Laugh kookaburra laugh
In Hong Kong we take a $2 dollar tram to the end of the line and back, just because we can. Black trams, red trams, green trams, purple, advertising everything from insurance to jewellery sales, trundle around like a real-life theme park ride, with us on it. We pass The Sincere Insurance Building, the HSBC building with its very English Landseer-like lions either side of the entrance and then the Bank of China with guardian lions of the ancient imperial variety. It is the lead-up to Chinese New Year and there are red lanterns everywhere, in between The Honest Pharmacy, The Hong Kong Jockey Club betting shops, Vodafone, Reebok and Clarks Shoes, Dolce and Gabbana, De Beers, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Sam Choy Printing and the Ying Kee Tea House. The noises are man-made: traffic stopping and starting, over-revved double decker buses, taxis honking and the rat-a-tat-tat of the pedestrian crossings where the arrival of the green man is signalled by what sounds like a frantic toy monkey on a ti...