Hong Kong part 1

So this was my 2nd East Asian holiday in as many months following my return to Japan in February. Emma and I had decided that Hong Kong was top of our "cities to visit" list so we'd booked in the post Christmas sale. After getting the parking centre bus to the terminal in Manchester it appeared that we'd walked into a building site. Online check-in promised to remove the queues, but now we simply queue at the "baggage drop" desk instead. Indeed, at Manchester there appeared to be one check-in machine shared between KLM and Air France. The staff manning the machine didn't seem to understandthat we had checked in online, but didn't have boarding passes. Eventually he ushered us towards the queue. Hopefully I'll get to Silver status this year and the business check-in will await.

The next challenge was to pick up our money. After finding the Thomas Cook booth, it turned out that the money simply wasn't there as they had "forgotten" to order it. The girl thought that they may have some in another terminal so she called and informed us that someone was "running" over with it. We still had to get through security and it was getting close to the departure time. Eventually someone came ambling round the corner and we got about half of the money we'd ordered. Thomas Cook seem to be gradually replacing TravelEx in airports so in future we've decided to simply use ATMs to get cash. We rushed through security and had 10 minutes in the shops before we were ushered onto the 737. 40 minutes later we were over the channel and descending into Paris. Of course, we landed on the runway furthest fom the terminal and when we disembarked, there was actually someone to walk us from Terminal 2E where our HKG flight was to go from. CDG is a really badly laid-out airport. Terminal 2 has 6 sub terminals, some of which need a bus to get between and the signage is pretty bad. Half of 2E was still closed after a roof collapsed several years ago. To our absolute disgust, Air France had completely ignored the seats we'd selected and put us into random seats. The very unhelpful desk attendent said - tough, you turned up late so you get what's left, completely ignoring the fact that we'd pre-booked seats. Thankfully, once on board, a much more helpful stewardess arranged for us to sit next to each other - but no window seat:( - The 777 left on time and we set about the IFE system. Unlike KLM with it's AVOD system, the AF planes mostly have multichannel but are limited to about 7 films, 3 of which were French. Once again, the plan was to stay awake all the way through the shortened night and sleep when we arrived. We just about managed it and 12 hours later we were descending through the fog into Hong Kong. The famous old Kowloon airport is closed so there was no flying through the tower blocks. We entered the country, got our bags and emerged into the arrival hall, completely unaware of what to expect. We had been told there would be a bus straight to the hotel, but we couldn't see one. Instead we took the train to Hong Kong island and bought our Octopus cards (equivalent of the Oyster card and the world's first publicly used smart-card). By now it was dark and we were soon into Kowloon going past massive docks and a multitude of tower blocks.

We got off and followed the signs to our hotel bus. We were the only ones on it and it dropped us outside the Metropark in Mongkok. Something didn't feel right, and so it turned out to be as we were actually supposed to be at the Metropark Mongkok near Prince Edward station... That's just confusing. We took a taxi to the right hotel and checked in. Our room was tiny (as most Hong Kong hotel rooms apparently are) so we didn't stay long and set out to walk to a "nearby" set of recommended restaurants. Half an hour later and we were still walking along the main road which separates Kowloon from the New Territories with no end in sight.



We decided to go for Thai and found the restaurant. Having no knowledge of Cantonese, thankfully the waitresses spoke enough English to take our order. Or so we though. despite ordering chilli prawns what actually turned up was chilli crab claws. We didn't fancy trying to sort out the confusion so just ate what was brought and it was fantastic. We carried on with dessert and bubble tea (tea with tapioca balls) and eventually set about the long walk back with a stop-off at a kwik-E-mart. Our hotel is right next to a flyover and during the walk back I started to get a feel for the area. The British influence is obvious - driving on the left, road names. The Asian "feel" of the place was obvious too and at the same time it reminded me a bit of Bombay with rubbish overflowing underneath the flyover. By this point we'd been up about 30 hours so we finally headed to bed with a full plan for the next day.

We got up (perfectly in sync with Hong Kong time) and headed to the MTR just across the street. The system is light, breezy and clean. The trains are frequent and in no time we arrived at Tsim Sha Tsui which is at the end of Kowloon. From the station we walked the few hundred metres to the docks where we took our first of many journeys across the bay to Hong Kong island on the Star Ferry. We paid the extra HK$0.5 for the top deck. The famous view of the island was diluted due to mist which is very common at this time of year. Amongst the international banks, Calvin Klein are building a new skyscraper and at the moment a giant underwear model is being draped over the building and is possibly the biggest advert I've ever seen. The crossing only takes 10 minutes or so and we were soon walking onto Hong Kong island. Immediately, everything seemed a bit more British than Kowloon. Straight away we were among the skyscrapers: HSBC, the Bank of China and the rest and with the help of our guide book aimed towards Hong Kong park which housed the Tea Museum (in the oldest colonial-style building left in HK), a botanical garden, a Tai Chi garden complete with a tall tower which gave us some great views of the skyscrapers, Kowloon and a flock of cockatoos that happened to land nearby.



Next was the avery that housed a whole host of colourful birds. By this time we were getting pretty hungry so we walked back through Admiralty to the Town Hall, where we eventually found the dim sum restaurant we were looking for.



We had no idea what we were in store for but we knew dim sum is the food Hong Kong is famous for. We were ushered to a table and as soon as we sat down trolleys started appearing, the little old Chinese ladies pushing them were offering us various dishes (that we couldn't see as they had lids on). We didn't have a clue what was going on and just said yes to everything whilst at the same time trying to order our drinks from a menu. Thankfully, all the dishes we had inadvertently chosen proved to be excellent (prawn and chicken gyozas, spring rolls, duck) and we were soon waiting for the trolleys to come around again, but we never had a repeat of the initial double-trolley extravaganza. Soups, more dumplings and the weird and disgusting buns (gooey white puff with a weird yellow paste in the middle) and more kept coming off the trolleys until we were sated. After struggling out of the room we walked back to Admiralty and into a shopping centre. I love looking round foreign supermarkets - especially in Asia and this one was no different. Sections dedicated to areas from all over the continent and the fish counter was amazing - full of tanks and boxes of live fishes - you pick the ones you want and you know it's fresh. After marvelling at the choice, we settled on some on some fresh juice drinks (made in front of us) and wandered around the rest of the shops. We strolled back though the streets to a backstreet bar in Admiralty enjoyed a couple of cocktails in the happy hour.



Wednesdays in Hong Kong are synonymous with horse racing and a trip to the track to take in the floodlit races was high on our list. Sadly as we got there it all seemed a bit quiet and as we walked the length of the stand to find the visitors entrance it began to dawn on us that it was closed. It turned out that racing was having a week off due to the rugby world sevens tournament teams training at the track. We headed back into town looking for another of the recommended restaurants, which turned out to be closed for refurbishment. This wasn't our night so we eventually piled into a kaiten sushi restaurant just before 11. It definitely wasn't our night as they switched off the conveyor at 11 before we'd had a chance to take anything so we ended up ordering from the menu.