I nearly had something to add to the what have we lost page on our website this morning.
(so sorry to disappoint those who have been checking that page regularly; rest assure via the wonders of google analytics and statistics WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE.)
I had hung my sunglasses up over a metal railing next to my bad instead of putting them under my pillow with my wallet, phone, keys etc. Alice says she said something about make sure you remember your sunglasses but we can safely assume I did not hear it. Anyway I got off the train and thought that it was kind of bright out, and got straight back on the train.
When you get off the train in Hong Kong you’re not actually in Hong Kong yet; you detrain in Shenzhen and then cross the border.
Crossing the border involves two sets of customs, one to get out of China and one into Hong Kong, but for those of us who haven’t done anything illegal lately there’s nothing more to it than lining up for a while and trying to will the customs officials to put the China exit stamp on the same page as the China entry stamp, next to the Visa. Much neater that way; and we are getting together a really excellent collection of Visas and stamps now.
We got off the train at 10.30 and were on the KCR (metro train) for the 50 minute ride to the middle of Hong Kong not long after midday. From there we caught a taxi to the hotel, which we thought might be expensive, but it wasn’t because the hotel was really only slightly out of walking distance. Sadly when we got there they didn’t have rooms available for most of us because they were still being cleaned, but they let us put our stuff in there and then we moved ourselves out into the corridor when room service came around. There wasn’t really time for a shower before we were due to meet back downstairs for orientation walk at 2.30pm, but Alice did manage to have a little sleep in the chair in the corridor.
Other interesting facts about Hong Kong before I forget to mention them;
1. More than a few people speak English
2. There are both ten dollar notes and ten dollar coins. The ten dollar coin has a gold middle and a silver outside, while the ten dollar note has lots of inscriptions and stamp type things on it, making it look like a bus ticket.
3. Every shop has a huge flashing sign which sits just above eye level on the first floor, such that they all negate each other
4. The two dollar coin has wavy edges; it could probably be used as a shuriken.
Having had a look around the block to see what was where, and which way the main streets went, we partitioned off. Steve, Sat, Adam, Andy and ourselves walked down to the harbour to catch the Star ferry across the water, from where one can find one’s way up to Victoria Peak. It’s only about two HK dollars to go across, and it was great to get out on the water and get a look at the size and breadth of Hong Kong. We were supposed to meet back at the hotel at 6 for our farewell dinner; with that in mind we ditched plan A of catching the cable car up Victoria Peak and instead split into two taxis. At the top there is an observatory, although I can’t think what they would be observing other than smog, and a shopping centre. From the top of the shopping centre the view is really immense, and we had fun looking the free binoculars into various buildings, as well as pointing at some of the logos of various collapsed banks and saying ‘Ohh, better turn that sign off, can’t afford that now’.
As well as being able to see Hong Kong city and the harbour on one side, over the other you see more peaks and the busy port as well. The cable car leaves from under the shopping centre; once we’d had our fill we caught the cable car back down, really just so that we could say we’d done it. Turns out you’re better off to be on one side of the car than than the other, if you’d prefer to see the city instead of some trees and a cliff face.
From a map at the bottom of the cable car ride we worked out that we could catch a bus back to one of the metro stations on this side of the water, and from the there get a train to Jordan station, which would save us a lot of time and walking most of the way back up Nathan Rd to our hotel . The bus turned out to be an open-top sightseeing kind of deal so we went straight up top and had a ball standing up (which the sign said you shouldn’t do) and taking pictures of all the slightly unusual buildings. That’s one thing to be said for Hong Kong – there’s a hell of a lot of skycrapers but they’re not all the same.
We did indeed get back to the hotel with 5 minutes to spare before dinner, for which we walked all the way around the corner and had various stir fries, vegetables, etc. all spread out on a large table. As expected it was more expensive that China, but probably worth the money in Australian Dollars, and definitely worth the money in the USD we have been withdrawing against.
There were some street markets set up another block away, so we had a little look through there and then got a couple of bottles of beer to take back to the hotel. Adam and Andy had been complaining about how their room, before cleaning, looked like a bomb had gone off, or like there had been a huge party, and I’m sure that whoever took over their room the next day probably had a similar list of complaints. After some good old-fashioned fun we caught the metro back over the water to Wan Chai, where we had been warned that the drinks would be expensive. And expensive they were; after two drinks we called it a night, but the metro had closed so we had to get a taxi, which was unfeasibly expensive. Alice had said that we it would cost too much to hit the town in Hong Kong and of course she was right. Also she was starting to get an attack of the stomach bug, and we had a plane to Vietnam to catch, so we were happy going home earlier than some others.
Greg
