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Published: June 30th 2015
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View From Elevator
So many tall buildings...reminded me of Waikiki. We had to admit that the architecture is spectacular though. The trip has begun...
Hong Kong was Kevin's idea.
Hong Kong is Chinatown on steriods...it is hot, and smells of foods. The temperature was usually about 34 C during the day, and didn't fall below 28 C at night, which made us happy to have air conditioning in the hotel room...And let's talk about the hotel room...after much deliberation and looking at various hotels on line, we settled on the Best Western Harbor View on Hong Kong Island. We felt we were playing it safe with a western hotel, but we found it interesting that room sizes were given, in all the hotels we looked at...and with good reason. These rooms are SMALL. But I have to say it is a very productive use of space. I think the rooms are geared for the average-sized Asian tourist, or business man. They certainly weren't thinking about people our size when they designed the layout of the room. Suitcases had to be stored under the bed, there were only hooks for hanging items, one had a difficult time sitting straight on the toilet as one's knees were right up against the bath tub, which, I might add, is only 3/4 sized.
Fruit Stand
We could identify the mangoes in front but not the red fruits next to and behind the mangoes. Enough of the room...we tried not to spend a lot of time in it.
We found a couple of really good deals though.
The in-flight Duty Free on Cathay Pacific offers a round-trip pass, plus 3 free days of subway travel, for what the pass would cost less 10% at the airport. AND they return HK$50 when you return the card when leaving the country. We couldn't believe it, but - true - it was legit. Even the airline cabin staff were impressed.
Kevin and I love the hop-on/hop-off sightseeing buses, so we thought we would go see what they had to offer. We picked up the Grand Tour, as it were, which included 3 different sightseeing lines and a night tour of Kowloon as well. The ticket covered two days, and also included a round-trip tram ticket up to Mt. Victoria, a sampan cruise and a bay trip on the Star Ferry, not to mention a bunch of ferry crossing tickets for us. And the total for this was about $150 US, for both of us. We were so tired that we passed on the night tour...
Our third good deal was Sunday lunch at
Stanley Bay.
Believe it or not, this is a "fishing village". A lot of fishermen, is all I can say...
London Restaurant at 612 Nathan Rd., Good Hope Building, Mongkok, Kowloon (www.londonrest.com.hk ). No pix of the dim sum, sorry, but the place is HUGE. There were two stories of tables, that we know of, and there might be a third. As quoted in the card, there are over 100 varieties of Dim Sum every day, both mobile cart and menu-ordering. It was really good, and the wait staff were very friendly. Oh, and we were the only white people in the place, so that says alot too.
I am sure shopping would have been good if that was on our agenda, and we had been in the mood...but Paris Summer Sales beckoned. I did get my new watch though...
We can now tick Hong Kong off the Bucket List...
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Merilu Rose
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Hong Kong
Looks like you and Kevin are having a great start on your escape from the cold weather at home. Love reading about your adventures....keep it up!!!