8 May 2008: In a nutshell, for the first two days in Hong Kong, we seemed to take a lot of showers basically with our clothes on. Because, they needed to be washed every time we wore them because we were sweating so much. What a contrast from always trying to find heat in Europe all spring! We also seemed to take almost every mode of transportation available (except a taxi): ferry, bus, tram, bus, ferry, MTR/underground/metro, gondola, bus and ferry. By the way, like in London, they don’t call their “underground/metro” a “subway”. A “subway” is an underground tunnel that you walk down into to get to the other side of the street without having to get run over. Here are the rest of the details:
I heard that Hong Kong was a 24 hour town, but apparently not true with the airport. Because our plane landed at 2am, public transportation was not operating at that hour. Finally, we found a bus that was going into town, and it was free. I thought the price was great. I didn’t find out until we were on it that it was actually as shuttle provided by the airline because of the hour that we landed. So, that made more sense. Going into town, the bus was to make several stops. I had no idea where our hotel was except it was on Nathan Road. But Nathan Road was apparently a really big road. Luckily, a couple from Hong Kong that we befriended at the hotel the night before pointed out that the bus was about to pass by our hotel. She spoke to the driver in Chinese for us, and got him to stop right there, instead of making us get off at the stop down the street, where we would have had to get a taxi back the other way. The guy at the reception desk at our hotel was surprised to see us checking-in at around 5am. (Yes, it took us almost 3 hours to get off the plane, get our luggage, go through immigration and get on the bus into town.) I thought the hotel’s web site boasted remodeled rooms and 43 inch plasma TVs. Our room had nice décor, but was slightly worn and no plasma TV. But, we were too tired to deal with it. And anyway, we weren’t there to watch TV. Originally, I wanted a room at the YMCA (apparently not just a gym in Hong Kong), which was right on the harbor. But, they didn’t have any rooms available. In retrospect, we are in a different neighborhood down the street, but it’s not bad. It’s only a 15-20 minute “window shopping” walk to get to the harbor. Nathan Road is a big busy shopping street, like being in Times Square, NYC, but on steroids. There are tons of people, traffic, diesel fuel fumes, and at night, signs are all lit up everywhere. But, our room is in the back of the building, so it’s quiet. Also, the Temple Street Night Market and it was only 2 blocks down. But, I digress…
After checking in, we took a nap, and then headed to grab something to eat for lunch. If you haven’t already guessed, my favorite food is dim sum. I suppose it’s comfort food. My mom, born and raised in Hong Kong, used to take me to dim sum in San Francisco as a child. So, being here is like seeing where half my genes are from, although no family live here anymore and it’s a completely different place than what it used to be, so I’ve heard. It’s too bad that Caitlin couldn’t join us here, especially since we’ll be here for Mother’s Day. (And everyone at school is apparently going home for the weekend, except her… L) But, she’s in California for a good purpose, educating herself in college. Anyway, we were still too tired to seek out the “best place”, but the hotel recommended a place across the street. After not having it so long, I was surprised when they placed the food on the table and Kai pointed to it and said “Dim Sum!” I didn’t think we ate it THAT much! Then, we walked down the street to the Star Ferry and took it into Central. It was complete culture shock walking down Nathan Road with a mass of people, traffic and smog, and we were already sweating from the heat just walking out from inside. We decided to take the Peak Tram up to Victoria Peak for a view of the city. There’s supposed to be a bus that takes you to the tram, but somehow we couldn’t find it. Don’t ask me how we got so turned around because we had very good directions, compliments of my former colleague and now currently living in our old house, Leslie, who was raised here. (Thanks Leslie!) Eventually, we found some signs that pointed to the tram. But, I didn’t catch that it was to the tram, not the bus to the tram. We started walking that way. I try very hard not to look like a lost tourist, but I guess it didn’t help. Some guy stopped us and asked if we were looking for the tram. He said it was too far to walk and bus was a few blocks back. Mind you, “a few blocks back” was that much more sweat, so we were bummed we had to back track. He suggested that if we wanted a view, to go up the building that we were standing right in front of, the 70 story Bank of China Tower. The 42nd floor was open to the public. It was a great suggestion. After cooling down in air conditioning, watching the view, we headed back to the bus stop. We settled into our seats only to find the bus already stopping. Huh?!? I guess it wasn’t that far after all! Once on the tram, it was a really, really steep climb! This is the path that they used to CARRY people up in sedan chairs (and maybe rickshaws too?) in the olden days. We met Danny from BC, a rafting guide who was here coaching a hockey tournament. Of course, Sean heard the word “hockey” come out of his mouth and instantly befriended him. We chatted with him while marveling at the view for a while, and eventually ended up having a drink at the Lookout Café. Then, took a billion pictures looking down at the city during sunset, went back down the hill via tram and bus to Central, took the ferry across the harbor to Kowloon, snapped a bunch of pictures of the buildings all lit up and walked back to our hotel.
