Our venture to Hong Kong started with a flight with the most obnoxious girl I have ever met. It was a late flight and we had already spent the day waiting around hotels and airports. We decided to use a Chinese budget airline for the short flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong, as it was only about an hour and the tickets were wicked cheap. However, upon arrival at the airport terminal, our flight was delayed by another hour at least—what for we didn’t know, but it meant being stuck with the most obnoxious girl I’ve ever come across in my whole 18-country trip. In the terminal she was talking so loud on her phone/to the people next to her that literally the entire terminal could hear the whole conversation. She also had a couple of beers before boarding the plane. When they made an announcement that boarding would start shortly, she stands up and literally yells at the gate agent, “Am I boarding?! Am I boarding!?” waving at him. I prayed that we didn’t get seated next to her on the plane. Luckily we had an empty window seat on our three seat aisle and no one occupied it. However, after the plane takes off, this girl starts walking down the aisle asking people if they have a spare seat. NO one wanted to sit next to her, and when the flight attendant asked her to return to her original seat, she complained that the person sitting next to her was mean and didn’t want her to sit with them. Gee, I wonder why.
So she plops down next to this poor soul who was just one row in front of us on the opposite side. Close enough, however, to hear her obnoxious voice non-stop for the entire.plane.ride. When we started to descend she started freaking out, thinking the plane was going to crash. The flight attendants came over and gave her a paper bag and attention, neither of which was necessary—they should have just knocked her out. We finally land and get off the plane (noticing her empty beer cans on the floor in the process) and onto a bus where she further annoys us by dropping her bags onto some guys foot. We couldn’t get away from her fast enough!
By the time we landed with all the delays it was close to midnight. We had to gather our bags still and find a bus to take us into the center of town. We finally find the buses outside and see that there are (gratefully) a few buses heading into town this late. So we get in line, the bus finally arrives, but the driver tells us we have to go back into the terminal and buy a ticket as we can’t buy them on the bus?! So we begrudgingly get off the bus and head back to buy a ticket and wait another 45 minutes for the next bus to arrive. We finally make it to our hostel in downtown Hong Kong at about 2:30 a.m. Luckily the reception was 24 hours and I had e-mailed them from Shanghai when we found out our flight was late. We arrive into our 9-bed dorm room where the beds are stacked 3-high and the room is tiny. My bed has no pillow or blanket, there is someone else sleeping in John’s bed, and there is some random dude out on the balcony sleeping with, presumably, my pillow and blanket. NOT the way to start our next city. So I go back down to reception to tell the guy whats up. So he grabs me a spare pillow and blanket and comes up to the room and kicks the person out of John’s bed and back to their own, but gets John fresh linen as well. I mention the guy sleeping out on the balcony and he’s just like “oh, don’t worry about him.” !?
So anyways, I took a shower in our attached bathroom cause it had been ages and I didn’t care if it woke anyone as they stole our bedding and bed and conked out for a good night’s rest around 3:30 a.m. Well at least I tried, It’s Hong Kong, and the population density is very high.
Our first day was spent relaxing and walking around the city. The nickname for Hong Kong is “Hong Kongcrete” and that’s pretty accurate. Buildings and masses of people and lots of traffic and congestion—not exactly my cup of tea. On our walk around we did find, however, a small Thai restaurant that was actually pretty cheap and yummy—ended up going there twice for lunch because of the convenience. They had this drink made with lychee that was delicious! After that we just relaxed in the hostel as we were still exhausted from our late arrival. Plus, we had to sleep in a dorm which is never restful.
The next day we were able to meet up with our friend Kenny who was going to take us around Hong Kong! Having family who lived there, speaking Cantonese, and knowing the city were definite perks and we were able to have a great day experiencing all that Hong Kong had to offer. We started off the morning getting “tickets” for a restaurant called Tim Ho Won. It’s a small dim sum establishment but it’s claim to fame is being the cheapest Michelin star restaurant in the world! You can tell how popular the place is as you have to arrive in the morning and get your name on a waiting list and then they tell you a time to come back later for your loose reservation. We got there a little past 10 am and there was already a crowd!
We got our names on the list for like 2 o’clock that afternoon so we decided to walk around the city for a while. First stop was walking through the markets as I was on the hunt for some new shoes.
The ones I had been wearing since Australia had developed holes and the bottom and they were particularly unforgiving in the freezing temperatures of Beijing so I decided I should probably buy a new pair. Kenny was nice enough to help bargain for me, and I ended up with a pair of flats for about $12. They were really cute but they needed breaking in as they started to give me blisters after not too long, so I bought some socks to go with them. The markets were fun to browse through, as you never knew what you would find.
When the time finally came for us to head back to the restaurant, there was still a crowd outside but they had finished taking reservations for the day! Before 2 o’clock! We actually still had to wait about another hour until our table was actually ready, but man was I excited (and hungry!) when it was our turn. Luckily, all that waiting was worth it cause the food was delicious. They had the best pork buns I’ve ever eaten, and John decided to munch on some yummy chicken feet.
They also had some delicious dim sum desserts.
After our late lunch, we went for a quick pit stop at Kenny’s uncles place since it wasn’t too far away and he had to grab something from the apartment as that’s where he was staying. Turns out they live on an upper floor of a tall apartment building and have a pretty nice view of the bay.
They gave us the idea to spend the afternoon going to see the big buddha on one of the small islands outside the crowded Kowloon. So we decide to do just that, and would’t you know, when we got there we got a nice discount for the cable car trip to the top of the mountain (where the big buddha was located). I don’t know if it was just a special holiday, or if it was because we were foreigners, but the discount was nice! So we took the cable car to the top and had some beautiful views.
It was getting late in the day so we managed to kind of catch the sunset. We walked around the property and inside the shrine where they had some relics on display—apparently it was a finger bone of Siddhartha Gautama—the original buddha. Not really sure about that one, but they treated it with reverence and heavy security.
After visiting the shrine we walk about a bit more and run into a woman selling Vitasoy, which is a popular chocolately soy drink in Hong Kong. They serve it hot or cold and that evening it was getting a bit chilly so it was nice to have a warm chocolate drink to keep the chill at bay.
We finally made our way back to the cable car line to go down which had gotten REALLY long, as everything was closing and, hence, everyone was leaving at once. So while we were waiting in line for almost an hour or more to get back down the mountain, we struck up a nice conversation with the Australian couple that was standing in line in front of us. As we pretty much had a whole other hour to wait, we ended up getting to know them pretty well and even shared the cable car back down when it was finally our turn. Once we got back onto Hong Kong island we all decided to go to dinner together, since it was that time, and settled on a yummy Japanese restaurant near one of the subway stations. It was a fun and social evening, having dinner with our newly-made-but-never-to-be-seen-again friends. Such is the nature of traveling.
After dinner that evening we decided to head out for a quick drink with Kenny in this popular area of Hong Kong known for lots of bars and clubs. Not exactly our scene, but we went anyways. There were heaps of people out that night, crowded into bars, sitting at tables on the street, or just drinking their booze from 7-11 right on the sidewalk. We finally found a nice, quieter bar on the second floor to have a quick drink. They had wine and some decent beers and a nice, quieter atmosphere so it was a good way to end the day!
The next morning we were up and out to catch our flight to Thailand. On the way to the airport we started talking with this nice South African guy on the bus, who had actually stayed in our room on the last night as well. We had several hours to kill and while the Hong Kong airport was quite nice, there were almost NO power outlets as we were hoping to go on our computers to pass the time. So instead we were actually social creatures and chatted with our new friend while we both waited for our flights.
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