Hong Kong Post 2

23^rd January 9:11pm

It has been a couple of days since I have made any entries in my Journal, so what have we been up to:

Yesterday we got off to a very slow start, we all overslept and did not wake until well after 10am, as a result we ended up not really doing anything until the back end of the afternoon when we took the Duk Ling, the last authentic Chinese Junk sailing in Hong Kong harbour for a harbour cruise.  Unfortunately the smog level was very high yesterday and you could hardly see the shoreline across the bay which did limit the photo opportunities from the Junk.  For visitors to Hong Kong the Duk Ling is a great find, for only hk$50 (£5) per person you get an hour cruise which takes you pretty well all the way around the harbour on an authentic Junk with sails unfurled.  The trip is arranged by the Hong Kong tourist board, is for visitors only and runs on Thursday and Saturday.  When we took it the boat was practically empty and that was great as it enabled us to easily move around as we wanted, it was also nice that we did the last cruise of the day and got to see sunset over the bay, albeit one shrouded in smog.

After the cruise we walked up Nathan road and Charlotte bought a traditional Chinese side fastening top, we then went for dinner in a café and had a selection of dishes, lemon chicken, grouper with broccoli and beef fillet in Chinese sauce.

We deliberately did not get back to the hotel too late as Charlotte was due an earlier night and it ended up being nearly 10am as it was.

Today we rose a little earlier though not as early as we had hoped.  We had turned the alarm off in the night as Charlotte woke us all up at 1am.  She is still having trouble adjusting to the time change and when she wakes finds it difficult to go back off to sleep.

We stuck to our plan for the day though and went to Ngong Ping to see the giant bronze Buddha.  First leg of the journey was MTR and we had to swap trains halfway.  The Hong Kong metro is fantastic, very clean and very efficient and the price is ridiculously cheap, for what was about a 30 minute train ride the single fair was hk$15, or $1.50 each for the adults and Charlotte was just over half price.  After the MTR we took the cable car up the mountain to the site of the Buddha, this was a 20 minute cable car ride and the scenery was very impressive.  Lisa did very well considering her fear of heights, but Charlotte hated it.

The set up an Ngong Ping is OK, the Buddha very impressive and there is a definite air of calm around the site, the monastery at the foot of the climb to the statue is also worth a visit.  The rest of the site is however definitely for the tourist, there is a recreation village which serves to house various cafes and souvenir shops and a couple of projected shows, one telling the story of the Buddha and the other the tale of the monkey, a traditional Chinese tale.  Unless you have small children in tow avoid these shows and spend your time in contemplation within the monastery walls, the time is far better spent that way.

After leaving Ngong Ping we had a bit of a shop before getting back to the MTR and taking the train back to Tsim Sha Tsui and our hotel.

Since getting back Lisa and Charlotte have had a swim whilst I created the next instalment of being baggage which I hope to get posted onto the website tomorrow evening when we get back from our days travels.

After four days what are my impressions of Honk Kong, well if you can ignore the air pollution, which at times is so bad you can smell it, the city is very clean.  Wherever you go people are employed to keep it that way.  Every public toilet seems to have a cleaner in residence, station platforms are being cleaned constantly , cleaners are even visible whilst you are just out walking in the street.  The city also feels very safe, though there is a high presence of security officers and police, maybe they add to the feeling of safety.  Tomorrow we are half way through our time here and it is going very quickly, whilst 9 nights seemed quite a while when we booked the flights I feel we could definitely have amused ourselves for longer.

Well it is now 9:46 and I need to shut this off so Charlotte can get to sleep…

And we're off!

18^th January

 

We are currently sat on the 13:02 from Tiverton to Paddington and are almost exactly an hour into the journey, from Paddington we are taking the airport express to Heathrow and are staying in an airport hotel tonight before our flight to Hong Kong tomorrow morning.

We left home at 11:30 and drove to the station, my Mum and Dad came with us to wave us off and take the car back home.  We were also joined by Karen and Caitlin (Lisa and Charlotte’s friends) who came along to wave us off.   When we arrived at the station for a brief second it seemed our first booked transportation would be a disaster as busses were taking passengers to avoid line works being carried out over the weekend, luckily for us these were south of Tiverton and our train was running and arrived right on time.

Charlotte got a little weepy as we waved off from the station and this started Lisa off, thankfully a quick dip into the bags and bringing out the lunch put that behind us for now.

Considering we are at the start of a long trip, during which we will surely want to buy souvenirs to take back with us we are starting out fairly laden.  We have three suitcases and they are all at the 20kg limit, or there about, how long will it be before we have to buy the fourth suitcase?

