Week 108 - Hong Kong

We landed in Kuala Lumpur and were through immigration and checked back in, in record time. We had 5 hours until our flight to Hong Kong and headed straight to MacDonalds for a very early, 4am breakfast. Another couple of hours to kill in the departure lounge and we were on our way. 

We landed in Hong Kong, collected our bags and jumped on a bus into the city. We had to follow our progress from Lantau, over Kowloon and on to Hong Kong Island on the map since there were road closures for the protests. Luckily we got off at the right stop for the short walk to our hostel. After checking in to our tiny but perfectly formed room, on the 10th floor of a tower block above a Burberry store, we freshened up and headed straight back out, to walk to the agency we’d found who would help to submit our documents for our Russian visa applications.

We found their office without too much hassle only to discover that the application i’d filled in online for Rhys had wiped itself, for the second time. Exhausted from a 36 hour day, we ended up in Starbucks to try and retrieve some of the information before scribbling all the details we could onto a new form for the agency to complete. We didn’t intend to use an agency but needed a letter of invitation and they wouldn’t let us buy one without using their application service too. Since Russian visas are notoriously hard to get, especially when you’re not applying in your home country, we were happy to have someone who knew what they were doing deal with the formalities.

We were back at the hostel early afternoon but were too shattered to do anything other than enjoy the 24 hour electricity, fast wifi and hot shower, dinner was a pot of rice and chicken from the supermarket next door.

The next day we lazed in bed with a coffee before wandering out to explore the north coast of Hong Kong Island, the business area full of towering skyscrapers. Hong Kong is a Special Adminstrative Region of China and is made up of over 230 islands with four main areas, Hong Kong Island itself, Kowloon, the most densely populated area, the New Territories and the Outlying Islands. Hong Kong has an interesting history and was ceded to the British in 1841 ‘in perpetuity’. The Kowloon peninsula and New Territories didn’t pass into British command until 1896 and the population of the colony continued to grow as Chinese immigrants fled the 1911 revolution and the 1937 Japanese invasion. In 1984, the British agreed to give Hong Kong back to China in 1997, despite it only being legally obliged to return the New Territories, on the condition it would retain its free-market economy and social and legal systems for 50 years. The agreement guaranteed the right of property and ownership and the rights of assembly, free speech and association. 

We walked from our hostel towards the waterfront where we disappointingly found nothing but building sites and no actual access to the water. After a few photos through the haze across to Kowloon, we wound our way back and forth across the confusing walkways that zigzag over the main roads before reaching the exhibition centre where we had a quick detour as Rhys was sucked in by the promise of one of the world’s biggest electrical exhibitions. As we were signing up we realised how expensive it was to get in and left with nothing more than a free chocolate before giving up on a waterside walk and aiming back into the centre of Hong Kong. We stopped at a 7/11 where we bought sandwiches and found a park bench in the Hong Kong Park where we could sit by fountains and enjoy our picnic. 

Rhys remembered an aviary from his previous Hong Kong visit and we followed the signs, passed some caged hornbills towards it. Having become keen bird watches on our travels we were in heaven and spent the next hour searching for birds from the raised walkway. After the aviary and all the walking we decided to call it a day and jumped on the tube back to our hostel in Causeway Bay.

We had a couple of hours to chill before we were due to meet Katie, an ex-BDOer who I used to play football with in London, who has been living in Hong Kong for over two years with her husband Rhys. She met us in Causeway Bay after work and took us out to a restaurant, recommended by her food guru, where we caught up over plates of noodles, beef and pancakes and endless cups of tea. We made plans to see her again the next night before turning in for an early night, still exhausted from our all night journey from Nepal.

We seemed to have managed to mess up our sleeping patterns and despite being tired, didn’t sleep until the early hours (helped by the 3 litre carton of red wine we discovered for £7 in the Welcome Supermarket) so weren’t in a hurry to get out of bed again when morning came. Around midday we decided we should make an effort to leave the hostel and trundled over to the south side of Hong Kong Island, to Stanley. 

Famous for it’s market, we strolled between the stalls before seeing an oil painting of a rhino that we immediately fell in love with and ended up splashing out on after meeting the artist who was keen for it to go to someone who loved it (he was pretty intense). The market wasn’t all that, full of tourist tat, and we didn’t stay long before walking across the bay to the shopping mall and the supermarket to buy another picnic lunch to enjoy in the pavilion, a covered area at the end of a pier over the sea. 

The beach at Stanley, Hong Kong.

