Hong Kong 19th -23rd March 2012

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Hong Kong 2012

So Hong Kong was very different to LA. A slight change in food from burger and fries to frog, pig intestine and snake. So we found starbucks! Not quite sure how chinese food came about in the uk as nothing i found ever looked like sweet and sour chicken and rice. Enough to turn me vegetarian. Well that at least will help with my size 0 plan ;-).

Its definitely a place that makes you feel very poor. Mall after mall of luxury designer outlets but certainly not at backpacker prices. Queues outside Chanel just to get in. More Jimmy Choo and Leboutin shoes than a girl could look at in a day. Then we come to the watch shops, Mark thought he was in heaven. He tried on everything from 5k to 300k all in one day. He decided the double tourbillon was best at a mear 300k. Well lets have 2 ;-).

Hong Kong island is very trendy but didn't like Kowloon or the mainland much. Unfortunately hassle at every corner from indian tailors tryng to sell you suits. We also managed to find accomodation above an indian market so smelt like an onion bahji most of the time! For anyone thinking of going do not stay in Chungkin Mansions. So this has made me find my line with accomodation. Can't slum it as much as I thought. More budget needs to go here me thinks!

Victoria peak is a beautiful walk with a hike around the peak giving some great views but I think my highlight was Dragons Back. Airport hiking guide gave good diections so off we went on the local bus to the other side of the island. Views across both sides on the ridge were fantastic and well worth the 8.5km hike to see. Some great pics attached of this walk.

The other highlight must be the nightly light show over hong kong harbour. Mark's attached video will show you some of that. Very clever and a nice way to start the evening.

Unfortunately the food choices we made did not really improve. It seemed unless you wanted dumplings there was little to eat at a reasonable price. By that I mean food you could identify! What could have been a nice meal- seabass with prawns on wild rice with mushrooms turned out to be a soggy piece of fish with cold prawns, raw mushrooms and stodgy rice. Not the best. Mark "thinks" his steak was in fact tongue, but you also didn't see any dogs around so who knows!

Other sites included Hong Kong Park and the firing of the noon day gun. Both worth a visit. Very pretty gardens and waterfall. The noon day gun is fired every day. It was fired back in the day when the Taipai came into the harbour but it upset a commander. When there was no more invasion he decided as a penalty the people of hong kong had to fire it every day from then on. Seems a little strange but it was certainly loud. You can see from the video mark shaking when it goes off.

Well now off to Thailand. Phuket and Krabi are our next destinations. Blog again soon.

PS Having real trouble uploading videos......these to follow sorry!

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