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Published: February 22nd 2010
When I found the hotel I had booked into for the one night which was a challenge itself as the reception was on the first floor, quite a nice hotel though and so it should be for HKD700 but I got a tv and there was highlights of the champions league games on even if it was in Cantonese it was ok. When I first arrived i thought i would take advantage of having my own bathroom and so did some washing in the sink and left it to dry as I went out to some of the markets. I'm not sure of the name of the first one I went to as I kind of stumbled across it when I was just looking in some shops but I think it may have been the the ladies Market and then i walked down and to the temple street night market which started just behind my hotel so for once I had my bearings. Bought a new wallet and some sunglasses for a combined total of around £8 so that was quite good as the wallet is nice and the sunglasses are quite good fakes. Running on the next street along are
lots of restaurants and street vendors so I sat down at one for some dinner, I had chicken in black pepper sauce which came on a stick but was actually quite good. I got back to the hotel and my clothes had shown no sign of drying so I hung the tshirt in front of the air conditioning and hired a hair dryer from the front desk and sat for around an hour trying to dry the clothes. Once again I couldt sleep but the Ajax game was on with English commentary so I watched that.
The following day began with further attempts to dry my still quite wet clothes the socks were still soaked so there in a plastic bag in my backpack now no doubt collecting mould so they will probly be getting thrown away when I get to NZ but socks are cheap so it's not to bad. I went back and checked in to the yes inn again and had planned to go back to sleep but my bed hadn't been made so I ended up going back to Kowloon and looking around the electrical shops as netbooks are apparently quite cheap here but I
think it's probly cheaper to get one in the uk although the more high end ones are maybe cheaper. I found a big adidas shop and if I had just been going to hong kong or was on the way I may have spent a lot of cash in there as they had alot of limited edition stuff. I bought some trainers but they will prove to be a good buy I think as they should be better for walking around in than the ones i brought with me. When I got back to the hostel I spoke to a couple of guys from my room. Sam, an American who is in the navy and is on his way back to the USA after serving at a base in japan, and matt, from New Zealand who is on route to china to teach english for 5 months. We played a few drinking games and then headed to Lang kwai fong for the night and watched a few bands that were playing in a bar, we didn't no that the bands were on and the bar was the best of a bad bunch none of us could believe how quiet it
was on a friday night. We moved on and were id'd at the next bar and they wouldn't let us in so we complained of saying that they were being racist and then they let us in but we saw a sign saying it was over 25's only so maybe it was not racism. We got back around 3 and I actually had a good sleep for once, bonus.
The next day I got the train to Lantau which is a different island and rode the ngong ping cable car which goes on for a long way and up into the hills. At the top is the PoLin monestry and the Lantau Buddha, the worlds largest seated bronze Buddha and is quite spectacular at around 60m tall I think. It was really busy though and due to the cable car and the village of shops and restaurants which was built by cable car company it's become very touristy and I had to que for around 45 mins to get the cable car back down. Got back to the hostel and matt and me went and got some food and then some beers on the way back and had a
few games of cards later on we were joined by a german called mario (it's not spelt like that though) and he taught us how to play gamble a card game so we played that for ages but it was quite fun. At around 11 mario announced he was leaving to go to a discotec and invited us along so we did just that. We rode the tram down to wan chai and walked around for ages trying to find it. We obviously looked lost and a local man approached us asking where were going and it turned out we were outside the correct building and the club was on the third floor but had been closed down by the police 6 months ago which was a shame but the man told us where we could find more bars and clubs. Nice guy really. When we got to the area and undecided where to go we thought a good idea to follow a big group of drunk Americans and we went to a small bar but it was packed and quite good really. We moved onto a club and some more bars but they all seemed to be full of
older western men drunk and looking to pick up philipino protitutes which wouldn't be as bad if they didn't hound around you as soon as you go inside bars.
On my last full day in hong kong I took the mtr to admiralty and walked around HK park which is nice and has a huge aviary with a walk way around 20m up so your level with the branches. Then went to take the tram up to the peak the highest point on HK island but the que was around an hour long so I walked up which took around 30mins the view at the top was good but I expected it to be better and I think it's a bit overrated. Again I walked down as the que for the tram at the top was just as big. Then I took the star ferry From central to Kowloon and had some dim sum for lunch. I'm not 100% as to what I had but I think it was a shrimp and pork spring roll type thing, beef and spring onion meetballs and chicken feet. It was nice but the chicken feet were hard work. Then I walked through
Kowloon park. The thing with Kowloon is there are loads of illegal immigrants living there and walking round the streets is hard work as every 20m or so there is someone offering either a taylored suit, fake watches or handbags and they follow tourists around aswell. Today after declining "copy watch" and "copy handbag" a few of the immigrants lower the voice a bit like the crack fox and offer "marjuana ice blow coke" so it's taken 6 days to be offered class A drugs apparently that's quite a long time in HK. Anyway all the immigrants just hang around in Kowloon park on Sundays as it's there only day off and they have no money to do or see anything, and a big fight kicked off in the park about ten men flying in everywhere and the police had to come to calm it down and a couple of them were arrested. I got the star ferry again but this time from Kowloon to wan chai and walked around and saw the golden bauhinina which was a gift from china to HK to celebrate the country becoming Chinese again. Back at the hostel I has a few drinks with
mario and alex, another germanand played gamble again with the first to 100 points having to go downstairs to the 7/11 and buy the next drinks. Matt joined in when he got back and then we played a drinking game called landmines which is quickly becoming my favourite thing we were joined shortly by 3 American girls but they were heading out we almost went with them but wisely decided against it. At around 1ish we were pretty drunk and a Korean girl came out of her room and asked us to keep the noise down we tried to play quietly but landmines is best played loudly so we went and hadone last dink outside the 7/11 and got some potato chips and then went to bed.
Today I packed my bag up and went to the train station where you can check in luggage before you go to the airport so that means I don't have to lug it around the city with me. Bonus. Then I found a
wifi hotspot which they have dotted all over in HK and i've been sat doing this for around 90 mins. Think I will go and spend the last of
my HKD on some cheap food and a drink as I only have coins left and don't really want to get some more cash from the machine just to waste it in 2 hrs. Flying to Auckland in around 3hrs and arrive around 11 in the morning local time I think the flights another 11hrs longer than I thought it was hopefully I'll sleep this time though. I've loved hong kong and would definately come back but not at Chinese new year as it just gets to busy and as a result I've not done everything that I planned but never mind I've met some nice people and it's been good fun nevertheless.
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Heather
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Hong Kong sounds great!
Thanks for making Hong Kong sound so interesting! I can't wait to go! Keep up the detailed posting! http://www.dirtyhippies.blogspot.com