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We had another awful journey from Macau to Hong Kong. Poor Vic was stillpretty ill but she made up her mind that she was ok to travel so we set off to the ferry terminal. However, we had all forgotten that it was easter sunday and when we arrived for the ferry it was jam packed and there was a huge queue for tickets! All the tickets to Hong Kong island were sold out untill 3am in the morning (it was about 7ish when we arrived) and the tickets on sale for kowloon island were stand by tickets so we werent even sure we'd get on a ferry! We joined the long queue however and after about an hour of standing with our bags the advanced ticket desk put up a sign for advanced tickets for the midnight ferry! We rushed over and managed to book ourselves onto it. We now had about 4 hours to kill so wandered around for abit before deciding to catch a free shuttle bus to one of the casinos and sit there for a few hours! We finally got on the ferry and after about an hours ride (a bit bumpy for poor vic who was feeling really rough by this point!) we arrived on kowloon island, just over from the main island. We jumped in a taxi and heading to ChungKing mansions on the same island where we are now staying. The mansions are a bit crazy, big, ugly tower blocks full of hostels and curry houses! We're on the 16th floor and it takes about 15mins to wait for the lift! However, it's the cheapest place to stay in HongKong and well known among backpackers.
There is a huge contrast between HK and China, HK is deffo the place where East meets West! They're really overly obsessed with health and safety and there are signs everywhere saying 'if you have a cold please go to the doctors and wear a facemask' 'no walking on escolators' 'no spitting' etc...
Our first day we made our way to stanley market on the southern coast of Hong Kong island..a market famous for cheap clothes! We werent that impressed although we all ended up buying something! The bus ride to Stanley however was pretty impressive. The views of both the city and then later on the coast line were amazing! The beaches all looked really cool although we never had the time to visit them! Later that evening we went to Temple street night market which was pretty cool. It was really busy with a great atmosphere. We had dinner there on our very own kerbside table where we could watch the world go by and listen to the music blaring form the stalls. Vic was able to eat proper food for the first time in a while too!
Victoria peak was a highlight of Hong Kong for us. The first time we went up was at night. We caught the peak tram up, which has been running for years, and got off along withn all the crowds. From there you can go up the peak tower to see the famous view of the harbour and city from the observation deck. However, we decided to carry on up the very steep hill to the very top, the summit of Victoria peak. This however turned into a bit of an adventure! It seemed to take ages and there was nobody else around and to top it off it was getting very dark and there were points with no lights, we thought we might get lost up this mountain! When we finalkly made it to the top the view was disapointing dispite the fact that we were really really really high! I guess it was just to dark. We went to use the public loos but a Chinese woman follwowed us in shouting stuff we couldnt understand, for some reason she didnt seem to want us there! We ventured back down the mountain, getting a bit lost along the way, and went up the tower to see what we should have done in the 1st place! the city skyline and harbour at night is a pretty impressive sight! A couple of days later we went up the peak again, this time at sunset it order to see the view with some light, it was amazing!
Rach and Luce spent a day at ocean World, Hong Kongs home grown theme park while Vic wondered round the city and went up tall buildings to see the view! At ocean park we got to see Pandas which was something we'd been wanting to do our whole time in China, they were really cool and so cute! The park had amazing sea views especially from the cable car which takes you between the 2 main parts.
Of course we took one of the famous Star ferries across the harbour which again gave a good view and turned out to be the quickest and cheapest way across!
The 7s Rugby was going on in Hong Kong and Lowri and Lara had tixkets for it. On Friday night we went to meet them at a bar after the games. We were all having a wicked night and it was great to see them again (as we'd thought we wouldnt until the UK). However, the night ended in A&E as a metal beer barrel fell on Lucys foot and she had to have stiches and a hole drilled to get rid of the bad blood, nice! At least the doc spoke English, would have been a worse experience had it happened in China!
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