The first thing that I noticed in Hong Kong is a variety of odors.
You can’t meet it in Ukraine. We have the same smells. The same smell of streets, the same stink of supermarkets. Equally smells for potatoes, tomatoes and old women in all markets of the country. And McDonald’s has the same smell too.
Here, in Hong Kong, everything is another. Each street has its own smell. Even if you turn the corner the smell changes suddenly. Sometimes I came back for a quarter ago. For felling the odor. For the reason to feel the change. You take a step to another building, and feel the smell of fresh juices, which they make right there in front of you from all kinds of fruits. A second step forward and you feel the salty smell of the sea.
And here the roasted chestnuts for you that old lady cooks right on the corner and the wind carries this smell on a few blocks. And the embers in her vat shoot in different directions, enveloping noisy passers with light and immediately volatilized smell of acrid smoke.
And there, around the corner, in the cafe, they smoke duck and this sickly sweet smell knocks you off your feet, but you turn the corner, and you hear the smell of flowers.
This little Chinese sells some analogue of snowdrops. There is so small number of these flowers, and the old lady tries so hard to press into the ground, that running through the crowd, you can’t even notice. And the smell of the block is fantastic.
How does Hong Kong manage to keep a variety of scents, colors and mix? Maybe because of the humid air or maybe, at first time, my nose shared a common smell of Hong Kong into the parts, and slips this to my consciousness for I won’t become crazy?