicinity.
However, at the said address, there is no indication of a restaurant, just an ordinary house entrance with a staircase and some Chinese characters written on top. On the other hand, this is the only place where the restaurant could possibly be.

Finally, I follow some people on the staircase and I end up in a jam-packed hall on the second floor. It is populated by lots of locals and waiters in white jackets, who wave at the new arrivals and direct them to the scarce free places. The hall is lit by ugly white neon lights at the ceiling. Tables and chairs are extremely simple. Neither staff nor guests seem to speak a single word of English.

This is a picture that I found on the internet, and Tripadvisor says it is the Lin Heung Kui teahouse. (@Hong Kongers: this is not the Lin Heung tea house in the Central district; I am unaware of a connection between both places.)

With the smell of nutritious, if not outright fat food, the loud noise and the minimalistic, almost rude service, it feels like a Cologne beer hall. Another parallel is that everything works according to conventions that outsiders don't know. I am squeezed into an almost-full table, get a small cup with a table spoon and chopsticks, another cup for tea, and a piece of paper with a large grid of numbers. Somebody passes by with a huge brass kettle and pours tea into my cup. Like at home, it is refilled without asking, and it is even for free. For the rest, I have to give a sign to the elderly ladies who move around the carts with food. You just tell them to pass a basket, and they stamp the corresponding number on your paper. Simple principle, but since the baskets have a lid and I have no ideas what is in them, I avidly watch what my table companions are having. Following their choices and random pointing at boxes and baskets turns out to be a healthy mix. The food is good and proper. In the end, I have devoured a couple of savoury buns and dumplings for a very reasonable price.

After this, I head to Lingnan University where I will be giving a talk and conducting an experiment after the weekend. People there are very helpful, and on the way back, I stop in Kowloon (=the Northern side of the Hong Kong harbour) for the famous Temple Street Market, a paradise for cheap shopping and bargaining addicts.



There are also some food stalls, but they either look like tourist traps (like the one on the picture) or have a level of hygiene where you would not be surprised if, by pure accident, you would be served fried mice and sauted rats.

I follow my intuition and go for a small restaurant with Sichuan cuisine which seems to strike a good balance between being popular and being tidy. Since I am still quite full, I opt for a small meal: a "sour and chilly" (=spicy) Chongqing noodle soup. It looks like on the picture below, just with a bit more pretty decoration.


(This is not my actual soup. I strongly object to foodporn.)

The combination of spicy and sour aromas speaks to my palate. A welcome contrast to the Cantonese cuisine, which is more on the sweet and salty side. However, the noodles resist the German Spaghetti Eating Scheme: to roll them with the fork on a spoon. I end up spilling noodles all over the table and make a fool of myself. To make things worse, nobody brings me a napkin to conceal the disaster. First, I blame the equipment: I like chopsticks for rice-based dishes, but here, they seem utterly inadequate. A fork, a fork, my kingdom for a fork. Then, it dawns on me that the noodles are more slippery than normal noodles. They are probably not meant to be eaten that way. Although I get more pragmatic and use the chopsticks to get the noodles directly to my mouth, I am still struggling.

It takes me ages to finish my dish. The next day, I learn that these noodles have the poetic name "Slippery Noodles". I would not have guessed. Also, you are allowed to lift the bowl from the table. Good to know.

Again, the service is indifferent at best. Those who do not speak Cantonese (N=1) figure below the staff's radar. Plausibly they are equally impolite to the locals, just more subtly so. The only moment when I get a warm glow from the waitress's eye is when I quickly vacate my table after paying because at this moment, a group of four is entering the otherwise packed restaurant. Yes, it is important to be thankful for the important things in life.

I walk to the harbour and take the ferry back to Hong Kong Island, the center of the city. Everybody is in a good mood and enjoys the view at the two waterfronts. Suddenly, a dark, compact cannon boat with the flag of the People's Republic crosses our way, and for a moment, a touch of menace and uncanniness is in the air. The political situation in Hong Kong is known to be delicate. Then, people resume their conversations. We arrive soon and I disembark. Time to sleep, finally. It has been a long day.

