I was in HK over the weekend, and ran into a minor spot of trouble in finding a place to stay. I hadn’t booked ahead – I’ve never found it necessary in the U.S., there’s always someplace with vacancies anywhere you go – and the cheapest room at any of the major hotels was US$278 (approx NT$9000) per night.
It was beginning to look like I would have no choice but to spend the entire night watching tits jiggle in a strip club, when the third hotel (the Wharney, US$400 per night in the “Presidential Suite”) told me to go down Lockhart Road to the “Lockhart Hotel”. I never found that place (I don’t think it exists; I think they were just getting rid of me), but while walking through what turned out to be the brothel district, a shining beacon of hope stood out among the neon: a sign for the Ming Court Hotel. Corner of Lockhart and O’Brien. I walked in.
The people at the desk spoke excellent English (everyone seemed to in HK, which I found remarkable considering how rare it is in Taipei), the room was small but reasonably clean and comfortable, the soundproofing must have cost them a fortune since I didn’t hear a thing from other rooms, and I got a good night’s sleep. All for only HK$450, roughly US$60 or NT$2000.
Surprisingly, I didn’t see any hookers and johns wandering around, just shame-faced HKers trying to get a couple of hours of privacy away from their families. Although admittedly I was busy getting sleep most of the night, once I quit throwing up from the expensive dinner at the fancy restaurant that gave me the worst case of food poisoning I’ve had in ten years. In any case, if you’re ever desperate for a place to stay, I recommend the joint. Worst case, if they’re full up, just go back in an hour and a room will probably have opened up.
ABTW, if you don’t go to a bank here, at least do the conversion at CKS – those currency exchanges in HK are f*cking thieves, their rate was 15% worse than CKS’s.