The next morning, we woke up late. I’m sure the flight caught up to us. But unfortunately, we missed Maxim’s at City Hall for dim sum and I was bummed. It’s supposed to be one of the best. (Again, thanks Leslie!) But, if you don’t arrive within a half hour of opening, the wait can be 1 ½ hours long. And, it was too late.
So instead, we jumped on the MTR (underground) for the first time. During the past two months in Europe, we’ve had our share of public transportation, especially trains, undergrounds, metros, etc., whatever you want to call them. We concluded that Italy had the slowest/sloppiest systems and Munich had what seemed to be the fastest and most efficient. In Munich, you could actually FEEL the underground train coming minutes before it came, by the wind blowing out the tunnel, because the air pressure between the tunnel and the train was so tight down there! At least to us, it seems to run parallel to how they engineer cars. Mind you, we own and LOVE our Audi! I also have two Vespas, neither of which are currently running. To get to the point, we’ve experienced our share of in Europe, and Hong Kong’s underground railway is even more impressive than Munich’s. It’s cleaner than anything we’ve seen thus far. They have DOORS to keep you from seeing/falling into the rails when trains aren’t there. Signs and maps are clear. (Being a former British colony, everything’s clearly marked in English and Chinese.) And overall, everything’s sparkling clean and very efficient. Aside from the street outside our hotel, which really isn’t THAT bad, Sean mentioned that Hong Kong doesn’t really feel like “the Asia” that he was expecting. Especially in central Hong Kong, he called it Disneyland. It seems like a great “gateway” into the rest of Asia that we’ll be seeing, except maybe Singapore, which seems to be the “real Disneyland of Asia”, so I’ve heard.
Anyway, we took the MTR to a new attraction which wasn’t here when I last visited Hong Kong, the Ngong Ping 360 cable car (called a “gondola” at ski resorts). It starts at Tung Chung, near the airport, and takes you to a neighboring island, Lantau Island, first with a view of the sea, and then the Hong Kong airport, where you marvel over this monstrosity built on a man-made island. As Sean mentioned, the city planners must have loved building this airport because they could shape it any way they want, rather than having to work with what they’ve got. Then, the rest of the ride is over completely undeveloped county park land. It’s such a peaceful contrast from what’s outside our hotel! It’s tropical, lush hills and valleys, and what we hope to find more of during the rest of our visit to Asia. Finally, it drops you off at Ngong Ping village, which has several cultural multi-media attractions that we didn’t participate in. I don’t remember this village being here last time I visited the area. And frankly, it appears to all have been built recently. Instead, we were starving. So, we had lunch at one of the restaurants, a Japanese noodle bar. The village is also right next an attraction that I had the chance to visit the last time I was here, but Sean and Kailani didn’t get to see, the Tian Tan Buddha Statue. It’s the largest seated outdoor bronze Buddha in the world and up a flight of stairs that consists of a whopping 260 steps. And although not ancient, maybe 10 years old(?), I still love seeing any Buddha. It’s also right next to the Po Lin monastery, which we visited after. From there, we took the bus down to the island’s ferry terminal, going past more public park and what looked like some awesome woodsy areas to picnic or camp at, and some beaches I wouldn’t mind spending some time at. It’s too bad that we don’t have more time to explore more of this island. On the ferry, we went back to our hotel, again right at sunset, and snapped off another set of pictures of the harbor all lit up at night.
