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Hallo!!!
So after a stressful trip to heathrow (cant people with motorbikes and cars learn to drive?!) I boarded my plane and spent 12 hours flying over to Hong Kong. After getting through immigration and grabbing my bag i found my way to the xpress train to Kowloon station. Having arrived at the station i had no idea what i was doing and some chinese man told me to sit down and wait 11 mins for a K5 bus that doesnt/didnt go to my hotel but might take me near. it was free so why not?! Luckily on the bus drive i happened to notice a building with YWCA like the one i had googled mapped and got off at the next stop. After a short and painful walk up hill with my bags i found Man Fuk Road and my Hotel! hurrah!
My hotel is actually suprisingly nice! I have my own room with ensuite and after reading about how small hong kong rooms are this was a pleasant suprise! i even had a teeny tv! The location is convenient for the evening markets and a 10minute walk to the mtr (HKs version of the underground). It's in quite a residential area, and majority of people staying at the hotel seem to be chinese familys (not exactly great for meeting people).
On my first evening here I went for a wander round the local area and found streets completely packed full of people and markets! I had no idea where I was.. spent a good hour finding my way back to the hotel and just happened to pass a MckyDs on my way! Nothing like a good cultural cheeseburger and chips to start my Hong Kong experience! I was very happy when at about 10.30pm i couldnt keep my eyes open any longer, (figured this was a reasonable time to go to bed and try to help reduce jetlag) unfortunately i woke up an hour later wide awake til around 6am.. it's slowly getting better i sleep for a bit longer, then wake up for a little less time before sleeping again. stupid jetlag. grr.
2nd day i had another wander round the area and the hundreds of shops everywhere before meeting Brian late afternoon and we went to watch the light display at kowloon pier/harbourside. Although he has lived in HK for his whole life, this was his first experience of the light show too! With music playing in the background and lights turning on and off to the beat.. I was more than disappointed to tell you the truth... Not many of the buildings were being lit up, the one good thing were the green lasers going off now and again, thanks to the very polluted air, the lasers had a great affect in the sky and were easily seen! We then wandered down the avenue of stars (Hong Kongs version of "hollywood". We also had a wander round and found ChungKing Mansion ( a place i had considered staying) THANK GOD i wasnt staying there, it's one of the scariest places ever! full of pervy disgusting men, people selling drugs and it just generally being grotty and unwelcoming, i cant think of anywhere else worse!! we didnt hang around there for long...
Forgot to mention before trying some popular street food. It was some kebab stick with bright orang curls all around it, lots of chinese people had been eating them so they cant be too bad. They were like rubber stretchy crap, no idea what it actually was.. mayb some kind of squid intestine - bleurgh bleurgh threw that straight away!
Today (Monday) i met up with Alex and Gaia(sp?), a couple of guys from french canada staying in the YWCA, and we went to Hong Kong Island (why didnt i stay on hong kong island?!) and got the tram up to the peak! best day so far! the peak is beautiful! i'm sure if the air were clear the views would have been stunning, even though it was quite "foggy" the views were still amazing! We went off to do the walk around the peak and walked for a longgg time only to realise we had taken the wrong path and now found ourselves a long way down the mountainside (oops) we had to turn around and eventualy found our way back to the peak after almost 2 hours.. beautiful greenery and so peaceful, definitely recommend people doing the walks around there! After I got the tram down and met brian again and we wandered round the zoological and botanical gardens and then on to hong kong park to see the walk through aviary unfortunately that was closed when we got there :(
I think Hong Kong Island is what i expected Hong Kong to be like! Its appears clean adn very modern and i really enjoyed walking around! The skyscrapers are really amazing!
anyway i think the library is closing now... they keep talking in chinese over the speakers and people are leaving.. all the signs are in chinese aswell so no idea what's going on! (i vaguely remembered reading that someone previously stayin at the hotel had mentioned there was free internet in a library round the corner and thought i wud investigate - go me!) probably blabbered on too long anyway with silly stuff - sorry! oh well you didnt have to read this anyway!
speak soon xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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