Hong Kong

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Landed in Hong Kong at around 4.30pm.

There's a 7 hour time difference so our bodies were at 9.30 am English time and we'd hardly slept a wink on the plane despite, in my case, plenty of help from Johnnie Walker.

From the airport we took the bus to Kowloon which cost HK$33, about 2 pounds and took about 45 minutes.

Our hostel was the Kowloon New Hostel on Nathan Rd which is the main thouroughfare through Kowloon and Mong Kok (I love the place names here!) 2 areas full of bars, restaurants, shops and hotels.

Upon arrival at the hostel they showed us our room which was nothing like the one on the website! They then offered us an upgrade to a "luxury" room for an extra 4 pounds a night which was still nothing like the one on the website but better than the first. I was too hot & tired to argue and, although extremely basic, it was clean & comfortable enough. The shower was cold but that was quite welcome with the heat & humidity.

We headed out around 7pm and dived straight into an Irish bar (yeah, I know) where there was an happy hour on - a pint of Lowenbrau HK$38 (about £2.50) and vodka & coke was HK$29. A good start after worrying reports of £5 a pint!

From here we caught a Star Ferry across the Harbour to Wan Chai. The Star Ferries have been around since the 1800's and take you across the harbour and back every ten minutes with a journey time of about the same. Catching one when it's dark makes pretty much every "1000 things to do before you die" list I've ever seen. The view of the neon lit skyscrapers on the opposite side (Hong Kong Island) is spectacular and instantly recognizable. Oh and it costs about 15p each way.

From the ferry terminal we headed off in search of food. We were intending to get to the Causeway Bay area which is renowned for traditional Hong Kong coking but didn't make it due to the amount of decent looking restaurants en route. We found a place with a number of large water filled bowls & tanks outside filled with live langoustine, crabs, fish etc.. The menu outside was only in Cantonese but a waiter came out with one in English so we had a quick glance at this then headed in. We ordered ribs which came battered with two delicious dips - chilli & garlic and then a soy sauce looking one with ginger, steamed prawns in garlic & chilli (you can never have enough garlic and chilli). These came half shelled but the rest of the shell just fell off I assume due to them being steamed rather than fried. We also had fried noodles with pork.

I'm not a massive fan of chinese food at home but, although this was a lot like what we get, it was way, way better. Similar tastes but much deeper (if that makes sense). The whole meal plus 2 660ml bottles of Tsing Tao beer came to about £20.
The following morning I was wide awake at about 4am (so this is jet lag?) and around 6am I decided to go for a run. Rachael, naturally, was dead to the world. It was quite cool at this time of day, only about 25 degrees! I headed into Kowloon Park and ran into loads of people doing Tai Chi, mainly elderly it seemed. I stopped and watched for a bit but got some funny looks and finally continued my run when a bloke with a samurai sword started staring me out.
For breakfast we went for a bit of street food at a kiosk we’d passed on the way in the previous night - a bowl of noodles & a tray of these tofu style dumplings and fish balls doused in soy sauce and chilli sauce. Yes, breakfast. Was quite nice actually.
We got the Star Ferry again across the harbour in order to visit Victoria Peak which is HK Islands highest point. To get up there you take a funicular, which I think has been going a similar amount of time to the Star Ferries, which goes up an extremely steep incline - so steep you think you’re going to roll backwards whenever it stops. Although seemingly a tourist attraction, between the harbour and the Peak is where the local well off people live (the REALLY well at the top), and you share it with these people on the way. Going home with a bag of shopping surrounded by a multinational assortment of tourists must be strange.
At the Peak there is a Madame Tussauds, an indoor market, loads of shops and restaurants (bring a lot of money or be sure to eat before you set off) and a viewing platform at the very top with outlooks all over HK, Kowloon and beyond. There’s also a branch of the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company for those of you who’ve seen Forrest Gump.
On the evening we went to the Temple Street Night Market which is full of stalls selling mainly clothes and souvenirs and restaurants on every corner/intersection with masses of plastic tables and chairs outside. Most of these specialise in seafood (damn) and we sat down in one and ordered three dishes between us - garlic & chilli prawns (we like them), mixed seafood & noodles and beef with ginger and spring onions. All delicious although a bit greasy and only £15 altogether with drinks.
The next day we had a wander around the shops and bought a new camera - paid about £155 for one that would have been about £210 in the UK. On the night we went down by the Star Ferry terminal to watch a light and sound show they have every night. All the skyscrapers on either side of the harbour and various boats are lit up to the sound of War of the Worlds style music. A great opportunity to go mad with our new camera. From here we walked along the Avenue of Stars which is like the one in Hollywood where they all leave their handprints, the major difference being you haven’t heard of any of these - Bruce Lee & Jackie Chan aside. After this we had a lovely meal in a dingy little Vietnamese restaurant before heading to bed and off to Macau the next morning.

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