As our new friend, Danny, and I were discussing the day before, it’s such a spectacular sight, but a shame to think of all the electricity it must use to light up this city (especially hearing of all the coal-burning power plants in China)! It’s also a shame to see all the shops on Nathan Road using air conditioning while having their store fronts open. But, neither Sean nor I expected Hong Kong (or Asia in general) to be too environmentally aware or health conscious, and are pleasantly surprised at certain things. First, we saved our recycling, hoping that we didn’t have to throw it away, something we also practiced in Europe. Fortunately, we found several recycling bins along Nathan Road to put paper, plastic bottles AND bags (very rare), cans and glass in. Although almost everywhere in Europe had recycling bins right on the street, Spain even had compost bins on the streets. Amsterdam of all places (which seems to have a very liberal attitude with everything else) seems to be worse than Hong Kong when it comes to finding recycle bins. Sean, former smoker, also seemed to notice warning signs everywhere about the effects of smoking, and that they smoke less here in Hong Kong than in Europe. Last, I have also found shops that sell organic food, although not anything fresh, except eggs, and they were right there at the MTR station. I’m happy to see that these issues really ARE global issues!
We arrived back in Kowloon that night and decided that we needed to eat. Sean was also willing to check out one of Hong Kong’s outdoor markets. As we found out from looking on the map, the Temple Street night market was only a couple blocks down from our hotel. So, that’s where we went. Again, I went there and ate dinner there during my last visit. All I remembered from last time was that I ate at some “hole-in-the-wall” that had rickety tables and chairs right on the street. But I didn’t get sick, so was willing to do it again. From where we started, there didn’t appear to be as many eating options as I remembered. So, we took the one of two places that we saw. It was a challenge for us to deal with Kai, wanting to eat things up off their sticky table, but we survived. We continued to stroll down the market, window-shopping, but not wanting to get anything that we’d have to lug in our already large pile of luggage that we were carrying around (half of our black suitcase which Sean calls “the pharmacy”). At the other end of the market, we came upon a rather large crowd of people eating. Hmm…OK, that’s where I must have eaten last time! Luckily, we didn’t eat that much at the first place, so we sat down for one more dish and a large beer. After, we strolled down the market again. But, we didn’t fall prey to Hong Kong’s famous ritual of buying consuming material goods that you don’t really need, at least not thus far. We only purchased what we consumed. I’m sure we’ll get at least a few things somewhere along the way though!
I heard that Hong Kong was a 24 hour town, but apparently not true with the airport. Because our plane landed at 2am, public transportation was not operating at that hour. Finally, we found a bus that was going into town, and it was free. I thought the price was great. I didn’t find out until we were on it that it was actually as shuttle provided by the airline because of the hour that we landed. So, that made more sense. Going into town, the bus was to make several stops. I had no idea where our hotel was except it was on Nathan Road. But Nathan Road was apparently a really big road. Luckily, a couple from Hong Kong that we befriended at the hotel the night before pointed out that the bus was about to pass by our hotel. She spoke to the driver in Chinese for us, and got him to stop right there, instead of making us get off at the stop down the street, where we would have had to get a taxi back the other way. The guy at the reception desk at our hotel was surprised to see us checking-in at around 5am. (Yes, it took us almost 3 hours to get off the plane, get our luggage, go through immigration and get on the bus into town.) I thought the hotel’s web site boasted remodeled rooms and 43 inch plasma TVs. Our room had nice décor, but was slightly worn and no plasma TV. But, we were too tired to deal with it. And anyway, we weren’t there to watch TV. Originally, I wanted a room at the YMCA (apparently not just a gym in Hong Kong), which was right on the harbor. But, they didn’t have any rooms available. In retrospect, we are in a different neighborhood down the street, but it’s not bad. It’s only a 15-20 minute “window shopping” walk to get to the harbor. Nathan Road is a big busy shopping street, like being in Times Square, NYC, but on steroids. There are tons of people, traffic, diesel fuel fumes, and at night, signs are all lit up everywhere. But, our room is in the back of the building, so it’s quiet. Also, the Temple Street Night Market and it was only 2 blocks down. But, I digress…
