The dirty, cramped but colourful city (pt 1)
HONG KONG | Thursday, 14 June 2007 | Views [916]
We were both quite excited when we touched down in Hong Kong International Airport, as we both had very high expectations of the place. The journey into central HK was very modern, with high speed trains and a good metro system, but as we exited the metro, we saw first hand the dirty, cramped side of HK and quickly got vertigo from always moving up and down, but rarely sideways (due to the space restrictions its normally a case of going upstairs instead of down the hall).
Our first hostel was 'different', a tiny room in a high rise tower
block, in the middle of a shopping district, in Causeway bay, with a very well hidden front door that took us some 30 mins of walking along the
same road to find! All this and then we asked the price, HK$300, which
made it the most we had paid so far on our trip (with the exception of a
4 star hotel!).
In the evening we ate at one of the local Chinese cafes (loud, free tea
and noodles) and took in the sights of Causeway Bay, continuing the
search for the camera equipment.
The following day we made the decision to move to Tsim Sha Tsui , which is an area across the habour from HK island, and (according to our guide
book) better value for money. The 'better value' turned out to be in the
shape of a taller high rise, where the corridors were lined with
squashed cockroaches and poo (no kidding) and lots of people queuing
for the 2 lifts, a queue that sometimes lasted 30mins (we walked up the
'lovely' stairs right to our palace on the 10th floor when the queue
was too long). On the positive the room was better and only cost HK$280,
a massive 20 bucks saving (around £1.30).
The rest of this day we spent conducting a monster shopping trip around
Mong kok, purchasing a tripod, cable release, new lens (which made the
£1.30 hostel saving seem insignificant) and a new pair of flopflips for
me (some of us know the art of restraint) - it turn out to be more of a
Danielle shopping trip, but whats new!!
On our last day in Hong Kong (we quickly arranged a trip to mainland
China, to try to save ourselves money) the island really began to grow on us, not surprisingly as we'd crossed the river from the downtown
cramped parts of HK on a Star ferry to Victoria Harbour to see Central HK, which is much more spacious and organised. We spent part of the day
walking around the hilly markets, exploring the cute backstreets and then headed for the Peak Tram (getting soaked in the process, by a very heavy
rainstorm). The views from the top were said to be beautiful, but
turned out to be a bit foggy,as you can see from our pictures. However, as we'd come all this way with all this new camera equipment we couldn't go back down without a great shot, so decided to wait for nightfall to see if the fog cleared...three hours later it did and we like the results!! So back we went to our palace for celebratory pizza and movie!!
We are now sitting on a train to Beijing, this saving money in China
scheme has turned into a "we've got time to see the Great Wall and maybe
Terracotta army, it'd be a shame to miss them" scheme.......
First shot with the new super lens !
Tags: On the Road
