Archive for the ‘Hong Kong’ Category

Leaving Hong Kong – Macau Bound

Friday, July 16th, 2010

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We’ve loved Hong Kong – it’s a mad crazy busy but cool place.  No inch of space is wasted, but one of the best things is it’s really easy and quick to get around downtown as it’s so compact, yet you can escape to the beach or another island quite easily as well…..so that’s what we did today.  We went to Shek O after a friend’s (and local resident) recommendation, which is a small surfers type town with a nice beach.  Its wasn’t the cleanest beach but ok considering the location.  We had our time there interrupted by the occasional intense rain shower but it never mattered when we were in the water.

IMG_6538_web As you can see the Hurricane that is off Southern China has caused the early warning typhoon signals to be raised around Hong Kong but it doesn’t worry us unless it changes direction but we’re sure it’s not going to affect the boat back to the airport on Monday from Macau.

We’ve seen quite a lot of HK in our relatively short time – enough to really like it, but you’d have to have money to live here and a pretty decent job.  There’s shops in every inch of the city, and more shopping malls you can visit in a lifetime.  Admittedly many of them are of no interest to us, but there is an amazing choice of most things, and FAR more than you’d ever get back in the UK – from clothes, laptops, gizmos and everything else.

What’s good about HK is that it easy to escape, and as well as all the flash it’s quite easy to still get that sense of Asia with some backstreet stalls and markets.

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But alas our time has come to and end in Hong Kong.  We’re getting the ferry for an hour to Macau tomorrow and living it up in a 5 star hotel next to the old town (although I doubt we’ll be eating there!).  Hopefully we’ll see some of the old town tomorrow, some of madness of the casinos at night, then chill out on the rooftop pool on Sunday before our Monday flight to New Zealand.

NZ has come round way too early for us and we’re far from ready for it.  We can’t decide what to do, where to live, but at 10am Wednesday morning I’ll be in a wee session finding out about bank accounts and tax numbers!  Eeek!  Never mind the 35c to 3c!  In just over two week’s time I’m spending a birthday weekend skiing with my Kiwi friend’s…..

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Hong Kong

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

I’ve updated this post with the picture below from the second night in Hong Kong – viewing the sunset from the top of Victoria Peak.

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We arrived in Hong Kong after a 10 hour sleeper bus (pictures soon).  The bus was superb with three rows of 2 beds lengthways down the bus.  Unfortunately the roads weren’t super smooth so the sleeping wasn’t the best.

We had an easy border crossing, but it’s a bit long winded and you can tell it’s a border crossing that’s a bit different from normal as it’s like walking through an old shopping mall by the time you reach the immigration etc.  But from there it was very easy to get to our hostel – one metro trip, and 100m down the road.

We’ve only been in Hong Kong for about 15 hours but we already love parts of it.  That’ll be mainly the shopping and we’ve only been to one mall.  It really makes me realise how little choice the UK has for stuff – a shockingly small amount.  So far we’ve virtually spent a fortune on Patagonia gear, Columbia Gear, Quicksilver……loads of impressive camera shops (selling a big lens for way too much less than I bought it for in the UK), computer shops, there’s iPhone 4’s for sale (legit ones!), every available camera lens in stock (and that’s just the small shops on the main drag), notebooks so small you could almost fit them in your pocket, and thousands of bars and eating places.

The only real activity we did today though was eat (two good meals after nothing much since 8pm last night), and see the Symphony of Lights which is a light show performed on the Hong Kong skyline.  Many of the major buildings switch on and off lights in some kind of synchronization so it’s almost like there’ are tens of thousands of synchronized office workers at 8pm each night having a laugh (although I’m sure it’s automated!).

That’s all for now though.  Time to go to sleep in our shoebox (actually it’s not that bad – there’s loads around us as soon as we leave the entrance, and we’re two minutes from locals eating places, and 5 minutes from the waterfront).  Hong Kong certainly isn’t nearly as cheap as mainland China though!  It could be an expensive week…

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I never managed to post this blog entry last night so we’ve been out and about today just wandering around….erm some IT malls (but I’ve kept walking), and we’ve been up The Peak Tram to the highest point on Hong Kong Island.  We lingered around there for quite some time before, during and after sunset so I’ll update this post soon with some pictures taken from the other side (the top right of the hill in the picture above).  We also spent some more cash on food today – our most expensive meal yet at almost £30 for two….and it was only burgers….but it was at the summit of the peak.

PS: Before you say we’re being tight we are eating out all the time and normal meal in China was expensive if it was £8 for two!  That’t the price of a cheap lunch here.

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