Hong Kong - a great warm up for the Asia part of our trip

Hong Kong - Jan 3rd 2010:

We arrived in HK after a very good and comfortable flight with Cathay Pacific – an excellent airline! We were amazed at the drive into HK about the enormous range of high rise blocks – so very different to our experiences of the last 3 months really – HK is double the size of Rarotonga roughly – Raro has 9900 people – HK has 7m people!!! So a huge difference. The drive with Dave, our guide, to our hotel in Kowloon summed it all up – we saw Ferraris, drove past homes with values of US$100m and hundreds and hundreds of high rise apartments and office blocks – all around the beautiful HK harbour. We could not wait to visit HK as we had nearly lived here for 2 years when Ian nearly worked for sister company Star TV in 1994. Sheena had never visited and we immediately felt at home.

Our hotel was on Kowloon side overlooking the harbour and HK island itself and the main business area and buildings – a good view during the day and even better at night. The weather was winter in HK so was about 16 degrees C or so – so cold from where we had come from and we actually wore jumpers most days! We set off immediately to a local restaurant for a proper Chinese meal and had a great meal for only US$50 – very good value – and the kids and Sheena made a good start of learning to eat with chopsticks.

We were in HK for quite a few days so we spent the first 2 days touring ourselves around the Museum of the HK story, 100 yrs of China exhibition, visiting Ocean park and the antique shops in Hollywood Road. We got around on the MTR (tube) and ferry and the cheap taxis (only HK$18 (£1.50) for 2km) ourselves and wandered HK – in both the nice western areas and some of the more Chinese areas. It was all very interesting just to be there and see the different shops and way of life versus our normal experiences. We ate local Chinese food and felt very safe. We had a few chores like picking up Malaria tablets for the next part of our trip; getting our new Amex cards which had been cancelled due to card fraud we think in South America; and getting our multiple entry Chinese visas sorted – as well as sending a few more bags around the world!!

On our last full day in HK we had our guide, Dave, take us around to the more touristy places – The Peak (Victoria), which had amazing views of HK and some amazing multi, multi million pound houses (The higher you live the more wealthy you are – apparently – must be true from the people building a new basement!!) – Stanley Market where we bought a Feng Shui predictor and our stamps in our Chinese star/animal signs. We visited Aberdeen fishing village – by junk as it was a floating fishing village and then ate in the world famous Jumbo floating restaurant (famous in the Man with the Golden Gun – for those of us that remember the movie) and had a delicious Dim Sum. We then trekked off miles to see the giant Buddha – biggest Buddha in Asia – getting there by MTR, cable car, bus and then returning by bus, boat and then the star ferry – 4 hours in total and it was so cloudy/rainy we could not see half the Buddha. But we did learn that Buddha is a female and how Buddhism came about in China/HK. And we saw a lot of HK and how the Chinese live on the way out and back!!

HK was handed back to the Chinese on 1^st July 1997, just before Sam was born! The Brits were given it by China as part of the Nanjing settlement in 1845 which sounds like a very one-sided agreement against the Chinese. Macau was given to the Portugese at the same time. A fishing village at the time, it has grown into a huge port and financial centre over this time – I remember stories from friends who lived in HK that it would not be the same after the Chinese took back control in 1997 – but it seemed to us that it was every bit as it was pre-1997 when I spent quite a bit of time in HK. Ridiculous property prices and lots of hustle and bustle! We even had considered buying a big boat and living on that in the marina rather than rent a ridiculously priced tiny apartment.

We really enjoyed HK – the ambience, the Chinese western mix – the hustle and bustle of the place – there was a real buzz to it – and it was a great entry and warm up for our trip through Asia to follow. We left feeling very warm to Asia and really ready and open to the new experiences that the next part of our Asian trip would bring. Our thanks to Dave, our guide, who really helped make our trip to HK a very memorable one. HK is now one for the list of “We must go back without kids” as the shopping (There seems to be a huge shopping centre at every tube station/everywhere as there is no sales tax!) and the fun life look a great option to try out sometime. (Sorry kids!)