World China Hong Kong SAR Hong Kong

Peter and Elizabeth - RTW 2009-10

Hong Kong - Oct 8-10 Oct 10, 2009

October 8

Today we left Chengdu and were heading to Hong Kong, the long way round! For some reason, cost I imagine, we decided to fly into Guangzhou and take the train to HK. It sounded so easy in the books and, really, it wasn’t too difficult.

The flights internally are much cheaper here than internationally so the flight to Guangzhou was ideal. It took just over two hours and was nice and easy. Even getting the shuttle bus into the city was easy, too. There it wasn’t so easy – it was hot and we had to walk to the train station with our big packs and find the right area to buy tickets. That itself was easy, once we got there! From there, the train takes just under 2 hours, clearing Chinese immigration one end and then Hong Kong the other – despite HK being now Chinese, the border and entry requirements are still different and even meant we needed double entry visas for China despite never really leaving Chinese soil!

Once at Hung Hom station on HK, we jumped in a taxi and after nearly finding our hotel and doing a lap of the block, we found the Alisan Guest House and checked in. The staff were great but the room itself was tiny and, like Xi’an and Chengdu, had a shower directly in the bathroom rather than a separate cubicle. At least this one was clean because the one in Chengdu certainly was not!

On our lap around the block in the taxi, we’d seen a nice English-style pub and headed there for dinner and plenty of beer!

October 9

As we’ve travelled we’ve collected various souvenirs along the way like our small Chinese tea set and chopsticks amongst the multitude of magnets! Fed up of carrying them all, we sent some of them back to the US today, along with some of my clothes I hadn’t used and couldn’t see needing. We’d already both left older clothes behind previously in other places and we’d hoped our bags would get lighter and smaller – fat chance! So, our first stop was at DHL and some $130 later for a small box we headed out on the MTR – HK’s metro system.

The metro was so easy to use with all machines having English and all the stations being well sign-posted.

We headed first to the HK History Museum which had a history of, you guessed it, HK! The museum was pretty decent and the exhibits were well presented in chronological order starting from thousands of years ago, to the modern day going through the opium wars and British involvement to the more recent handover and the beginning of Chinese rule. There was a great video about the handover but the entire display seems to ignore the British influence, almost seeming to claim that the HK of 2009 is a result of the Chinese rule! It will be interesting to see what happens when the Chinese rule is really completed – part of the agreement to hand back HK was that the country would continue to run itself for the next 50 years. 12 of those have already gone now and it is difficult to imagine this little area being run under communist ideologies.

After some lunch, a bit of shopping for books (a seemingly endless commodity required by us on this trip!), we headed to the HK Museum of Art – we’d bought a Museum Pass which included 7 different locations and by visiting a minimum of three of those in 7 days, we’d have benefitted. The Museum of Art was our second one. On the top floor were watercolours and next down were ceramics. Some of the paintings were really weird and not really my thing, nor I suspect Elizabeth’s. Quite honestly, nothing much in here interested me and we even both skipped the second floor which had a calligraphy exhibit and an exhibit on HK which was shut anyway. Finally, on the lowest level was some gold items, some of which were reasonably cool, I guess.

I suppose it sounds a little snobbish and a little blasé to say this, but we’ve seen so many other great museums, not just on this trip, and many of them hold items that we have heard of or that hold some interest. Even as a person who doesn’t really appreciate art, I can still see the glory and the beauty behind so many items in places such as the Louvre, the Hermitage, etc. However, Chinese art seems to be lost on me and even the ceramic and pottery items from the old Chinese dynasties seem to pale into comparison with things like the Forbidden City and the Qin Warriors. Part of me suspects a little of museum overload and I think we’re both slowly reaching that conclusion!

From the museum, we headed out to the Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade which spans the southern tip of Kowloon overlooking Victoria Harbour over to Hong Kong Island. Despite the slight haze, the views of the dramatic skyline were great and the tall buildings seemed in competition to emulate each other.

It was already getting fairly late and we decided to have a stroll around the shops to try and find my elusive laptop and then get some dinner. We finally found a shopping mall which had 4 or 5 different computer shops there, all of which had English versions of Windows and English-speaking staff. Finally we settled on a Sony at the first shop we had visited and I had my laptop!

After a stroll around Kowloon Park, which had a nice little lake and some fountains which was in stark contrast to the skyscrapers, shopping malls and neon lights on the streets surrounding, we headed to Gaylord. I picked Gaylord for two reasons – firstly the name is frankly ridiculous and a little amusing to someone with their sense of humour in the gutter like me and secondly because I really wanted to find somewhere to get a decent Indian curry and where better than a former British colony? Thankfully, we were not disappointed having settled on one of the set meals so we could try some different things we both ransacked our samosas, chicken tikka, lamb kebabs as wells as a lamb rogan josh and a lovely spicy potato and cauliflower curry. Not only that but we also got a gulab jamun for dessert – a small dough like ball covered in hot honey. Yummy. Talk about stuffed!

We’d had dinner a little early as we wanted to see the Symphony of Lights show back along the promenade. The show consisted of lights and music being beamed from the skyscrapers on HK Island. The buildings looked really cool lit up and the views were amazing, the light “show” less so. Despite it only lasting 20 minutes, we only lasted about 10 of those before giving up. There was a large crowd watching so it was obviously popular but we both thought it was disappointing. From there we just headed straight back, having packed quite enough into our first day!

October 10

Today we headed out to the third museum that we wanted to see from our museum pass – the HK Heritage Museum. Unfortunately, this was very disappointing (bar one exhibit) as many of the permanent displays were the same as those we’d seen the day before at the history and art museums and many of the temporary exhibits were closed as they were being changed. The two we did see were quite interesting. The first was about a local celebrity called Lydia Sum who had died in 2008 and was being honoured with this exhibit. I knew nothing about her but it was funny people-watching as she was obviously a well-known and well-liked performer.

The second, which I really enjoyed, was an exhibit of photography by three local photographers which included some amazing pictures in black and white and some cool effects to “jazz up” some more recent, arty shots. One particular picture I remember was a scene of pouring ran with a man on a bicycle looking up into the clouds with a big grin on his face. I’ve got some great pictures of people as we’ve travelled but none even close to this.

In the afternoon we took the tram up to the Peak to get some views over the city. After the cool ride up the steep hillside, we reached the top of the tram and continued up the escalators to the top of the viewing tower. The views over the harbor and city were stunning and the views opposite over the East Lamma Channel out to the South China Sea were just as nice if a little more hazy.

I’m not sure whether it is the heat and humidity here or the travelling catching up with us but by the end of today, despite not doing a great amount, we were totally beat. With our dinner a couple of nights previously, our receipt gave us free wine if we came back again – so we went back again and the steak and kidney pie with my glass of red wine was just great!