Hong Kong

So we made it to our second destination - Hong Kong. (Before we get started I keep typing it as Honk Konk so sorry if I miss any of the typos)

The flight from Delhi was a strange one - it was a Cathay Pacific flight and pretty much all the attendants were wearing crazy surgical face masks. This was our first run in with what now seems common - people here are really really paranoid about getting ill. It turns out that swine flu has piqued the historical issues of contagions in this area, so no one is taking any chances.

Another thing of note was that the flight attendants had to work harder than any we've ever seen before - we need to be a bit careful about generalising here - but many of the Indian people on the plane were a real bloody handful. No seatbelts, bags in the isle, standing up all the time, it was crazy. One chap insisted on getting a water just as the plane was about to take off, and it took a long time to explain that the lady couldn't serve him straight away. It was our first real encounter with people who speak two radically different languages trying to get by in English as their common ground, making us feel a bit bad as we'd learnt so little Hindi and only one word of Mandarin so far.

The flight was good, it was over night so we saved ourselves one nights hotel money. The only downer was not getting too much sleep, as we landed in HK around 7:30 am. First impressions were amazing, great airport, really good express train into town etc. Our hotel was straight out of the rough guide again (Star Guest House) and was well located in Tsimshatsui, Kowloon. This is a 15 minute walk away from the ferry and the views over to HK island proper. The room was tiny though, but amazingly clean compared to India, but much more expensive.

First things first we hit the sack to catch up on our sleep, but soon Alex realised she'd brought a little friend with her from Delhi. We blame the plane food, but either way it was another bout of food poisoning to deal with. She hit the sack for a few hours and I went for a wander.

One of the things I'd worried about before leaving was whether or not to take my laptop with me... I figured it'd do me good to disconnect and leave the tech behind. After a month of faffing with internet cafes I caved in, and HK seemed like a good place to pick up a cheap netbook to sort myself out. Within about an hour (with help from some sage advice from Martyn) I landed a Samsung NC10, happy days. (Alex says I can't write an entire paragraph about what computer I've bought, gah. Busted.)

Anyway, Alex was still feeling bad when I got in, so we had a banana and crisps dinner and watched TV and had an early night. Very rock and roll =)

The next day was much better, we'd decided our first sightseeing mission would be to visit the highest spot on the island, Victoria Peak. Alex's belly wasn't up for the boat, so we took a quick photo and headed for the metro.



We took the metro (puts London completely to shame) over to Central and headed for the railway. It was about 30 degrees in the heat and we figured after fighting through 40+ in India this would be easy going, but sure enough we were hot and manky within minutes of leaving the aircon. Still we persevered, stopping off at only a couple of the thousands of shopping centers for aircon respite along the way!

Sadly for us the cable car was closed for maintenance, so we had to get a bus instead. When we got to the top we faced yet another shopping centre - seriously these guys dont miss a single opporunity for shopping based fun - and bizarrely a Madame Tussauds. With it barely being a week since our Himalayan exploits, we launched straight up the road to the very top of the peak - and for once we were the only mad fools really trying. The view was breath taking though, its a 360 degree panorama from the many small islands all the way around to the towering skyscrapers of Hong Kong island itself.





We thought it would be fun to walk down, but it turned out to be a right old mission. At one point we came across the mid-level escalator, a great idea for shipping people into downtown from the residential bits nearer the hills. Sadly for us it only runs downwards during the morning, so we had to get all the way down the hard way. Still, we did find some lovely back streets, with shops selling all sorts of crazy dried foods and other colourful places like this one :



That night we hit the town and attempted to find some authentic char sui buns. For the uninitiated, these are a type of tasty savory dim sum, and we quite often fill our faces full of them in the Ping Pong restaurants in St Katherine's Dock and Oxford Circus back home. The guide book seemed to suggest we'd be falling over places that sold them, but to be honest we couldn't really find anywhere. (With a few days more local knowledge, it seems to be more of a breakfast thing, and sometimes only on certain days.) We did manage to find a nice dim sum place though, and tried out some really tasty bits that we hand't had before - but sadly no char sui. One for another day.

The area we are staying is classic picture territory, just as we'd imagined HK to be:



The next day we made it onto the famous star ferry, definitely the nicest way to travel between Kowloon and Hong Kong island.



The views are amazing; we'd already noticed the locals fastidious cleaning habits (for example when leaving a shop, its not uncommon to see a sign saying "These door handles are sterilised four times daily") but seriously they must clean the windows of the shiny buildings at least a couple of times a day to make it all gleam this much.



We took another walk around central, and headed to the proper botanical gardens to relax a bit in the heat. Unfortunately Alex wasn't feeling to good again so we had to head home, but again the views - from lush greenery back to the world of skyscrapers and high consumerism - were fantastic.



In the afternoon I decided to do something a little more radical about the heat, but you might have to try and spot what in the next photo. Alex had another nap, and that night we hit the local town again for some really tasty sushi.



Thats about it for our Hong Kong adventure - we originally hoped to spend 5 days here but the flight dates and times conspired to make that really only 3 days sadly. We've got another stop back here on the way down to Vietnam from China in a month, so we might extend that a little and see some more sites.

So tomorrow its off to mainland China - starting in Shanghai. It sounds like its history and character are very much bound to Hong Kong's, so we are expecting more of the same, and definitely looking forwards to it.

Bye for now!