Travelling Post No. 7 - I went to Hong Kong... Hi-Five! (now reading a bit better)

After leaving home at around 3.10am I arrived at Hong Kong at midnight our time, 8 am there time. The flight was awful and dragged, i got very little sleep as the bloke in front decided to recline his seat, which was nice of him, and this gave me even less leg room than the ridiculous amount they give you normally. When we arrived in Hong Kong, all 27 of us (9 were continuing with me to Australia and the other 17 were heading out to New Zealand). It was a big relief, although the tour operator was late and we had to wait around 20 minutes until she arrived. Then we had a further 45min-1hr coach trip to the hotel.

The coach trip to the hotel was made worse by the tour operator, Lyona. She was quite informative (well about some things but not others, which i'll explain in a later post) but she repeated her self over and over again, but without explaining anything in a different way, she was annoying and her repetition made her boring and hard to listen to. The coach passed by the third largest cargo container storgage port in the world, that's right the third, not in Hong Kong, not in Asia but the world after Rotterdam, the first; San Fransico the second and Hong Kong, the third largest cargo container storage port in the world. Although it was very big i wouldn't be quite so proud of it as Lyona seemed to be. We also drove across the only bridge in Hong Kong, then passed by a couple more bridges, and two trees that were being preserved because they were so old -100years?!?! She was an interesting person just in the wrong way.

My first impression of Hong Kong was that it was different to what I was expecting, there seemed fewer modern Skyscrapers and the landscape was mostly filled with high rise flights, we weren't shown the rich city that is as strong a force in the world's economy as many countries.

The South Pacific Hotel, where we stayed was really nice, I was expecting something a little less modern and a little less.. well classier, but this was a decent 28 storey building with a really fast lift. I was sharing a room with Paul and so after being delayed until 11 before we got into the room (after arriving shortly after 10am) it was bed time. I orginally wanted to stay up and tour the city as we were only there for three days but i was too tired, ill and jet lagged, so much so that I had to be woken up around 3 or 4 times by Paul at 2pm when we getting up to go out.

And so now I eventually start writing about things I got up to, about 3 of the New Zealand group joined, I think, 8 of us Australian lot, and we wandered for about HK island for around three hours. The first thing we came to was a fish and vegatable market (below) just by the hotel, this was more bustling and a little more like what I thought areas of Hong Kong would be like. There were also live fish and fish heads that had been chopped off so recently that they still moved. A few people, but not I, were rather fascinated by this.
















We then wandered to one of the many harbours which stunk so much that I was almost physically sick, admittedly I was already ill and my man-cold was only getting worse, but it felt as though you could catch an infection from breathing, it was putrid and i could taste the air. We wandered along the side of the port for a while before coming to Victoria Park. This was a really surprisng find as I didn't expect to find a park so big in amongst Hong Kong. It was well kept and very busy, there was an path solely for runners and a number of courts for football, tennis and other such sports of which most were being used. We then headed back to the hotel with me still wondering where i had got this idea that Hong Kong was a modern metropolis of glass skyscrapers.

After making plans to meet at 6 - myself, Paul, the two Sams (Aus lot) and Mark (NZ) went to the top floor bar to look at the view (i still didn't see my metropolis) and ended up staying for a drink. Safe to say we were still there at 6.30 and after having missed the meet with the others we decided to go to tea. The restaurant we went to was incredibly cheap, for five of us, a dish each and a drink it only cost around 28pound between us. Being in a different part of the world I decided to experiment upon my choice of food and went for the battered crab option. Although a bit salty it was very nice. After the restaurant it was off to the european thremed bar. Although it was themed like a British pub but there were some very subtle differences such as waiter service, no queueing at the bar and efficient staff. Next it was back to the hotel bar for a quick one before going back to sleep - which ended up being a few drinks and off to bed at half midnight after having a fun, long day and taking the below view of Hong Kong from the bar.















Gotta run now, times up, I will finish this post tommorow (after note - in a few days) and ensure it reads correctly - which i know it doesn't now (after note - it should now) but I wanted to give you all something for now. Safe to say I'm having fun though.