After checking in, we took a nap, and then headed to grab something to eat for lunch. If you haven’t already guessed, my favorite food is dim sum. I suppose it’s comfort food. My mom, born and raised in Hong Kong, used to take me to dim sum in San Francisco as a child. So, being here is like seeing where half my genes are from, although no family live here anymore and it’s a completely different place than what it used to be, so I’ve heard. It’s too bad that Caitlin couldn’t join us here, especially since we’ll be here for Mother’s Day. (And everyone at school is apparently going home for the weekend, except her… L) But, she’s in California for a good purpose, educating herself in college. Anyway, we were still too tired to seek out the “best place”, but the hotel recommended a place across the street. After not having it so long, I was surprised when they placed the food on the table and Kai pointed to it and said “Dim Sum!” I didn’t think we ate it THAT much! Then, we walked down the street to the Star Ferry and took it into Central. It was complete culture shock walking down Nathan Road with a mass of people, traffic and smog, and we were already sweating from the heat just walking out from inside. We decided to take the Peak Tram up to Victoria Peak for a view of the city. There’s supposed to be a bus that takes you to the tram, but somehow we couldn’t find it. Don’t ask me how we got so turned around because we had very good directions, compliments of my former colleague and now currently living in our old house, Leslie, who was raised here. (Thanks Leslie!) Eventually, we found some signs that pointed to the tram. But, I didn’t catch that it was to the tram, not the bus to the tram. We started walking that way. I try very hard not to look like a lost tourist, but I guess it didn’t help. Some guy stopped us and asked if we were looking for the tram. He said it was too far to walk and bus was a few blocks back. Mind you, “a few blocks back” was that much more sweat, so we were bummed we had to back track. He suggested that if we wanted a view, to go up the building that we were standing right in front of, the 70 story Bank of China Tower. The 42nd floor was open to the public. It was a great suggestion. After cooling down in air conditioning, watching the view, we headed back to the bus stop. We settled into our seats only to find the bus already stopping. Huh?!? I guess it wasn’t that far after all! Once on the tram, it was a really, really steep climb! This is the path that they used to CARRY people up in sedan chairs (and maybe rickshaws too?) in the olden days. We met Danny from BC, a rafting guide who was here coaching a hockey tournament. Of course, Sean heard the word “hockey” come out of his mouth and instantly befriended him. We chatted with him while marveling at the view for a while, and eventually ended up having a drink at the Lookout Café. Then, took a billion pictures looking down at the city during sunset, went back down the hill via tram and bus to Central, took the ferry across the harbor to Kowloon, snapped a bunch of pictures of the buildings all lit up and walked back to our hotel.
The next morning, we woke up late. I’m sure the flight caught up to us. But unfortunately, we missed Maxim’s at City Hall for dim sum and I was bummed. It’s supposed to be one of the best. (Again, thanks Leslie!) But, if you don’t arrive within a half hour of opening, the wait can be 1 ½ hours long. And, it was too late.
So instead, we jumped on the MTR (underground) for the first time. During the past two months in Europe, we’ve had our share of public transportation, especially trains, undergrounds, metros, etc., whatever you want to call them. We concluded that Italy had the slowest/sloppiest systems and Munich had what seemed to be the fastest and most efficient. In Munich, you could actually FEEL the underground train coming minutes before it came, by the wind blowing out the tunnel, because the air pressure between the tunnel and the train was so tight down there! At least to us, it seems to run parallel to how they engineer cars. Mind you, we own and LOVE our Audi! I also have two Vespas, neither of which are currently running. To get to the point, we’ve experienced our share of in Europe, and Hong Kong’s underground railway is even more impressive than Munich’s. It’s cleaner than anything we’ve seen thus far. They have DOORS to keep you from seeing/falling into the rails when trains aren’t there. Signs and maps are clear. (Being a former British colony, everything’s clearly marked in English and Chinese.) And overall, everything’s sparkling clean and very efficient. Aside from the street outside our hotel, which really isn’t THAT bad, Sean mentioned that Hong Kong doesn’t really feel like “the Asia” that he was expecting. Especially in central Hong Kong, he called it Disneyland. It seems like a great “gateway” into the rest of Asia that we’ll be seeing, except maybe Singapore, which seems to be the “real Disneyland of Asia”, so I’ve heard.
