Hong Kong became a suprise part of itinerary when we booked our flights. We hadn’t planned on coming here but our route meant we had to have a stopover here. Hong Kong isn’t a stop on the usual backpacker trail as it’s not ideal for those on a budget, but we decided to have a week there and make the most of the opportunity.
Our 1 week in HK didn’t get off to the best of starts when we tried to check into our hotel only to find I had booked it for July rather than June, it was a horrible sinking feeling moment. Steven is so efficient at these things so I just wanted the ground to swallow me up when I realized. I sorted it out eventually while Steven watched a rugby game in the hotel sports bar so it didn’t turn out too badly.
We stayed right in the middle of all the action on HK Island. The public transport system there is really easy and with trams/buses/undergrounds/boats a plenty we managed to get around really easily. They even take out some of the walking up hill for you by providing lots of escalators everywhere outside which are fantastic. Much of this aided walking is under covered walkways and on a Sunday these places are full of Philippino maids hanging out with their friends having picnics, it’s a real social spectacle.
In the afternoon we joined the expats enjoying their Sunday Brunch in Stanley, on the other side of the island. We didn’t realize how hilly HK is and surrounding the Island there are dozens of other islands so the views out to sea are very picturesque.
The other main part of HK is across the 200m stretch of sea to the mainland – to an area called Kowloon. Steven had read about a Chinese emporium there that he wanted to check out. Unfortunately it turned out to be full of tat. If you can imagine all of the usual Chinese restaurant ornaments, mixed with cheap looking clothes and seaweed in all forms possible, face cream, candles, crisps…
In the evenings we had a go at numerous Asian foods, the worst being Taiwanese, where they had the ever so tempting option of pickled pigs colon with jelly fish, or if that didn’t tickle your fancy how about spicy chicken feet? The Chinese do love their fresh fish, and every day on the way to the tube we passed a busy market where all the local ladies chose their fish, which were instantly scooped up and decapitated in one swift movement and dispatched into her shopping basket still twitching.
We took a boat ride over to Lamma, one of the larger of the surrounding Islands. The Islands main feature not advertised in the guide, turned out to be a massive power station. Lamma is famous apparently for seafood and Pigeon restaurants. Unfortunately due to Steven fish “allergy” the seafood restaurants weren’t really an option, but they turned out to be a huge disappointment anyway. They were huge round plastic table and chair affairs with all of the fish stuffed into tanks that were too small for them, and the fish looked as depressed as the waiting staff. We naturally then opted for the Pigeon restaurant which was half way along the scenic walking path, which had been kindly donated by the power station, it had lovely views of the power station all the way along the path. The restaurant was a bit tricky to find but we eventually saw a sign up a hill advertising “igeon” so we gave it a go. We were the only ones in the restaurant and the “igeon” was deep fried, decidedly average. All in all very dissapointing.
We had a much more successful trip out to Lantau Island which is connected to the mainland like HK Island by tube. We caught a cable car up to the view point and continued our trip on foot up to the summit. We had been walking up hill for about 2 hours when we had to turn back as the weather closed in, another failed ascent much to Steven’s disappointment. By the time we got back down to the cable car they had received a tornado warning so we had to get the bus back to the bottom.
We visited the History museum and let the audio guide lead us through the Hong Kong Story, all very interesting, especially the last 150 years. It’s great going up to the top of HK Island and seeing the famous skyline. We had lunch up there and tried to soak in all up; the surrounding areas of the reclaimed land, countless skyscrapers, huge shopping malls and country parks. It’s packed so much in to a relatively small area. We did explore up by the boarder with China, we caught the train to the end of the line and wandered round for an afternoon. It was a bit grey looking; the markets were bustling though and full of shops selling cheap looking everyday products as well as lots of Chinese medicines, and an abundance of weird looking dried things, mainly fish we deduced from the smell.
We had a couple of really fun nights out, one being the famous Carnegies’ bar where dancing on the bar is the norm and expats are glugging cocktails – thanks Matthew for the tip. Our other fun night was going to Happy Valley Racecourse for evening racing. The course is right in the middle of the CBD and the view of the city skyline, hopefully the photos will show, is very cool. We won the first race and lost all of the others managing to come out flat. The atmosphere there was great though, one end was mostly full of Chinese fully embracing the gambling side of thing and the other end was full of ex pat 20 to 30 something’s more interested in the beer stalls and the music. Great night out.
A welcome surprise at the end of our stay was an upgrade to 1st class on the flight to Delhi. It was lovely and we took full advantage of all the freebies and drank and ate as much as we could. Thanks you Cathay Pacific.
