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Sunday : sunny
We decided to stay another night here in Hong Kong, we still needed to do a few things so we notified reception and went for some breakfast. We ordered a meal that included toast so we could use the Vegemite that we bought the other day.
After breakfast we went for a walk along the river, which was through another shopping centre just across the road from our hotel. Seeing how we were staying a bit longer we visited a HSBC ATM at the shops. HSBC is everywhere here, it's even printed on their bank notes.
Along the boardwalk they had the star walk, which must be like Hollywood's one, were the stars put their prints in the concrete. Here they had the handprints and signatures beside their names. Except they were all Asian stars, we only knew two stars, Bruce & Jackie.
The star walk finished at the ferry terminal. We thought it would be a good idea to buy our Macau tickets now, rather than tomorrow when we had our packs on our backs.
We got pointed in the way of the Macau ferry ticket office. And it took probably an hour to walk there. We had to go through two shopping centers too find it. This place loves the shops.
We got our tickets and on our way back to central ferry terminal, Kim bought some nice perfume. At least these shops were a bit more practical than the ones yesterday.
We hopped on the star ferry to take as over the river. Then we bought our bus tour tickets.
The bus tour was good, it was a double decker bus with no roof. It was pretty cool being able to look up at all the buildings. The HSBC building apparently has the best feng-shui in HK, were as the China bank, that was built in a way that it expels all of it's bad energy at it's competitors. It was a good way to explore HK quickly, and to see areas outside the city.
The bus took us over the backside of the island, Near where we were on our first day looking for a hotel. The streets we very narrow and windy for a big bus, we had to stop a few times to let other buses through. There were two beach towns we went by Stanly and Repulse bay besides its name it looked very nice. It's called Repulse because of a battle that was fought there. Stanly had big markets set up too.The beaches looked ok might be alright for an hour or so, I bet the water was still too warm. The houses in these areas are worth $2,700 AU per square meter.
We saw Ocean park which was an amusement park, there were two halves of the park and they were linked by a cable car that goes up over the side of a mountain. There was a fishing town or port that we could off hopped off at, and went on a junk ride. We could of hopped off multiple times along the tour but we had no time it was more of a research trip for next time.
The tour went for a couple hours and ended back at central ferry terminal. Were we took the 25c ferry back to Kowloon.
in kowloon we took a different route back to the hotel. We went past more big shopping centers, I tell ya the streets are lined with them. This one had people queued up to get into all the expensive shops, like Armani, Hugo, Chanel, Prada etc, it was 5pm on a Sunday! crazy! We later found out that they were most likely to be Chinese queuing up. They come in from China because it's cheaper to by in Hong Kong than China. There's a higher tax on luxury items in China.
After stopping off in a couple stores we went to Kowloon park and had a break for awhile. We again had free wifi in the park, and arranged to meet up with Samson for dinner in Mong Kok. He's the fella from HK we met in Vietnam, and Mong Kok is the next suburb from Kowloon about a 3km walk from the hotel. It was a good rest the park had water falls and big fountains around us, but still no grassy areas, people still had to play their games on the concrete. If there was grass it was fenced off.
We got back to the room and got cleaned up than had a tea before walking to Mong Kok. We chose to meet out the front of a big shopping centre. We had to wait about an hour for Samson, that was ok we could do some more shopping. The shop had wifi but we were unable to connect properly, so i had to go up the road, so i could send message to Samson.
He took us to temple street markets for some local street food. We walked past these street eating areas last night, but we just walked through them. The food very was good, the beer was awesome, first beer in well over a week. We had a good chat for a couple hours.
Then we went for a walk to find a place to have desert. Mong Kok was something else, there were twice as many neon signs. Some that would trouble a person over six foot tall walking down the street. At times it felt like it was daylight and I should put sunnies on it was that bright, but it was 11pm. We got to the place but it was so busy 20min wait at least before we could get a table. Everywhere was busy so weird Sunday night almost midnight and everything is still going hells bells.
Mong Kok is the most densely populated place in the world. Also these shops get charged the most rent in the world. So they need to be opened to make the rent. Hong Kong has a population of only 7 million, but has a area of 42 square kms. Sydney has 4.5 million, So HK seems busy because it's small in size with alot of people.
Samson suggested that we take a short taxi ride to a place he goes regularly. He said it less busy too, well out of the busy area. There was only deserts on the menu and not much English. A place Kim and I would of walk right on by. Helps to have a local, he explained the menu and placed our orders. They were very different deserts indeed. Kim had a warm dish with mango and coconut milk, and what tasted like berry rice. She liked it. I had a weird sort of dumplings and ginger. It is a traditional dish it was alright. Samson had the pick though mango and yukult ice-cream with jelly tasted great.
It was 12:30 when we left, the trains finish at 12:45 so, Samson suggested we take a cab back just to be safe. So we hailed a cab and said our goodbyes. Another late night our Macau ferry leaves at 10am so another early morning just to get there.
- comments
Bob(unki) If you have time - take the ferry to Macau for a day We did take the ferry to Macau it was great. Interesting place
Bob (unki) There is a big Budda on Lantau Island as well. Nice ferry ride out on the harbour. A break form the hussle bussle of HK. I know that budda looks cool we didn't get to head out that way. Maybe next time.