Travel report #14
China - Hong Kong
Tuesday March 6, 2001
We "lost" this day. All day travelling westwards, via Santiago and Lima. Then 5 hours in LA, before the last 15 hours direct flight to Hong Kong.
All in all about 40 hours of travelling, calendar time more than 48 as we passed the date line and moved 12 hours west (a net loss of 12 hours).
Wednesday March 7, 2001
A short day as we arrived late in Hong Kong, about 9pm local time. Booked a hotel at the airport to be safe. Expencive but nice the first night. Did not see much, but what we saw was facinating, streets full of neon signs with chineese characters, hanging out into the streets!
Thursday March 8, 2001
Our first task in HK was to find a cheap place to stay, as we planned to be there for about a week. We found our room at Mirador Mansion (Nathan rd in Kowloon, about 500 from the seafront), about 10m2 including a bathroom! The room had a bed big enough for the two of us and room for the door to open or one of us to stand uprised. Our backpacks had to go under the bed. The bathroom was big enough to room one person, able to use the toilet, the sink and the shower from that same spot!! Not much luxury, but only HK$150 a day (NOK 170, US 19), and very central.
Our first experience with a chineese restaurant was not too successful. Ordered a breakfast deal; fried eggs with no bread (!) and noodles that we did not really like. And they served us a drink we belived to be tea, but later saw people using to wash their chop sticks in...;-(
Then we approached HK harbor, a facinating sight! We took the Star Ferry across to the Island and walked around between all the enourmous and facinating buildings. Went up the escalators, one of the worlds longest (!) and visited a park with a zoo. As the darness came, we got to see HK at night - Fantastic!
Friday March 9, 2001
Used the morning to arrange Visa for China and some planning; next year we will try to live in London (!), and we most likely will drop our Africa-plans for now, i.e. we return home directly from Australia in late July.
Took the ferry across as yesterday and the cable car to the Victoria Peak. Facinating ride, very steep! The view from Victoria Peak is unbelievable. So close to the city, amazing how many skyscrapers they have in such a small area!
Stayed up the long enough to get the night view as well. We had good weather and got another facinating experience. HK by night even more fantastic!
Saturday March 10, 2001
As we still were time confused, we were morning birds getting up long before 9 (and that is early for us :-). Had a nice breakfast in Kowloon Park, looking at all the people doing their "Feng Shu". Nice park. Later visited a sience museum and saw the movie "Hannibal".
Sunday March 11, 2001
Sunday is picnic in Hong Kong. This Sunday it was a bit rain in the air, and maybe that was the reason for people having their picnic all over the harbour and center of town. We walked around and looked at all this, people sitting everywhere with their food, playing cards, fixing their nails and selling all sorts of stuff. Visited the Man Mo temple.
Monday March 12, 2001
Tried to visit the History Museum, but as it was in most of South America, we should have guessed it to be closed on a Monday... Had "Dim Sum" for lunch, recommended by the Lonley Planet, did not really know what to order and do and the waiter did not speak much english. We had Indian for supper, that was good!
Tuesday March 13, 2001
Ocean Park day! HK's amusement park is on the back side of the Island and has many entertaining sights. We tried to rollercoasters, a long cable car ride, saw a very facinating aquarium, even with sharks, and the prime sight was the Delphin show!!
Wednesday March 14, 2001
Time to leave Hong Kong. Got on the local train to Lo Wu and walked into "proper" China (or mainland China)! Talked to a Hong Kong local on the train, he said all the Chineese in HK was glad to be part of China and he belived we would have few problems in China because many people speeks English (he might have been correct on the first, but the latter was NOT a fact)!