Advertisement
Published: December 1st 2006
Edit Blog Post
Hong Kong
On first impressions I was blown away with Hong Kong, firstly I have to say its impossible not to be by the truely spectacular sky scrapers dotted on the most unlikely terrain, draped in robes of neon lights stretching as far as the eye can see.
The down side to Hong Kong for backpackers is surprisingly there's not that much to do once you have seen the harbour. Hong Kong costs are unfriendly to the backpackers as living costs are high, exceeding many of Europe's biggest cities. We checked into our hostel and even though it was the most expensive place we have stayed in for a long time it was probably in the worst condition! The food here is also expensive which probably explains the why the cheap option of McDonalds can be found on every street!
At 8pm each evening the habour is lit up from the heaps of buildings on Hong Kong island which have an array of multi coloured, flashing, jumping neon lights and laser beams that are all synchronised with the booming classical music on the habour. The show lasts about 15 minutes and is really impressive, aIthough I wouldn't like
to be the one left with electricity bill!!
For once the cliche '24 hour city' is justified, Hong Kong is true 24 hour city which never sleeps. In the daytime the streets are packed with herds of busy business men/women, touts and tourists. While at night the city turns into one big party with the incredible amounts of neon lighting up Hong Kong. We had one expensive big night out where we met a bunch of expats - one of which we could not shake off.... We listened while he told us his life story.... He was Italian, a major player in every big city and Bvulgari's top model. Hard to believe, while dark skinned he didn't look Italian and certainly nothing like what you would expect for a top model! After listening to his crap for about 20 minutes about his fantastically successful life in Italy Tony asked him a few questions in Italian... he could not understand a word - the blank surprised look on his face was pricesless! Exposed for the obvious fruad he was! Che stronso (what a fool!)
The following day we caught the world's steepest tram up to the Victoria Peak view
point which overlooked the harbour and walked around the top, it was slightly disapointing as unfortunately we left it to the last day and the air was thick with a layer of smog which seemed to interrupt the otherwise perfect cityscape ringed with sky-scrapers as far as the eye can see in all directions.
Shenzen
After spending a few days in Hong Kong we made our way to Shenzen, one of China's richest cities but more importantly home to the infamous Lohua Shopping center, the shopping Mecca!! With six floors it is vast and you can buy pretty much everything you could ever want but its hard work - the Chinese even attempt to physically drag you into their shop!! Frustratingly it takes about half an hour to make a purchase and you must leave the shop at least twice before they drop their price as they start their haggling incredibly high, usually around twenty times the price you actually pay! We even bumped into Mr Bvulgari buying counterfit goods, he amusing informed us that Bvlgari were about to do a raid on this shopping center but we could not tell anybody, oops!
The city itself has
very little to offer, being so close to Hong Kong the only non business reason to come is for the bargin shopping. Most of the hotels here are quite exensive but in comparison to Hong Kong much better value and we decided on staying in a nice business hotel. On our first night our room got raided by the police around 4am, I'm not sure what they were looking for but they burst in, all in plain clothes and checked our passports. Unsure what was going on the only English speaking officer gave is some bull sh!t excuse saying that forgieners in China were not allowed to star in three star or less accomodation. We informed them that they were wrong as China had plenty of international Youth Hostels none of which are close to qualifying! They left without argument.
We only planned on spending a day here which is plenty but we had to wait for 4 days for a seat on a train due to the forth coming two week national holiday! By the forth day I was truely sick of Lohua, shopping and this smoggy city. I was glad when we boarded the train to Shanghai
😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.125s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 13; qc: 73; dbt: 0.0666s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb