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Published: January 3rd 2012
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We're sitting at a hostel in Nanning, China. We arrived here at 9am and were able to purchase hard sleeper train tickets to Hanoi, Vietnam, departing today at 6:45pm. We made our way to a friendly hostel that has graciously allowed us to set up camp in their lobby and take advantage of the computers. I paid them back by purchasing a delicious bag of Lay's cheese and lobster flavored potato chips.
Hong Kong and NYE were insane. Hong Kong is the Asian version of New York City but with more people and less space. After arriving we had a few hours to kill before my Dad and Nikki met us. We headed to the Vietnamese consulate to get our visas for the next leg of the trip. Finding the consulate was extremely difficult in the mass of people, small streets, Chinese symbols... blah blah blah, China on steroids basically. To make things more confusing... being that Britain more or less owned HK for a hundred years, they drive on the left side of the road and the steering wheels are on the right side of the cars. Everywhere our eyes looked they saw nothing that made any sense.
After about 45 minutes of circling the same four block radius we finally found the consulate. After much time, money and hassle, we were able to get passport photos taken and took advantage of same day visa service. While we waited we went to lunch in a busy downtown HK restaurant. A server pointed us toward a table but we didn't see any empty ones. Impatiently, she dragged us and sat us down in a booth across from a man who was already sitting. Space is valuable here and this is normal apparently.
Our first taste of Hong Kong food was a real treat. I finally got the salt and pepper tofu I was hoping to get and it was delicious. Hong Kong continued to treat us well in the food department throughout our stay.
Afterward, we made our way back across Victoria Harbour via the excellent metro service and back to our Kowloon hostel, which was located right next to the Temple Street Night Market. We met up there with my Dad and Nikki and started exploring Hong Kong. We shopped the night market as we walked back North to the harbour and enjoyed the Symphony of
Lights. It's a light show coordinated between all the skyscrapers on Hong Kong island. It's really beautiful and was something I've been looking forward to seeing for years.
Adding to the fun in Hong Kong was the Star Ferry service. The Star Ferries have been running regular ferry service every 15 minutes or so across Victoria Harbour since the 1880's. I believe the current boats have been in service since the 70's. Star Ferries are a regular means of transportation in HK costing only $3 Hong Kong Dollars or about .40 US cents.
After three crazy NYE days we split ways. Dad and Nikki are making the most of their flights home and are enjoying Dad's old Army stomping grounds in Korea.
The train ride from Hong Kong have been interesting. The trip in a nutshell is: Kowloon to Guangzhou (2 hours). Guangzhou to Nanning (14 hours). Nanning to Hanoi (10 hours with train transfers/walking/bus ride at the border?). There are reports of Lonely Planet China books being confiscated in Pingxiang (border transfer) so we spent a little time gluing a fake cover onto ours. Hopefully we get to keep it!
Here is a 360
NYE was a MASS of people.
Also the bathrooms at the KFC were especially gross that night. KFC and McDonalds have been daily restroom stops for us. view of the train we boarded in Guangzhou
http://360.io/H62QnS.
It's shitty and rainy but we're in a great mood as we're looking forward to the next couple weeks-ish in Vietnam!
Feeling the power of the cheese and lobster chips and signing off for now.
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