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Published: January 11th 2009
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Arriving in Hong Kong airport was a rather pleasant experience, being confident enough with the transport system to know where to catch the busses, and what bus to catch was a bit of a good feeling (one of many perks and good feelings of re-visiting a foreign city you already know). Despite everything being familiar however, it was to some extent different- the winter weather was a big change to the early Autumn of my last visit. But with darling (though sometimes tacky) Christmas decorations everywhere, and a cool crispness to the air that was not quite uncomfortable, it was definitely well that Hong Kong wore its colder weather. I arrived at a decent hour to Lou and John's new place in Discovery Bay, and got a good night's sleep.
The next morning I went to Kowloon to pick up Alexia from the hotel she was staying in with hr parents. She wasn't in the first time I tried, so I went and had a chai at Starbucks (of which thereis an overabundance on Hong Kong), and had a look around the rather picturesque harbour of Kowloon. Once I had picked up Lex we headed back to Discovery Bay, and
once again I branched out in my new surroundings, with a dinner at Macdonalds...
The next day Lou, John and Jess returned from Malaysia, which provided Lex and I with fabulous dinners and good conversation and complany. That day we rode the world's longest escalator all the way to the top, which took a long time, but also offered a good glimpse of soho as we rode through it. At the top was a bit of a let down, as I had kind of been hoping to first ourselves on the top of a hill with great hills. Instead we walked down a pathway winding down next to a highway, with the sounds of unseen primates echoing all the around (there was a zoo a short walk from the top of the escalator). It was slightly surreal I suppose.
In the course of a week we went to Kowloon two more times- once to say goodbye to Lex's family before they flew back to Australia, and the other time at night, to have cocktails at five star hotels. The first stop that night was to the Intercontinental for ambience and a great view of the laser show that
occurs on the harbour at 8pm. It was rather impressive. Next up was to the bar in The Peninsula hotel called 'Felix', where lighting effects made the wall appear that they were moving, the view was rather spectacular, if only accessile through rather small windows (particularly compared to the whole walls of glass at the Intercontinental). Other than that Felx seemed to be full of rather prententious people (at least those in the elevator on the way down were), and like you'd expect at a five star hotel bar the drinks were overpriced. At this point I also had had a few cold/ flu-like symptoms for a couple of days, so we called it an early night, and after a quick fruitless search of all the bars of Soho, all closed on a Wednesay night, went home.
Another expedition was to the Teahouse in Hong Kong Park. Because we hadn;t made a reservation at the teahouse, we were made to wait for an hour in the park, but it was so beautiful that was hardly a chore. The only slightly disturbing thing we saw were some old local men taking pictures of people passing by the footpath. It seemed
a bit weird and potentially sinister, and yet slightly comical in the blatant way they were taking photos with huge cameras, while the person they're taking photos of were often staring them down. The dim sum at the teahouse was delightful. The tea and the ambience put me in a very chilled out mood, and the jasmine dumplings with seasame filling that we had for dessert was one of the greatest things I've ever tasted- so soft and delicate on the outside, but a strong, hazelnut type flavour on the inside. Very very good, trust me.
One day we attempted to go to the giant buddha, but it was so foggy it was pointless going up, so instead we shopped in tung chung for a pair of plain walking shoes that I desperately needed. This os course added to the shopping at central markets and ifc centre that we had already done in which lex bought a fabulous pair of high heels and I bought some outrageous stockings and a cute new dress.
Towards the end of our week in Hong Kong we had done everything we wanted to do, and because I still felt a bit sick,
on our last night instead of going out we just stayed in Discovery Bay and watched a DVD...
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