Several friends and I met up last Sunday to do something we rarely find time to do. Something bold. Something adventurous: we went to the New Territories.
Unlike many Westerners I know, who spend their weekends trotting up hills and hiking in the intense summer heat and humidity, Hong Kongers love exercising in a more congenial environment, such as a karaoke cubicle.
For us, the great outdoors exists only in karaoke videos such as Climb Every Mountain.
To us, any outdoor pursuit in this weather is torture. Why sweat it out under a scorching sun when you can achieve more or less the same effect sitting in a sauna or jacuzzi and watching the Hang Seng Index? That might explain why we decided to visit the remote parts of the New Territories in an air-conditioned car. Well, it was air-conditioned until the battery went flat in Tai Po. It was then that we made a collective decision on where exactly we wanted to go.
This is how young urban minds work these days: we know we want to go somewhere remote and cheap - we are in a recession after all - but do not know exactly where.
For $50 (everything comes with a price tag in Hong Kong), a taxi driver jump-started our car and we had to turn back to my friend's place at the Chinese University to pick up another car, which regrettably had no air-con.