The train we are on has recently been refurbished, the carriages look almost new, yet it lacks the character of trains I remember from my childhood.  Seating is designed to fill the coaches to capacity, gone are the groups of four with a table in-between over which you can play a game of cards, now one half of the coach is forward facing and the other half faces to the rear, at least only one half faces rear whichever way the train is going, and the seats allow minimal space to ensure you do not get the illusion of comfort.  In fact the carriage we are in is also the disabled access one and there is no storage for our bags, we had to end up storing our suitcases in the area reserved for wheelchairs, hopefully it will not cause any problems, but they certainly will not fit in the overhead racks.

Lunch behind us and the tears over good bye are forgotten, though I expect they may resurface when we say goodbye to Danny who is joining us for dinner tonight, Charlotte is absorbed in her DS and Lisa is working through a puzzle book.

Next stop Paddington.

 

21^st January

Well we are now in Hong Kong.  We got here yesterday, our flight landed at 8:40 local time and we were at our hotel by just after 10.  Only Lisa really slept on the plane and she never gets enough sleep so when we were sorted at the hotel we all fell into bed and slept through until 4.

The journey was pretty uneventful, the flight was 12  hours and with the exception of a really bright flash off the wing (lightning strike?) just after we had taken off and a pretty bouncy and off to one side landing passed as would be expected, a medley of canned food and entertainment on demand, whatever did we do on flights before the seat back entertainment systems (smoked!).

Hong Kong customs was also very straight forward, the immigration form we completed on the plane was simple, the process was well organised and we were through collecting our suitcases within 10 minutes, quite a contrast to some of our experiences in the US.  We had planned to take the train (MTR) to the hotel but were all pretty tired so opted for the easy route a taxi, in fact with three of us to transport it did not work out that much more than the train and was definitely far easier with all our luggage.

The hotel is fine, in fact far better than fine, we are staying at the Royal Garden which is very well positioned and fairly luxurious in the common areas,  the room is also very spacious something I had not expected from all I had heard of Hong Kong.

After a sleep we went for a walk and got a bite to eat, we took the easy option as it was our first night and we were all still pretty tired and ate in the Outback steakhouse opposite the hotel.  After eating we walked down to the bay and took a walk along the front before returning to the hotel for a swim and reasonably early night.

Jet lag always gets to you and I spent most of the night checking out the clock, when I first woke feeling as though I had been asleep all night the clock revealed it had barely been two hours.  I finally gave up at 05:30 and passed the next couple of hours in the company of my Ipod.

It is now just after 8 and time for coffee and to get up and see what the day will hold.

 

21^st January 9:50pm

Today we did not get moving until after 10am, despite having been awake since the wee hours.  Before we went out Charlotte did some school work then when we eventually left the hotel we headed for Victoria Peak.  We took the Star Ferry over to Hong Kong Island and then walked up to catch the peak tram.  Whilst at the peak we had lunch in a typical Hong Kong café then walked part way around peak then down into the Pok Fu Lam country park, though we did not walk all the way down through the park as we were very conscious that if we did it would mean Charlotte would then have to make it all the way back up.

After visiting the peak we took the tram back down then back across on the ferry and to the hotel, we took five minutes out to have a coffee and were all so tired that this turned into more than an hour before Charlotte  persuaded Lisa to go up with her to the roof so she could have a swim in the roof top pool.  The pool is fantastic and the weather was sunny and warm today so the pool on the roof worked very well indeed.

After her swim we then headed down to Victoria harbour to see the nightly light show, in this Hong Kong becomes the canvas and the buildings the artists materials as they are illuminated in time with music, delivering a spectacular display.

After the light show I did attempt some night photography though there were far too many people about, a project for much later in the evening later in the visit I believe.

Supper was served up via a visit to the 7-11 and sandwiched, cake, wine, beer and chocolate milk – I wonder which drink was Charlotte’s and now we are in bed about to settle down at just after 10:10pm

1 week to go ...

Just over 1 week to the off and things are starting to get serious.  We have a list a mile long of things that have to be done before we ship out and it seems to grow by the day rather than shrink, guess I should be knocking a few things off it rather than blogging!

I started to book a few excursions last week, things we know we want to do and at times when we know where we will be.  We have booked onto a Milford sound scenic boat trip and a Glacier walk in New Zealand to get us started.  I have also booked all our rental cars in Australia, including a large 4WD for the drive from Brisbane down to Melbourne as I thought it might come in handy.

It was my birthday last week so we had a few friends around last night for a drink, it seemed a good excuse to see a few people before we kick off, hopefully a good time was had by all.  But from here on in we really do have to start focusing on the trip and there is still so much more to do .....