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We arrived in Hong Kong around midday and caught a bus into Kowloon and eventually found our hotel. Unfortunately we arrived when a Typhoon had just passed through within 20kms od Hong Kong. So of course it was really windy and raining a lot. Luckily we still had one umbrella left over from India.
Then we ventured out into the town to try and look around as the best thing about Hong Kong is just walking along the streets and looking up! But as i said it was raining and extremely windy, so we kind of ducked from shop to shop. Of course all these shops we were not really interested in as they are all name brand stuff that costs $500 for a t-shirt. We found the largest mall in HK and walked around that for a couple of hours, then went to the tourist info to get a good idea of what we could do while we were here. Then beacause it was so windy and miserable outside we decided to go watch a movie as you couldnt really do anything else. We saw the Happening which was kind of a little sick. Then back to to the building where our guesthouse was one of 40 others inside a 15 story building but that us how HK is, no space anywhere for anything.
Day 2 we woke up for a full day of walking around. We hoped the weather would be better and we could actually see all the tall buildings rather than clouds. We started by walking straight to the ferry to HK island. We took this across and walked around for a few hours to all the places they suggested, mainly shopping places. When took a ride on the longest outdoor esculator, it isnt really that long as there are tons of areas where you can get off and look around. But it is basically for locals to get to work and back as in the evenings it changes directions and goes up.
From there we walked to the street rail tram and rode it to the end. It was nice just to see everything. The tram is a double decker and very skinny, maybe as wide as a car. It sort of drives in its own lane in the middle of the street. Then we caught it back along HK island and got off near the cable car that takes you to the top of HK island for a usally spectacular view of the city. We wernt sure if we were going to see much or not as it was still cloudy but it wasnt raining. The cable car goes up on an angle of about 45 degrees in places and everyones's seats face uphill of course otherwise you may fall out. There were great views on the way up but about 50 meters from the top the clouds closed in and we couldnt see more than 10 meters ahead of us. So we couldnt see anything but we still enjoyed the ride and looked around the place.
We got some more good photos on the way down and then made our way toward the ferrys dock. On the way down Amy found some pants that were made for her so she was happy and we also happenend to walk past a store they sold Kotari ramen, this is the food that Amy and all are most excited about eating in Japan tomorrow!! We couldnt believe so we stopped and ate it, it isnt as good as Japan but it was good enough for us.
We caught the ferry across the bay and just walked around for an hour as we waited for the light show that you can see in the picture attached to this blog. We got good seats and enjoyed the music which goes along with about 50 or so buildings lights that turn on and off. It was a lot of fun. We were pretty tired after that so we walked back to the hotel so Amy could try to finish her last masters paper for this class.
Day 3 we were due to fly out around 6pm for Bangkok so we decided to wake up early and get out of the city and see some of HK other islands, I think HK is made up of over 100 islands. We went to Lantau island via metro and then a scary bus ride on some narrow lanes over some mountains to the other side of the island where there was a traditional fishing village. We walked around that for an hour and got pretty wet in the process. Amy walked around with the umbrella and I walked around with a poncho that also covered my backpack. A lot of the houses were built on large bamboo sticks that were in the water. Then we caught a bus up to the top of the mountain where there was the largest bronze sitting Budha in the world. We had to walk up a couple of hundred steps to get to the top, but of course it was covered in clouds and raining, so we couldnt see much. There was also a nice temple which had a lot of gold in it and fancy decorations.
We finally caught a bus down to the main town on the island where we had lunch at a really nice Korean place. We enjoyed HK a lot as it is kind of part of China but they have there own passports and freedoms that Chinese do not, and the offical languages are Mandarin and English, although 90% of the people are Chinese. But that all comes from the British who leased the island off China for 99 years and built up the island to what it is now.
We headed to the airport and checked in and found a couple of computers to use for a few hours. Then the flight to Bangkok was only a couple of hours.
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