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Published: June 30th 2010
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Spent the night at Changi's budget terminal, trying to avoid having to pay a cab to the airport I took the last train at 11pmish from the city to the airport, gOod thing they have wifi I spent couple hours internetting to get myself entertained. Nothing to do in the terminal quite basic a couple of restaurants and that's it. 4am the counter opened and I checked in quickly to get in to the departures lounge. Tiger airways my 1st time to fly with them, not bad.The flight was abouT 4 hours, I just passed out and woke up when we were about to land. The airport is not that busy and it's huge and very efficient, within 30 minutes I am through immigration and customs. Found ATM, and walked to the bus stop for the city to my hostel,Yesinn near the fortress hill stop.
I found the hostel with no problem got checked in by a friendly guy, Rodel a Filipino expat who runs the hostel efficiently, a dude from NZ was in the same lift with me, he is trying to find a hostel becauSe the last one he was in was crap, in the end he did
not stay, too pricey for him, at roughly $19 US it is steep but for a couple of days this will be ok for me. The room was on the 15th floor of the Continental Mansion, I found out the 4 bed dorm has no clean beds, all used and not cleaned yet so I went back down to Rodel who was very apologetic, turns out the cleaners have not done the room yet, he checked out the a/c he could not make it work so he decided to move us down on the 5th floor, reception floor. 3 bed dorm we are all guys, I met them both but this dude from England is very friendly, named Adam we hang out the rest of the evening together for dinner and having a walk around the area. Slept like a baby. Oops I forgot the Chineses embassy episode, I rushed to get to the Chinese resource building downtown, Rodel told me I can apply myself at the consulate or find a travel agent, I decided to do it myself for cheaps, bought the octopus card and got off at Wan Chai stop and walked the footbridge, I arrived at the
consulate with full of people, I was confused, did not know how to get started, I found some guys helping out the tourists, he made me fill out the form, then queue up to have it checked for accuracy then he gave me a number, 507, damn the consul counters have 4 windows open and it's only at #423, long wait it will be. 2 hours later I got my turn not before watching people shuffling in and out of the consul windows, some are shouting or raising their voices, must be denial I guessed, I got a bit nervous and when my turn was up it only took 2 minutes! the officer looked at my credentials briefly, handed me a paper, tomorrow at 3pm pick up passport, she said. I asked for 6 months multiple because the cost is all the same for Americans anyway, be it single, double or multiple entry so why not got the full monty!
The next day Rodel and Rob from front desk helped me plan out my day, and Adam my roomie asked if he could tag along so we came for breakfast 1st then we took the tram a double decker
to town this city is full of skyscrapers quite confusing after awhile they all look the same, so when I saw the 2 lions on HSBC I quickly jumped off my seat and told Adam it's our stop, so we got off and walked about 15 minutes on the footbridge to get near the Centre pier to catch the bus to the Tram Peak. Bus no 15c we asked around and found it.5 minutes later we got dropped off at the starting point of the train that goes uphill
towards the peak. Long queue but did not take long for the train to arrive and before you know it we are headed uphill on an incline, quite funny it has several stops and people get on and off, it's a challenge to move around especially on an incline!
At the top there are shopping malls and we tried to hang out at Bubba Gump restaurant but the beer is just too expensive for me so we got out of the mall and walked around and followed a path down the hill and eventually made it down then looked for the escalator thing it goes all the way down towards
the pier, amazing.We had lunch and then we split, Adam did some shopping while I looked for a Metro station to get me to the Chinese consulate and pick up my visa, it was very quick, I got it with no problems 6 months multi entry and cost me $170 US! It hurts my pocket because I requested a rush service, well it's $130 for regular service and I needed it ASAP anyway. I then took the train back to the area where I left Adam to meet up again, we went and took the ferry to Kowloon Island, had a walk, it's full of shopping complexes again, we tried some finger foods for snacks then we sat at the harbor to watch the light show which was so boring we both fell asleep during the show, we struggled to keep awake. Then we headed back home our feet aching had a quick dinner and chill and off to bed tired.
The next morning is pouring down rain and for some reason Adam decided to get a perm There is a salon next door,while he is there I chatted with Josephine one of the staff at the hostel, they
are all so friendly and accommodating, and they are all Filipinos now living here, i can see they are trully concerned for each guest's needs, they gave good tips too on where to go and what to buy. I got bored so i went and check where Adam's at, I found the salon and he is still "curing", I sat and chatted with him, the perm looks ok for a guy. We decided to head to Stanley market and Murray house and we can take bus 65 or 63 from just outside our hostel, we waited for bus 65 for almost 2 hours never came! It turns out we did not read the small print, schedule is only on Sundays and public holidays! Bummed we waited for the 63 bus and in the meantime Adam got himself a new phone amongst the small stalls in the shop next to the bus stop. The trip lasted 40 minutes, it was raining so it was not enjoyable to shop and it was smaller than I thought, must be livelier in the weekends I bet, the beach is quite nice though and beautiful houses, a quiet area away from the busy noisy hub
of downtown. We had lunch at a Chinese-Thai restaurant inside the stalls/shopping area, we can't afford the beer at the sports bar but here it is cheap.
Gone back to the hostel, Adam and I chilled internet and then we came down to 7 eleven and bought booze for the socializing/mingling tonight on the 15th floor with fellow backpackers, we found 4 people playing cards, names I cant remember 3 Americans and an Aussie girl we played drinking games with them, a few more people joined in and we all got drunk except for Adam a hardcore drinker! The party was set up by a "Jenny" who left a message on the board at reception but later I found out it was actually the hostel staff who put that on so people will mingle, not a bad idea! We got shushed quite a few times though by fellow backpackers who were trying to sleep, fair enough we finished the event and went to bed.I went back to our room to find Adam passed out in his bed snoring and the Israeli dude is also fast asleep, I passed out not long after, tomorrow heading to Macau.
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