Advertisement
Published: January 6th 2008
Edit Blog Post
It was only a week ago when Shannon and I were having coffee in Chiang Mai, wondering how we were going to spend the rest of our trip. We had seen plenty of Thailand and were ready to move on....the only question was, "Where?"....I had been mentioning China to Shannon since early on in our trip but it just didn't seem to be a necessary extra cost at the time....but as our 3 months of travelling became only 1 month left, we wanted to do something memorable....
So, here we are in Hong Kong for the first leg of our journey. A journey that we hope will bring us from Hong Kong, north to the Yangtze River, a quick flight to Beijing, a walk on the Great Wall of China, a sleeper train south to Shanghai and then back to Hong Kong for our return flight to Bangkok/Edmonton on Jan 24th. We have renewed excitement for our trip after 4 blistering hot, humid and smoggy days in Bangkok. Although New Years was a blast...in fact, every night in Bangkok is like New Years!
Hong Kong has been a wonderful suprise! Sure there are many, many people here and a
lot of smog, but overall, the city is stunning. Modern, vibrant and very clean. Hong Kong really reminds me of two cities - one of them is New York - upscale fashion and monster highrises that seem to extend forever. The other city it reminds me of is Vancouver, like Vancouver, Hong Kong is a coastal city surrounded by water. A huge bay divides mainland Hong Kong and Hong Kong Island, so yesterday we took a ferry across the bay to the Island and then made our way up a tram that took us to the top of a mountain that overlooks Hong Kong 360 degrees, it was beautiful (and cold, in fact, this Canadian was the only one on the mountain wearing shorts, most of the locals we're bundled up in parkas and scarves.)
The most suprising thing about Hong Kong is the size. Hong Kong is separate from Mainlaind China politically and the entire region is quite big, about 1100 square km. As well, we had heard there were many outdoor activities we could do really close to the city. Hong Kong also has a great subway system (MRT), I read somewhere it was the fastest and
most efficient in the world. So of course, we had to find out for ourselves...
So, this morning, Shannon and I hopped on the MRT and made our way north to the "New Territories" for a hike in Sai Kung. We were both desparate to escape the traffic and highrises that have smothered us recently. We started out about 100 metres from our hotel at Tsui Sim Tsui MRT Station (entrance D1!), we rode for a few stops and then changed lines at Mong Kok Station, which then took us at Chom Kong Station. We left the MRT and headed aboveground to find the buses. We needed the 94 bus and dammit, we found the 94 bus!! This doubledecker took us winding and twisting all the up to Sai Kung, a nice little coastal town, where fisherman sell their daily catch to the locals. We spent a lively 20 minutes on the wharf watching this play out and then caught the 96A bus (that only runs on Sundays) to the Sai Kung Country Park. From there we discovered that the best hike to do would be a 12 km, 4 hour journey along the coastline and into the mountains.
We were then informed that to do this particular hike we had to take a taxi 8 km to the trail head! Hmmm....Shannon looked at me like a kid choosing their favourite bike at Canadian Tire for their birthday, her eyes pleading, "Greg, I really want to do this hike, I love this hike, it's the best hike in the world!" The taxi wound us around the mountain on a single lane road and eventually let us off at the trail head. At 1:30 PM today, we began hiking. We really didn't know what to expect, because hey, it's Hong Kong, any hike is a bonus.....
You would not believe how beautiful and peaceful it was. I think the pictures will show you what a spectacular landscape they have here. We climbed up a mountain, down a mountain, along the coastline, through a village, across a beach, through the jungle, across another beach, a village, up another mountain, down towards a lake, past the lake and what the heck, back up another mountain for the final ascent!!! 3.5 hours, a gallon of sweat, 2 Mars bars and 12km later we arrived at our end point, just in time to
catch the 96A back to Diamond Hills MRT Station! So many times today, I thought I was in BC. From the smell of the air, to the vast views, to the chill on your skin as you get higher and higher up the mountain. Shannon was beaming all day. So happy to be outside! We had initially planned to make Hong Kong a quick trip, just long enough to get our Tourist Visas and say we were there..... But now....we are like "This is great!!!" And is gets better. When we got here Friday (feels like a month ago already), we found out that there is a place called Hong Kong Disneyland! So tomorrow, "We're going to DISNEYLAND!!" And then who knows?...Maybe Mickey will have some good travel tips for us on how to tackle the rest of China in 16 days...
Cheers,
Greg
Advertisement
Tot: 0.099s; Tpl: 0.027s; cc: 19; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0461s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
cvo
non-member comment
WOW
Happy belated holidays, looks like you guys are having a great time. Nice pics.