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Published: February 27th 2012
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We had packed and repacked a couple of times and knew we were still overweight on the luggage but Col, now fed up with the whole packing thing said don't worry, we are flying with Qantas not Ryan Air, they aren't going to worry about a couple of kilos.....WRONG! £66 later we left the check in desk and that was after talking them down from 3 kilos to 2. Just proves that we can spend money before we start.
Uneventful flight, no dramas for Col to sleep through, various portions of unidentifiable food was handed out and 12 hours later we are in Hong Kong. Huge airport designed by our own lord foster and all very efficient, taxis are different colours depending on distance/where you are going and off we go to our hotel which is with many of the hotels in Kowloon with views to Hong Kong island which is skyscraper spectacular.
Next morning we have booked a city orientation tour which obviously didn't work as I thought we had gone straight to Hong Kong island and in fact we were in Kowloon for the first hour! We eventually made our way up to
Victoria Peak where there should be a spectacular view looking down onto Hong Kong and the top of the skyscrapers, so, there we are thinking these will be great photos, Col armed with his brand new camera and what do we see mist, mist and a bit more mist, as we are leaving the tops of the buildings are just coming into view. Our guide, who could speak more words per minute than anyone we had met before, told us that was great and on we went, break neck speed missing loads of stuff we would like to have seen including Happy Valley race course which we hadn't appreciated was in the middle of the city.
Aberdeen is our next stop and by a very wide stretch of the imagination, it could be described as a fishing community and we are invited to take a ride on a junk with a poor fisher woman who speaks no English but speaks very good money as we have to pay her and she can translate HK$ into Sterling, Euro, US$ and probably Vietnamese Dong if required! By now Col had the hump with an American on our trip and
sat beside me quietly growling.
We then went to Stanley market and that was more or less the end of the tour. By now we were about 107 sentences behind our guide and had lost the thread altogether. Jet lag kicking in meant a snooze before setting out by ourselves and walking all along the harbour front which was full of other people doing the same and a spectacular view.
We head off to Nathan Road which is a huge street full of swanky shops but what we enjoyed was going off down the side streets, loads of little shops, neon lit signs, dubious looking characters which led us to Temple Street night market, whatever you want, they will have it, probably counterfeit but great place just to wander and watch and meet.......
Stephen the fortune teller........
"Where you from?
England.
Ahhh, Manchester Utd, Bobby Charlton, Gok Wan?
Who? You sit here, give me your hand
Ahhhhhhhhhhh, You go on very long journey very soon"
Where?
Home
That be $30
Col....With our baggage issues still hurting our pockets I thought it was
safe from the 'oh look let's buy 3000 of these they would be fun, but no a cunning plan had been thought out for our onward journey and 'we are only here once' who am I to argue!
By now we had eaten, we thought it would be easy to find basic Chinese food but just seemed to be in the area for upmarket eateries, so just chose the one with the ugliest fish in the window.......the jasmine tea was nice! However down the backstreets were all these great cafes, full of people and noise and looked great but we doubted our stomachs would have coped.
Having done a couple of trips on the Star ferries across the harbour in the morning and had a wander around Hong Kong island, we had decided to take another tour in the afternoon to Lantau, another of the islands and to see the big Buddha though you have to be precise he is the largest seated bronze Buddha..... There are reclining or stone or whatever ones that are larger! Anyway, we are picked up by a nice young Chinese lad who in trying to make conversation tells
us how dangerous the new airport is for flights taking off and as he starts to go into his knowledge of this subject which is obviously extensive, we just tell him to shut up as we are flying out of there the next day.
We rendezvous with our guide, oh no same as yesterday and someone flicks her switch and off she goes at 100mph... How not to be a guide. We drive for a while, end up in a bus station where we are meeting another guide who is late... The sin of sins for a guide and she doesn't even apologise. Off we go, driving up this steep hill, with sharp bends with her giving us her opinions on any and everything, followed by our time of 14.5 minutes to look at the Buddha. After a further stop at the monastery at Po Lin we head off to the Tai O fishing village where most of the villagers still live in stilt houses and sell all this dried fish, the various bits on show and the most common being fish bladder... Yum yum, must order some. Anyway, once our guide had her captive audience back
on the coach she went on and on about what interested her and was so boring that Col fell asleep and fell across the aisle of the coach into the lap of the chap beside him, not sure who was more shocked, me him or the bloke on the receiving end!
Back to Kowloon and the sound and light show were on the agenda..... Over to Col
Let's have a meal here she says, we can watch the show from here as well, we sit down with very over the top menus and absolutely freezing air conditioning, it was cold outside and colder in here, let's go she says, I follow..... This looks good she says, let's go,here, she says you sit here and look after our stuff then you can go, off she goes then it is my turn and by the time I get back with my plateful.... Come on we are off, have a mouthful if you must but the food is cold and having sent the girl off with a flea in her ear, we leave the restaurant still hungry :-(. We end up back in the hotel but have the table
next to Jackie Chan.
Last day, need to leave mid afternoon so we take the star ferry back over to Hong Kong and take a trip on the mid level escalators. The whole place is built into a rock face and is extremely steep, some years ago through one of the narrow uphill passages they constructed a long series of escalators, quite amazing and must be fantastic if you live or work at any point on the incline. The weather has been rubbish whilst here and is just starting to pour with rain as we leave.
Trauma of bag packing, most of our stuff is now in our hand baggage which we are trying to make look light, our suitcases are below the correct weight and we just about do ourselves an injury with our hand baggage but it is onward to Adelaide which a short stopover in Melbourne which involves walking about with our 2 ton hand baggage!
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Bill and Sue
non-member comment
Great to read your blog....
Hi Sal and Col Nice to hear from you and see you haven't lost your sense of humour... the world needs more fortune tellers so keep $30 handy for when you get back and I'll tell your fortune... something along the lines you're going to be $30 poorer shortly. Hope you're learning plenty of lessons from the guides and that you and Col are both still upright... keep the commentary coming! Love Bill and Sue