May week in Hong Kong

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We left Yongzhou at 11pm on Friday night, taking an overnight train.  We paid for a soft bed, which is a first class sleeper, there are 4 bunks in the cabin, we had the two top ones.  We found some westerners on the train in the restaurant car and we were pretty excited about that.  Went to our cabin at about midnight as we'd spent the rest of our RMB on expensive beers.  We were sharing the cabin with a middle aged lady and a very old lady, both Chinese.  They are used to not having privacy and lots of noise so when one of them needed to go to the toilet during the night, she just turned the light on and woke us all up.  And then though we were still sleeping, they got up at 6am and chatted quite loudly.  However, they were very nice and we chatted to them in our limited Mandarin.

We arrived in Shenzhen and found the train to Hong Kong, hopped into the crowded carriage and 40 minutes later we were in Kowloon in the shopping district of Tsim Sha Tsui.  We dumped our stuff at the Traveller's Hotel which had the scungiest rooms we'd ever seen, and head outside into the busy city.  After shopping and scoffing a McDonalds cheeseburger down we headed to a quiet bar and I had my first glass of chardonnay in 5 months.  We headed to a restaurant in a back alley and blew our daily budget on the one meal.  Hong Kong is so expensive.  Found Delaney's, an Irish pub, and headed in there to watch Chelsea and Manchester United battle it out.  Found a few rich business men to buy us drinks, a couple Irishmen and a couple South Africans.  Headed back to our grotto to sleep off the grog. 

Next day, moved downstairs to a better room, though later we found a few cockroaches and it smelt a bit funny.  Headed down to Star Ferries and made our way across the water to Hong Kong Island.  From there we took a ferry to Lamma Island, and this ferry was closed in, no open air and that combined with the wine and Guinness I'd drunk the night before made me so sick, I nearly chundered in front of everyone.  However, managed to hold on until we got to Lamma where I drooped into a chair at a bakery and James ate lunch.  Lamma was quite small, a little hippy island, with heaps of cool market-like shops so we spent the day there looking around at the 2nd hand books, silver and amber jewellery and the local arts and crafts.  Headed back to Kowloon and had dinner at one of the many Spaghetti House's there.  Walked around Tsim Sha Tsui at night looking through all the shops.

Monday was spent exploring the rest of Kowloon and planning an itinerary.  Went to the airport and met my parents and grandparents there, heavily laden with all the duty free items we'd requested.  We bought our octopus passes (like multi riders) and hopped on the A21 bus back to Kowloon.  Unfortunately, due to the franchised shops being everywhere (Esprit and the Spaghetti House were my landmarks) , I mistakenly thought we were near the hostel.  We got off the bus and had to walk (with all the luggage) about 3 kilometres down Nathan Road in 30 degree heat, to get to the hostel.  A great time was had by all, as you can imagine.  Once everyone had changed out of their sweaty clothes we headed to Gaylords for dinner, which was only 3 blocks away.  There we were all treated to live music (a bongo player, a sitar player and a screamer, I mean singer) and an Indian buffet!  After dinner, mum, dad, James and I headed down to the Sheraton on the waters edge and rode up and down in the lift a couple times to get a great view of the city.  The Sky Lounge was on the top floor but we didn't venture in as you have to pay $140 HK ($28 AU) just to go inside. 

Tuesday morning we rose at the early hour of 7am to join Grandma and Grandpa for breakfast.  Nowhere was open, so it was hotcakes and muffins at the McCafe around the corner.  After some shopping and everyone getting organised (we moved rooms again, away from the cockroaches) we headed down to Star Ferries again, over to Hong Kong Island and then onto Lantau Island.  There we had lunch at a Turkish Cafe, the chef was a huge Turkish man in a turban.  Caught the No 2 bus which took us to the largest sitting Buddha in the world!  After gazing in wonder at the monstrous thing, we climbed the 260 steps to get a closer look and a view of the surrounding area.  Later on we also had a look at the temple there, and watched a man doing Tai Chi.  This took up the whole day, so we headed back to Kowloon and by the time we came down to meet for dinner, it was absolutely pouring outside.  So we ran through the rain, got absolutely soaked, and stopped at the first restaurant we found, Pizza Hut.  The rain didn't lighten up at all, just got heavier so we were drenched by the time we returned to the hotel.