The Future Has Started Right Now. In Hong Kong.

On a cold morning in February, I am boarding an airplane towards Hong Kong.  An 11-hour flight with Cathay Pacific is in front of me. The flight itself is easygoing---the personnel in Amsterdam is extremely helpful and puts me into an exit row. Service on board, however, is nothing special, in spite of the excellent reputation of Cathay Pacific. Also the food could be better---you can say a lot of positive things about the Netherlands, but the quality of their caterers is none of them. (I write this because on the Hong Kong--Sydney flight with the same airline, food will be fresh and tasty. And also the service will be great.)

Anyway, the seat is fine, there is a complimentary bar in the galley next to me and I manage to get some sleep. Arrived in Hong Kong, I first notice that temperatures are pleasant (15-20°C) and everything is lush and green. It is early morning and my hotel room will not yet be ready. So I decide to save some money and to take the bus into the city, instead of the faster Airport Express train. A decision I do not regret. The bus rides next to towering skyscrapers full of crammed apartments and then crosses a huge suspension bridge which connects the airport with the mainland. Forget the Golden Gate---this is Tsing Ma bridge in Hong Kong.

This is not yet the peak of architectonical grandeur. The next bridge is even more audaciously constructed, apparently passing hundreds of meters above the sea, dwarfing the huge harbor facilities underneath. Stonecutters Bridge, says Wikipedia. The second-longest cable-spanned bridge in the world.




When riding over this huge, prize-winning structure, I feel the same mixture of awe and achievement that you get from approaching the Gizeh pyramids, climbing the Cologne cathedral, or standing witin St. Peter in Rome. (The Cologne reference is no campanilismo---I mean it and I feel it.) A piece of architecture that takes the technical means of a time period to its limits, so challenging and dared that successful completion seems to defy common sense. 

Architecture is not only a skill or a practical solution to a real problem; it also conveys a message. In the case of the Stonecutters Bridge in Hong Kong, a message of power. When you look from this enormous bridge down on an equally enormous, sheer endless haven, a sea of containers with cranes sticking out their necks here and there, you have the impression that the future is happening here, in East Asia.

Could any project like this be realized in Europe or North America? Do we have the confidence to surpass our own skills, as the US did long ago with the Apollo program? Perhaps it is no chance that such cutting-edge structures are now built in Asia. When even Germans fail to complete an airport (Berlin), a metro line (Cologne) or a concert hall (Hamburg), all characterized by an explosion of costs and ridiculous delays, the West may have lost its potential for showing directions for the future of the planet.

The Stonecutters bridge was built in five years, for an amount of 400 million euros that is moderate, if not small, if one considers the huge technical difficulties. It may have been a question of will and of belief in the first place. When you really want to succeed, when you commit your heart and soul to it, you also make it. Of course, there are good reasons not to spend money on "pure prestige projects". But when the discourse in a society focuses exclusively on the level of contributions to the pension system, or the number of immigrants, one forgets that great societies also need to embark on great challenges: projects which transform one's own ambitions, beliefs and hopes into something that is visible to the world. Projects which are led and executed with ultimate dedication and the absolute will to succeed.

I think the last time that such a success took place in Germany was---ironically enough---the Jewish museum in Berlin. The issue there was not technical feasibility, but a more subtle task: transforming intellectual content and a painful collective memory into sensually perceptible architecture. Daniel Libeskind solved this task in a mindblowing way. But I am pessimistic that a similarly striking success will be realized anytime soon.



Finally, the bus enters a large tunnel and emerges in the city center. I walk about 10 minutes to my hotel, on a street with an endless succession of shops that sell dried seafood products. Bustling unloading activity unfolds. The houses look (comparatively) small and shabby; behind them, huge towers spiral into the skies. What a strange place. I will be here for the next five days---mainly for work, but I will have some time to explore the city. And already now, I am curious what I will discover.