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I said goodbye to Ange and then toddled off to the train station. Even at peak commuter hour, the trains aren't anywhere to the capacity that the London tubes are, which was quite a nice treat - no need to worry about smacking someone with my backpack as I turn around.
After check-in was complete and I'd spent the mandatory time waiting at the gate, we boarded the plane. Expectations were not high considering the previous couple of Qantas flights that I'd experienced.
Everything was going reasonably well until I decided to put my seat back into a reclining position and it got shoved back up just as quickly. The guy in front of me also had his seat in the reclining position so my only real option was to put the seat back. The were murmours of "how selfish", which I progressed to ignore. There was the temptation to tell that if they had any complaints, perhaps the should talk to the CEO of Qantas about the seats, or not be so tight and pay for extra seating in one of the other cabins - but I kept stum.
I managed to watch two and three quarter films before they turned off the entertainment system to commence landing.
It was a stifling 30 degrees when I arrived at 6pm (and about a million percent humidity). I probably would have enjoyed it a bit more if I wasn't wearing jeans, 20kgs on my back and another 9 kgs on my front.
The train system seems fairly efficient and even though I had to change a couple of times, I arrived at the correct station safely.
Unfortunately, that's where things started to take a turn for the worse. My "hotel" was on the ninth floor of a building that didn't have any clear entrances. It was about this time that I discovered that in the ex-british colony, not everyone spoke English. Normally I wouldn't make this assumption, but for some reason I had decided that either English or at least Mandarin and English were the norm.
Eventually I made it to the "business hotel" - speech marks are being used, because my definition of a hotel and their definition are two totally different things. The reception was a little Chinese lady's hallway. I told them I had a reservation but she didn't speak English and her daughter spoke only a few words more than her. Apparently they didn't have a room and the little lady spent time running round trying to find me a room. I couldn't figure out what the issue was because my name was clearly marked on their register. I then had to join in the running around antics (need I remind you, this whole time I had my backpack - 20kgs - on my back). This wasn't a joyful experience as it involved up and downstairs and going around the warren like building.
It turned out that some sod had turned up and seen my name and told the people that HE was Deborah Murray. I was fuming, I didn't understand why they didn't just chuck him out of the room, even if he had gone out!!
The Lady found me a room, but it was a guesthouse and seemed to be a downgrade from what I was expecting - it was essentially a dorm room to myself. By this put the green monster came out and I began swearing out of sheer frustration. However I had absolutely no choice because I didn't want to be traipsing around HK on 30 degree heat trying to find a room.
After distressing, I changed clothes and went in search of food - well this wasn't really in search, because I was going to go to the KFC that was just about directly opposite the place I was staying.
Bedtime - Although I was tired, it wasn't going to be an easy night - the stupid air conditioning unit was making a clonk clonk clonk noise ever other second and even with ear plugs I couldn't block out the noise. The pillows where the crappiest, hardest highest pillows I've ever had. They also had one of those dips to support your neck and head - the issue with these is that not everybody's heads are the same size and the distance between my head and shoulder is significantly different to that of say Shaquil O'Neal's.
So after getting barely any sleep, I got up around six-ish with an exceptionally stiff neck and started to organise to go meet my parents who were due in first thing in the morning.
The Royal Plaza Hotel is in stark contrast to the Free Wilson Guesthouse. The lobby was huge and it's polished marble everywhere.
I asked about checking in and got ushered up to the Executive area for check in, however as it was barely after 7am, the room was not ready and I sat down to wait for my parents and the room. The lady in the executive area asked if I could wait down stairs and I think this may have had something to do with my attire - scrappy old combat shorts and an even scrappier tank top - seriously it's 25 degrees and it's barely morning, formal attire was never an option (I also had to walk for eight blocks with my back packs).
So now, I'm sitting and waiting - I checked the flight schedule and it appears that ma & pa's flight was delayed by over an hour so hopefully by the time they turn up, the room will be ready and I can't wait to see it - it's going to be extremely posh. Am just lucky I'm not paying for it!!
Parents eventually arrive and we check into our room - not quite as fancy as the rest of the hotel, but it was a million times better than the last place.
Once everyone was sorted, we began our epic walking session. It's a standard measure with the Parents, walking for hours on end and my feet were not completely prepared for the experience.
The weather was stifling - 10am and it was already 28 and muggy as hell, but I'd rather be hot than cold (someone needs to remind me why I want to go to Russia!!).
We walked the length of Nathan Road with the occasional stop in an air conditioned facility to get some relief from the heat.
Next on the cards was an hour long boat ride around the harbour. We'd managed to time the trip with the opening day of the Hong Kong Sailing Club's season, so all the little sailing boats (and some not so small) were out in force racing around a set course.
The skyline of Hong Kong is amazing - the buildings just about reach up to the gods and there's lots of brightly lit signs and lots of sparkling glass buildings.
The boat journey started and finished on the Kowloon side, after it's completion we got the tube/MTR/metro thingy to Hong Kong island and went for a wee wander around the Ifc shopping mall.
Exhaustion finally kicked in so we headed back to the hotel to freshen up. By this stage, my feet were screaming at me and I was pondering if I'd made the correction shoe decision. Unfortunately my shoe collection is limited to a pair of flip-flops, a pair of convers-y type boots and hiking boots.
Dinner was had in the local food court in the shopping mall attached to the hotel. Pork Katsu curry for 2.80 pounds - you can't go wrong and there was enough rice to feed Lesotho for a day.
The time difference was starting to kick in for the parents so back to the hotel and they passed out before 8.30.
Sunday morning we were all up fairly early and headed out for a walk along around the northern part of Hong Kong Island.
