Day 2

The Asian media (and me) assembled at 9am the next morning for another shooting tour, and this time I had the high definition camcorder charged and ready to roll.

First stop (after an hour in a traffic snarl-up) was a Buddhist shrine in the city, where the journalists gingerly made there way past the smoking “burning incense stenchers” (as Frank Zappa would have said) and icons and tried to avoid being insensitive to those praying for their dear departed whose ashes were in the wall. We then headed to another fishing village where we went on a picaresque (hey, how convenient!) boat ride to our final destination, an amazing-looking Chinese seafood restaurant (again?) where the assembled troops had their last meal together, and our pre-production cameras were (sadly) repossessed by Panasonic. (We did get to keep the SD cards with the pictures and video, however).

Which reminds me, the HD camcorder was astonishingly easy to use, but it would be premature to give a full report until we get a production model later in the year and we can put it through its paces from recording through to computer screen. First impressions, however, are that this is definitely more than just an evolution… when you think that only a couple of years ago one particular company was still touting camcorders with spinning DVD discs, this tiny high definition model is just a dream come true.

After lunch and all the journalists and Panasonic staff had swapped cards and said their adieus, it was then free time for everyone until their departing flight. This gave me the evening and morning to wander the city until my flight out, and I had a great time getting to know the neighbourhood in Kowloon. I’ve never been propositioned so much in my life (for suits, “cheap fake Rolex”, or “You like me? Take me out to dinner?”) but aside from being endlessly hassled on the street, and the oppressive heat, it was exciting to walk around such an exciting, vivid trading area. While most of Hong Kong is almost too modern, there’s a section of Nathan St (one of the main shopping areas with lots of rip-off electronics shops) that still has one of the infamous old hotels, Chungking Mansions, and it’s in the bowels of this structure that there’s a labyrinth of seedy, disgusting markets. Walking through these narrow allies you never know quite what you’ll find!

One of the highlights for me was finding one of the best Indian restaurants I’ve ever eaten at. Branto Indian Club is on the first floor of a building in Lock St (near Nathan St) and you have to go through an unmarked door and up a spectacularly grimy staircase, where you find a tiny, secretive sign and inside, a very downmarket establishment with an air-conditioning unit that’s groaning and spitting water. Their South Indian Thali (a selection of dishes on a huge metal dish) is very possibly the tastiest I’ve ever eaten, and although meal and drinks came to 106 Hong Kong dollars, that’s a total of around NZ$20! [And yes, it does seem strange to eat Indian in a place that has heaps of Chinese Buddhist restaurants, but I'm just not that big on fake meat dishes made out of gluten].

* Tone magazine will report on the full Panasonic Lumix range closer to release date.