Stanley was really quiet and there wasn’t much of a buzz, after lunch, we walked around to the next bay where the only people on the beach were expats or white tourists and then we called it a day, catching a mini bus back to the north coast of the island with the driver pumping the accelerator so we bunny hopped all the way, passed Repulse Bay and Deep Water Bay, two of the nicest beaches on the island. 80% of Hong Kong is unspoilt green mountains and tropical forests, you don’t have to go far from the sky scrappers to find a patch of forest or a beautiful bay with gold sands and turquoise waters.

That evening we met Katie again, this time in SoHo, near where she lives. To get there from the tube station we had to take the escalators, a brilliant method of moving people around the city, a street of moving walkways and escalators stretching for 800m, making it the longest outdoor escalator network in the world, to get people from one end to the other. The street itself is lined with bars filled to busting with expats. We could only gaze in the windows longingly at the people enjoying city priced pints of cider and glasses of ice cold white wine as we rolled passed.

Katie took on the tour guide role for the evening and led us up to the Peak, according to all the guidebooks, one of Hong Kong’s highlights. I don’t think we would have found the path to be able to walk it without Katie. Despite the humidity making it a hot and sticky climb the view from the path was worth it and when we neared the top we stopped to watch the short light show on the International Commerce Centre building over in Kowloon. Before walking back down we went up to the free public viewing gallery and walked a short way along the trail that loops around the Peak with views out over the city, with the lights all glistening below. Since the weather was really hazy while we were in Hong Kong, visiting the Peak at night was by far the best shout.

View of Hong Kong from the Peak, Hong Kong.

That night after leaving Katie and heading back to our hostel, we tried to find a decent local restaurant with backpacker prices and failed miserably, ending up in McDonalds. The whole time we were in Hong Kong we really struggled with the food, there’s a great variety of restaurants but it’s not cheap and there’s not many small eateries that have English menus so ordering was a real chore.

It was the same story the next morning. We stayed up late watching TV and enjoying the room and ended up sleeping in. Late morning we headed over to the ferry port, negotiating all the stupid walkways to cross the main roads only to miss the boat by a couple of minutes and have to wait 30 minutes for the next one. Finally onboard, we sailed to Cheung Chau, one of the outlying islands off the coast of Lantau. Suddenly we were in a rustic fishing village, only 20 minutes from the central business district but miles away in terms of lifestyle. 

The harbour at Cheung Chau, Hong Kong.

We wandered along the waterfront peering in at the lines of seafood restaurants before choosing one of the cheaper options for lunch. Next, we tried to walk to the peak where we’d been promised views of the whole island by the guide book but after walking through a couple of estates, failed to find any sort of view point and headed back down. Rather than rush back to the mainland and with not much else to do, we settled at a little restaurant for cheap beer to while away the afternoon.

Fish drying at the market in Cheung Chau, Hong Kong.

Just our luck that the ferry was they delayed by 20 minutes and we’d misjudged how long it would take us to get back to the Russian visa agency. We were due to pick up our passports and all going well, would find shiny new Russia visas in place. We ended up practically running to their office, worried we might not make it before they closed for the day and wanting to give ourselves time to reapply should we have not been successful. Thankfully we arrived and our passports, and visas were waiting for us. Our final visa of the trip.

View of Hong Kong Island from the ferry, Hong Kong.

We found a chain restaurant for dinner with pictures on the menu, ordered and took a seat. It was only when we stopped and looked around that we realised that every other person in there had hotpots, we were obviously missing out on something special. Walking back to the hostel we passed Ikea and, as Katie had mentioned a weekend trip to Ikea was great for people watching, we ducked in. It was Friday night and it was amazing, it seems Ikea is a hot date spot and everywhere you looked couples were cuddled up on the couches and in the staged bedrooms, very, very odd, only matched by the rows and rows of people outside the Apple store selling iphones at higher prices from suitcases.

I’d started coming down with a cold, probably the only person to ever get sick in a city where they antibac every surface every 15 minutes and after a lazy start to the next day we decided the time was better spent booking trains for Russia and Europe than exploring. Now we had our visas we knew what route we’d be taking to Austria and wanted to make sure we got the sleeper trains booked in advance. As the day wore on I began to feel rotten and we didn’t even leave the room for dinner.

