Hong Kong

Having spent a day exploring Hong Kong island, we decided a trip to Kowloon was in order.

Kowloon is the home of the Hong Kong film industry, and is also the mecca for most backpackers coming to Hong Kong. The reason for this is that is where you can find cut price tailors, knock off DVDs, watches, etc. We took a commuter ferry across the water to get there on a Sunday and the place was heaving, even on the day of rest.

Having wandered through the markets, we headed towards Kowloon park as it was recommended by the Lonely Planet guide. Instead an oasis of green in the a concrete jungle, it was a flat concrete clearing in a concrete jungle. Not quite what we expected, to say the least. One benefit of going on a Sunday though is that there is a Kung Fu demonstration that runs for a couple of hours every Sunday afternoon. We watched it for about half an hour, before our interest waned. Although I have done a couple of forms of Kung Fu in my life (Lau Gar and Choy Lee Fut to be precise), I found the was an over emphasis on Tai Chi, which I don't find that interesting and most Westerners do it wrong anyway - this made what was being demonstrated a bit boring to be quite frank.

After this we were gagging for a coffee, so we thought we would head to a Starbucks (yes, I know its a monolithic corporation but these were desperate times). Unlike Hong Kong island, where you can find a Starbucks every 30 paces or so, it took as an hour to found anything (which turned out to be a local Hong Kong chain of coffee shops rather than Starbucks anyway). Rather than get takeaways, we decided to relax and read the local paper. Pity that the first article I saw was Wayne Rooney breaking his foot - that Royally stuffs England's chances...

Later on in the day, we did an hour long cruise around the harbour on the commuter ferry and watched the sun set on our fourth day in Hong Kong. Then it was back to Kowloon for a spot of dinner in a restaurant.

We arrived on Hong Kong island at the new airport in a thick layer of fog; however we never really planned to do any sunbathing in HK so it wasn't a drama.

Rather than catch the MRT (the new train line built to service the airport), we caught a bus as it is significantly cheaper and headed towards Causeway Bay where our hostel was located. So far everything was running smooth...

On arrival, we spent 45 minutes wandering up and down a street looking for the entrance. It was only after we realised that it was on a specific floor of a building that we found it. Basically, in Hong Kong backpacker hostels tend to take up around about floor of a building, splitting it into rooms, etc. Certianly different to what we were used to. Anyway, we checked in with no problems eventually.

The next day, I was on a mission to acquire a new camera to replace the one that had died on the Mekong Delta. Dragging Heather along to about a dozen different shops, which took most of the day, we eventually settled for Fuji digital SLR. No more lens envy for me! Having sunk about $600, we decided that it was time to sink a few beers and try some authentic Cantonese cuisine.

The next day, we took the tram up the side of Hong Kong to the top to take in the spectacular views from the top. Unfortunately, the aforesaid mist greatly reduced the chances of seeing anything but it still was worthy of a few pictures with the new camera. We planned on staying until twilight but in the end became bored as we had a 2 hour wait and nothing to occupy us. So it was back down the tram, where we stopped at a noodle bar for a really cheap bowl of noodles (quite an appropriate place to get them really).

Not too bad first few days really...

Unbeknownst to a large number of people, Hong Kong actually consists of a number of islands of varying sizes, most of which are connected with bridges spanning the harbour. One of these is Lantau island, which contains a 3km beach and is actually the island that the new airport is based on (in reality, the local authorities built an artificial island attached to Lantau). It also contains (I believe) the largest bronze buddha in South East Asia.

On the day that we decided to go to Lantau (via ferry) the fog had become worse. When we hiked up the side of the hill, all we could see of the buddha was a ghostly white smear. Any photos we took came out looking as if it was a picture of a polar bear sneaking up on an albino penguin in the middle of the Antartic.

As such, Lantau was a bit of a bust...