Hong Kong - first time visiting Sept 2011
The
great "Concrete Jungle" as it is referred to. Well... that is exactly
what it is. A small area of land - an island actually- with tons of high
rise buildings and millions of people living in a few square miles.
Quite a sight to see, especially if you don't live in or have never
really been to a big city.
If you didn't know any better you'd
think the only thing they did here was shop (and build new buildings)!
There is construction and tons of shopping EVERYWHERE!.... everything
high end you could ever imagine and then of course all of the small
shops and street side vendors and markets. The airport is like a giant
mall too.
I knew Hong Kong was not going to be cheap, but
everyday I continued to be surprised at how expensive everything was.
For me - an avid budget traveler ever so conscious of every dollar that I
spend - I was surprised to see a lot of stuff costs more than it does
back home. The food, shopping, services and accommodations are all
rather expensive in Hong Kong, but the transportation was fairly
reasonable.
*Things you may want to know before you go: you do not
need a Visa as an American to visit Hong Kong, but you will need a
Chinese Visa if you plan to visit anywhere else in mainland China. *They
drive on the "wrong side" of the road - well it was a British Colony
for many years! So the escalators also are on the reverse side from what
we are used to, but people are still supposed to stand to the right and
pass on the left. *The main "downtown" area of Hong Kong is on an
island going up a mountain. So everything is up hill... lots of steep
walkways and roads and lots & lots of steps. Be forewarned. However
public transportation is very easy and convenient and not expensive.
Through one area of town there is a walkway (starting at the ferry
terminal and IFC) and series of escalators going up for more than a mile
through town (SoHo and "Mid-levels). That is very cool. It goes down in
the morning from 6am to 10 am and then the rest of the day it goes up.
Then there are trams, buses, taxis and a subway (MTR), also a direct
airport express train to town - takes about 25 minutes and costs
$100HK. A taxi is a minimum price starting at $20HK. * When I was here
the US dollar equaled almost $8 Hong Kong dollars. *If you are staying
for more than a few days you can get an "Octopus" card and put money
value on it. The locals use them almost exclusively. You can pay for all
of your transportation with it except for in taxis, and you can
purchase good at some stores - 7/Eleven, etc.... * Local calls are free,
but international calls are cheap too. The Country Code for Hong Kong
is 852. * I was told the water there was fine to drink, but I got sick
after being there for less than 24 hours. However I was not feeling
great on the plane over so I think I caught a bug before I went.
Regardless after being sick for a day or so I was extra cautious and
opted not to drink the water. *The weather was really HOT & muggy,
very humid. About 30 seconds after walking outside you'll begin to
perspire. Most places have cold AC blasting. There is a lot of pollution
so there is a haze of smog around the island almost always. It is hard
to see very far - sometimes not even across the harbor to Kowloon.
Sometimes it clears up some by the afternoon, but the locals told me it
is unusual to see the blue skies and sunshine very often. * Something
else you probably won't hear anywhere.... They really don't like white
people too much here! There is a little bit of "reverse
discrimination"... much of which you would probably never notice. Of
course maybe being charged more because you order off the English menu,
but little things like being sat at the back of the restaurant, and no
one will want to sit next to you on a bus or subway. I noticed a couple
times someone get up and move to a different seat, and I had to
laugh. And No - it was not because I stink!!! I heard about it from the
locals and then I noticed when it happened to me. This is quite
different from my previous experience in China 11 years ago, where the
people really seemed to like or be interested in foreigners. It must be
different here because of the British occupation for so long.
* My personal experience. I arrived late afternoon on
Monday and took the train into town, then a taxi to a location near
where I was going to be staying and then I had to walk down a million -
okay maybe 100 - steps to reach my destination. This was a task at 8:30
on a hot & humid night with a 40lb backpack and being seriously out
of shape! Anyway I finally made it to Martin's apartment, which happens
to be in an amazing location! Martin came down to the street opened the
gate and brought me up to his 9th floor - top of the building
apartment. It was very nice open space! I walked into a spacious living
room dining room combo with lots of windows over looking the cityscape.
Martin and his flatmate Fiona also had another guest/friend over for the
night - he had just arrived back to town that day. He showed me to my
room (the smaller third bedroom) and provided me with a towel, gave me a
tour, explained how everything worked - AC, and water heater, etc....
He also gave me a spare key, a local cell phone, WiFi passcode and tons
of travels books to look through. They were all in the middle of dinner
and invited me to sit down and relax and eat or have some wine. So we
all chatted awhile. Totally awesome hosts!
I walked all over the escalator area - "So Ho", Lan Kwai
Fong, Hollywood and Queens Rd, and down the street alley markets on Li
Yuen St E & W, down the famous stone Pottinger St (the oldest street
in town) and up the farmer's market street on Graham St - at the end
had fresh seafood and meat markets also. (Not the same type of meat
market I am used to going to...) One day I walked down to the ferry
station to check in to tours... I decided they were more than I wanted
to spend and you can basically get the same experience out of just
riding one across to Kowloon for only $2.50 HK.... But I did decide to
take a local tour. There is double decker (open air on top) purple bus
called the Rickshaw Sightseeing Bus; it seemed like a really good deal
compared to the other "big bus" companies, however they probably provide
more in the way of a "tour". The Rickshaw Bus was only $50 HK and that
went all over town and pointed out sights of interest with a recorded
tour along the way. You can get on & off all day at any of the
stops. (The bigger tour companies were over $300HK for a tour) Anyway
for a do-it-yourselfer like me this tour was fine. I got to 'get out'
and see a lot more areas of town (which is mostly just big buildings and
shopping) without having to walk all over the place! Then I took the
Peak Tram up to the "Peak" and overlook of the whole city and harbor. I
chose just to pay for the roundtrip tram ride ($40HK) and not the
"special" skyview terrace thing they try to get you to add on
extra. Once you are up there, there are lots of great places to view the
city from.... I did not need to go on top of the building for that.
While up there I met another lone girl traveler from Chicago. She became
my "single serving friend" of the week! We hung out the rest of the day
and went and saw some more sights together. We went to the Botanical
& Zoological gardens; went and had Dim Sum at the famous Luk Yu
Teahouse, one of the oldest in Hong Kong. We also went into a tea shop
and had a tea tasting. At night we took the Star Ferry over to Kowloon
and walked - a long way - I recommend taking a taxi - all the way up to
the Temple Street Night Market. On my last day in town I went with my
host friend, Fi, to Hong Kong Disneyland. It was..... nothing
spectacular! Very very small and not many rides or much to do there. Fi
was not feeling great so we may have done the quickest tour of Disney in
history.
Overall Hong Kong was a cool experience and I am glad I
finally got the chance to visit it. I think I did pretty well on my
budget - I ended up averaging about $40 USD a day! Keep in mind - that
was with a FREE place to stay and with me being very conscious about how
much money I was spending on everything!! It certainly could have been
much much more expensive!!! Great time, cool city and a few really
awesome new friends!! :-)
Cheers