Wednesday it was still teeming with rain, so we decided to give Disneyland a miss and headed on a ferry to Macau instead, as Grandpa wanted to visit mainland China.  Macau had a lot of Portuguese architecture as it had a similar arrangement to Hong Kong, only owned by Portugal, not England.  At the tourist information centre Grandpa said "Should we go on a tour?"  James, mum and I said "No no no".  10 seconds later Dad shouted excitedly "Hey guys, come over here, we can go on a tour with this guy, his name is Stephen" so off we went on a tour of Macau.  He took us to a temple where something important was signed, the temple was The Goddess of Mercy's or someone like that.  Then we headed to St Paul's Cathedral, where there was only one wall left, but a very interesting wall it was, with Buddhist and Catholic carvings in it.  Then we went to another church but up on a hill next to the Governor's house and had a great view of Macau and it's many casinos and bridges.  Afterwards he took us to the border and showed us where the Chinese try and escape China and come into Macau and how they're shot and killed, even now days, by the soldiers on guard.  We ended up at a restaurant for lunch where Grandma had one prawn, but it was the biggest prawn we'd ever seen and the rest of us had steaks.  Then we split up, Dad and James went to buy James a sword, and the rest of us went shoe shopping.  Our ferry back was due to leave at 5pm so at 4:20pm Mum, Grandma, Grandpa and I hopped on a local bus to take us back.  It would've been quicker if we'd walked as there were major traffic jams and the driver kept stalling.  James and Dad had been waiting for us at the ferry terminal since 4:20pm and were getting worried as our tickets were non refundable.  We jumped off the bus and ran into the terminal, up the escalators at 5:01pm, the ladies tore out tickets and told us to hurry.  James, Mum and Dad sped through Customs and ran off turning right at the corner.   As I waited for Grandma and Grandpa I watched Mum, Dad, and James then run back to the corner on the left as they had gone the wrong way.  We arrived at the ferry as they were putting the door up and jumped on just in time!  It was a great moment.  We headed to another Irish pub for dinner and then mum and dad took off to watch the light show from the Avenue of Stars.  James and I met them later and we took off to the night markets to have a look.  The stalls were mainly filled with clothes, dvd's, bric a brac and sex toys.  James managed to pick up a few items for his friends.

Thursday we headed over to Central on Hong Kong Island to shop and wander through the markets.  We rode the longest escalator in the world to Soho and had lunch at a restaurant owned by a Tasmanian.  Dad said goodbye and went to catch his plane.  We later learned he went the wrong way on the escalator, took the wrong bus back and nearly got on the wrong ferry.  Luckily he'd given himself 5 hours to get to the airport so he still made it.  Once we'd headed back to Kowloon we all went to the Night Markets and made Grandma and Grandpa avert their eyes from the many sex toy stalls.  The night markets are so long, so when we'd got halfway through we were famished and had dinner at a dodgy Chinese outdoor restaurant.  We were served by a crazy waiter who kept winking, mum decided it was an eye twitch.  Good food though, Cantonese food is really different from the food in the rest of China. 

Friday, James wanted to see the walled city.  We took a train, then another train, and then another train.  After that train, we took a bus, got off too early so hopped on another bus.  Then we walked around a little town until we found the Walled City.  The wall was supposedly very old, you could see the holes where they put the guns through.  In the village however, all the houses were new and the old ladies in traditional dress didn't look too traditional.  Also, they wanted $10 HK per photo of them.  After 4 hours of crappiness we found a bus going to Stanley where there were some really great markets and great views.  We headed back to Central and rode the tram up the steepest road in the world to Victoria Peak, where we managed to catch a glimpse of Hong Kong through the thick cloud.  Great shops up there though.  Made our way back down and headed across to the Avenue of Stars to watch the magnificent light show, which was accompanied by music and went for 15 minutes.  Had a delicious dinner at a restaurant on the pier, and sat outside watching the gorgeous view of the city lights.

Saturday we all said good bye and James and I headed to Shenzhen and then onwards back to polluted, smelly Yongzhou.

The End.