It started near the medicine streets, which were essentially lots of dried stuff. There was also huge amounts of dried fish stuffs - shrimps, various fish, starfish, octopus and squid. The abundance of these goods didn't suit my nose very much and I had to walk quickly past a couple of the shops.
I was in charge of the map and guided walk, unfortunately we ended up overshooting one turn by six or so blocks so we had to do some back tracking. There was a reason for the error though - there was a great sodding tractor in the middle of the street so it didn't even look like a street.
Next our journey took us up Hollywood road, the oldest street in Hong Kong. We had a quick look in one of the Temples dedicated to Literature and War (Man and Wu in Cantonese). Then there was the fabulous street with a zillion antiques and nik-naks on it. If you had plenty of time and money, you'd have fun here.
Carrying on, we turned onto the longest escalator in the World, at 800 metres and it takes 20 mins from bottom to top. This is slightly deceiving since it is actually multiple little escalators that make up the big on.
It goes through Soho, which is ex-pat central - with stacks of bars and flash restaurants full of punters out and about on their day off.
We meandered further down the road, through the clubbing district to come out where all the wonderfully expensive shops were. I called into Marks & Sparks and it's exactly the same as the ones in London except the food hall wasn't very exciting.
We then took the tube to Causeway Bay to go and check out Victoria Park and so I could hopefully rest my weary feet for five minutes.
At this point I would have been happy to head back to the hotel and go for a bit of R & R in the pool, but the parents wanted to persevere with some sightseeing, so we jumped on a tram. This took us all the way back to where we'd walked this morning - I was not a happy camper. In the parents' words "it's a different view" - argh! It wasn't so bad but I was looking forward to getting back.
With the tram journey finished (eventually - we had to wait 20 mins at the end of the line for it to start again), we hopped back on the MTR and headed back to the hotel.
The pool was fab - underwater music, not a bad temperature and there was a Jacuzzi as well. The changing rooms were also on a grand scale with a steam room, sauna and multi-headed power showers. I could have stayed in there forever but we were meant to be going out to watch the Symphony Light show down on the harbour.
Having got down to the harbour a bit early we ducked into Sogo department store for a wee nosey and some din-dins (that's dinner, not a bad spelling of dim sums).
The light show was spectacularly tacky, but equally wonderful - there was multiple diff coloured lights as well as lasers. It lasted for about twenty minutes and included around eight or nine different sky scrapers.
I'd hate to see who has to pay the power bill for it.
Monday morning, saw us packing up our things and getting a taxi to the new hotel. I was paired up with Mum and Dad was paired up with a Danish guy called Chane. Mum wanted to share with Dad so I offered to share with the other guy.
After we dumped our bags we decided to go over to Aberdeen, which is a fishing "village" where they have sampans that you can go for rides in.
After sorting out the confusion over the train tickets (apparently mine had expired because it was only three days and not 72 hours) and realising that we weren't allowed to use the tickets on the buses (which we'd done yesterday), we were eventually on our way.
The bus ride was an hour or so - more because of traffic rather than distance. A little old lady was trying to convince us to go in her sampan, but none of us were actually particularly interested in going in one.
Apart from looking at the trawlers and sampans, there wasn't a huge amount to do there - it was kind of quaint, but if you missed it on a trip to Hong Kong, it wouldn't be the end of the world.
We had lunch in a very local looking restaurant and only one guy could speak English. Having said that, when I slightly changed the set dish, I did actually get what I wanted, so that was a bonus. The staff had a wee giggle at me, because I was eating straight from the serving dish rather than putting it on the very small plate. I wasn't actually sharing the food, so I didn't see the point in wasting the extra dishes.
Next, we headed for the Hong Kong Museum, where we had a look at the exhibits from pre-historic man through to the handing over of HK from the Brits to the Chinese in 1997. It was a very good museum, but we were short on time so had to leave in a rush.
The nearest tube stop was ages away so I suggested a cab, but sod's law struck again and there were no empty ones about - this may have been to do with it being rush hour traffic and pissing it down with rain. We ended up walking the whole way and made it back to the hotel with a couple of minutes to spare for the introduction meeting for the tour.
Our tour leader's name is Bing (Ice in mandarin - very handy to know) and the group is made up of Lesley (Scot) & her husband Stuart (Eng), Di & Michael (USA), Chane (Dane), brother and sister Damon and Liza (Kiwis), Sue (Eng), Chris (Aussie), Ma, Pa and me.
It was the longest meeting in history - this is because Bing had to ensure that he got everything correct word for word.
Afterwards, I made my excuses about not wanting dinner and went to stock up on western food for the trip as well as have some kfc since I wasn't going to get any possibly until I got back to the UK. (by the way this wasn't going to be the case - every place we were at for the next several days had at least one kfc and McD's).
Our starting time the next day wasn't until 11.30, so we went for a morning stroll down Nathan Road. This would have been much better had the shops been open, but I guess since they are open till 10pm every night, opening at 10.30am wasn't such an issue.
We jumped into cabs and got dropped off at the Ferry terminal.
It was a matter of going through Hong Kong immigration and then getting on the boat. We all had allocated seats at the back of the ferry.
The weather hadn't settled any on Tuesday so the ferry ride was a bit rough and although I tempted to write up some of my blog, my stomach wasn't having any of it and I had to close my eyes and wish the bad feelings away.
- comments
Diana Hi, Deb, I enjoyed reading your blog about HK and walking around with your parents. Why is walking on trips so hard on the feet? I had tons of blisters in Japan and switched from my hiking shoes to my flip flops and back again - it helped a little but not much. Hope you're enjoying China! Happy Travels!