We’d made plans the next day to see Guy who used to be my manager at BDO in London and who is on secondment to BDO Hong Kong, where Tammy, another exBDOer, Guy’s wife, is from. We caught the ferry across to Kowloon and walked along the touristy Avenue of Stars, Hong Kong’s answer to the LA Walk of Fame. Leaving plenty of time we caught the tube up to Kowloon Tong where we were meeting Guy, Tammy and their 8 month old daughter Amelia, for dim sum. Amelia was quite possibly one of the cutest, happiest babies i’ve ever seen and it was great to catch up with Guy and hear about his adventures in Hong Kong. Tammy took charge and ordered an absolute feast, the food was delicious and a real treat for us, especially in a city where we’d been surviving on pot noodles and 7/11 sandwiches. We owe them one when they make it back to London.

After leaving Guy and Tammy we caught the tube back into Kowloon where we wove our way passed a flower market, a bird market and a goldfish market before strolling along quiet streets, blocked off by the Umbrella Revolution protesters. The protests are incredibly peaceful pro-democracy rallies, in brief, it was started by students revolting against all candidates for the upcoming elections being pro-Beijing and subjective to Chinese rule - against the 1984 agreement with the British.

The bird market, Hong Kong.

Rhys browsing at the goldfish market, Hong Kong.

Umbrella Revolution road blocks, Hong Kong.

We walked along a few other markets selling everything you could imagine before reaching Temple Street, the location of a famous night market. We were there a bit early and everything was just setting up, by the time we arrived at the river front we still had hours before the 8pm light show where we’d intended to finish our day and instead took a boat back to Hong Kong Island, just as the sun was setting. 

View of the exhibition centre on Hong Kong Island from the ferry, Hong Kong.

We had one last full day left in Hong Kong and set the alarm to make sure we didn’t waste the morning. Although still not at early start, we were out and on our way to the start of stage 8 of the Hong Kong Trail, the Dragons Back. Hong Kong is crisscrossed with loads of walking trails and if we had more time we would have loved to have tackled more of them. The one we did do was only a short 8.5km stretch and only took 2 hours. Once off the bus, we joined the hordes of people climbing to the peak of Shek O and along the Dragons Back ridge line. The views were marred by the haze but for an urban walk it was still impressive. The crowds disapated after we climbed down from the ridge and we had the trail to ourselves for the second half as we walked through woodland. The path ended at Big Wave Bay, another nice beach with body boarders out enjoying the water, with only expats and white tourists in sight. We didn’t stay long before jumping on a bus back to the tube station.

Rhys hiking the Dragon's Back, Hong Kong.

Having seen a market near the tube when we arrived that morning we thought we’d be able to find some lunch but a quick explore showed it was just fresh fruit and veg and uncooked tofu. Instead, we boarded a two storey tram that trundled at a very slow speed, stopping at every traffic light, back to Victoria Park and Causeway Bay. 

That evening we caught the tube over to the iconic Bank of China building where we’d heard there was a free viewing platform on the 43rd floor open until 18:00. We got there at 17:04, it closed at 17:00. Disappointed and at a loss with what to do with ourselves until the 8pm light show, we ended up walking along the ferry piers and stumbling across a British bar, selling all manner of ciders. Having not spent anything all day we were sucked in and spent a blissful hour or two sitting on the steps overlooking the water with a cider in hand as the sun set and the lights of the city started turning on. Eventually, we decided it was time to go and jumped on a ferry over to Kowloon where we perched for the light show. Although it wasn’t overly spectacular, it was so atmospheric to be out, sitting on the pier watching the city lights and we had a brilliant night. 

Kowloon at dusk from the Hong Kong Island ferry pier, Hong Kong.

Rhys waiting for the Symphony of Lights show at the pier in Kowloon, Hong Kong.

We ended the night back at Temple Street night market. We’d hoped to be able to find cheap street food but again failed miserably and ended up eating really bizarre and not overly enjoyable chicken from a random local restaurant before tubing back to ours.

We left Hong Kong the next day. Just before lunch we took the tube to the Chinese border and entered the town of Shenzhen. We’d left ourselves way more time than we needed incase there were queues at the border and ended up wandering around a cheap shopping mall wasting time - definitely the place to go to buy fakes if you live in Hong Kong. We found a chain restaurant for lunch and bought snacks for the train before entering the waiting area where we had another couple of hours before boarding. 

Finally onboard the train we were blown away, we’d treated ourselves to soft sleepers and had a four bed cabin with lace curtains, a power point, pillows and duvets and in cabin music. For the price, it was a hundred times better than Indian or Burmese night trains. We settled in and for the last couple of hours of sunlight, watched the world go by with the last of our carton of wine.