Anyway, we took the MTR to a new attraction which wasn’t here when I last visited Hong Kong, the Ngong Ping 360 cable car (called a “gondola” at ski resorts). It starts at Tung Chung, near the airport, and takes you to a neighboring island, Lantau Island, first with a view of the sea, and then the Hong Kong airport, where you marvel over this monstrosity built on a man-made island. As Sean mentioned, the city planners must have loved building this airport because they could shape it any way they want, rather than having to work with what they’ve got. Then, the rest of the ride is over completely undeveloped county park land. It’s such a peaceful contrast from what’s outside our hotel! It’s tropical, lush hills and valleys, and what we hope to find more of during the rest of our visit to Asia. Finally, it drops you off at Ngong Ping village, which has several cultural multi-media attractions that we didn’t participate in. I don’t remember this village being here last time I visited the area. And frankly, it appears to all have been built recently. Instead, we were starving. So, we had lunch at one of the restaurants, a Japanese noodle bar. The village is also right next an attraction that I had the chance to visit the last time I was here, but Sean and Kailani didn’t get to see, the Tian Tan Buddha Statue. It’s the largest seated outdoor bronze Buddha in the world and up a flight of stairs that consists of a whopping 260 steps. And although not ancient, maybe 10 years old(?), I still love seeing any Buddha. It’s also right next to the Po Lin monastery, which we visited after. From there, we took the bus down to the island’s ferry terminal, going past more public park and what looked like some awesome woodsy areas to picnic or camp at, and some beaches I wouldn’t mind spending some time at. It’s too bad that we don’t have more time to explore more of this island. On the ferry, we went back to our hotel, again right at sunset, and snapped off another set of pictures of the harbor all lit up at night.
As our new friend, Danny, and I were discussing the day before, it’s such a spectacular sight, but a shame to think of all the electricity it must use to light up this city (especially hearing of all the coal-burning power plants in China)! It’s also a shame to see all the shops on Nathan Road using air conditioning while having their store fronts open. But, neither Sean nor I expected Hong Kong (or Asia in general) to be too environmentally aware or health conscious, and are pleasantly surprised at certain things. First, we saved our recycling, hoping that we didn’t have to throw it away, something we also practiced in Europe. Fortunately, we found several recycling bins along Nathan Road to put paper, plastic bottles AND bags (very rare), cans and glass in. Although almost everywhere in Europe had recycling bins right on the street, Spain even had compost bins on the streets. Amsterdam of all places (which seems to have a very liberal attitude with everything else) seems to be worse than Hong Kong when it comes to finding recycle bins. Sean, former smoker, also seemed to notice warning signs everywhere about the effects of smoking, and that they smoke less here in Hong Kong than in Europe. Last, I have also found shops that sell organic food, although not anything fresh, except eggs, and they were right there at the MTR station. I’m happy to see that these issues really ARE global issues!
We arrived back in Kowloon that night and decided that we needed to eat. Sean was also willing to check out one of Hong Kong’s outdoor markets. As we found out from looking on the map, the Temple Street night market was only a couple blocks down from our hotel. So, that’s where we went. Again, I went there and ate dinner there during my last visit. All I remembered from last time was that I ate at some “hole-in-the-wall” that had rickety tables and chairs right on the street. But I didn’t get sick, so was willing to do it again. From where we started, there didn’t appear to be as many eating options as I remembered. So, we took the one of two places that we saw. It was a challenge for us to deal with Kai, wanting to eat things up off their sticky table, but we survived. We continued to stroll down the market, window-shopping, but not wanting to get anything that we’d have to lug in our already large pile of luggage that we were carrying around (half of our black suitcase which Sean calls “the pharmacy”). At the other end of the market, we came upon a rather large crowd of people eating. Hmm…OK, that’s where I must have eaten last time! Luckily, we didn’t eat that much at the first place, so we sat down for one more dish and a large beer. After, we strolled down the market again. But, we didn’t fall prey to Hong Kong’s famous ritual of buying consuming material goods that you don’t really need, at least not thus far. We only purchased what we consumed. I’m sure we’ll get at least a few things somewhere along the way though!
2 comments:
nice
Did you feel the 7.8 quake? I hope you guys are safe... We love and miss you xoxoxoxo
Love, Tammy & John
Post a Comment