Hong Kong explorations
Hong Kong was our last chance for touristic opportunities and shopping. The plan when we left Guangzhou was for 2 days in Macau and 3 days in Hong Kong then dashing back to Guangzhou in 1 day to get on the plane for home.
The time allocation for both cities turned out to be a pretty good balance. While I loved Macau it really is very small. Hong Kong turned out to be much larger, but you still would not want to be there for more than 5 days I think (as a tourist).
I love to spice things up with travel by taking as many different kinds of transport as you can. I've yet to ride a donkey to another town, but on this trip I had already done plane, train and bus. Next was to get the ferry from Macau across to Hong Kong on Monday 3 April. Once at the ferry terminal (courtesy of a free shuttle bus from our hotel - YAY!) we worked out the right ferry to get to Hong Kong Island and pretty much stepped straight onto the ferry after a stop at Border control. Weirdly the ferry had no place to store luggage like our big backpack so we just had to stand it in the aisle next to RB's seat. The ride was pretty comfortable and passed quickly. We had a giggle at the woman two seats up from us who kept taking pictures of the blue sea. There were no islands and no other boats in view but she was snapping away like crazy!
From the ferry we ticked off one of the things that was on my sightseeing list. I had heard that the world's largest outdoor seated bronze Buddha, the Tian Tan Buddha on Lantau Island was worth seeing. We could see it for miles from the sea as we rounded Lantau Island to come into the harbour in Hong Kong. It was huge!
I hadn't given too much thought to sightseeing in HK before we landed there. RB had some shopping to do and so did I. I was chasing the best deal on a pair of Nike shoes. We spent the first afternoon soaking in the vibe in HK, and making non-stop comparisions to mainland China. We had been warned by a friend whose family come from HK that mainland Chinese people were "coarse, rude and loud". We actually found them to be really nice people, so that left us wondering what HK people were like! Our first impressions weren't so good. Our hotel was smaller than the one in Guangzhou, but the people sure weren't too excited about greeting us. Similarly it had a big town feel outside with loads of people walking around on footpaths that seemed so small and narrow compared to GZ. Everyone was busy in Causeway Bay that afternoon on work day!
We went exploring in the hot humid air and felt a deja vu. Being in HK after mainland China was just like being in Singapore after Vietnam. There were loads of signs everywhere saying what you could no do, it was clean and efficient and had a big city vibe. It other words it wasn't exciting, chaotic, mysterious or different! That had to be some good things about HK to make so many people love it as a tourist destination/stopover so we pressed on hoping to find them.
We checked out some super-nerd filled computer malls for RB, visiting 3 different ones in one afternoon/evening as he priced checked all the things he wanted to buy. In between those shops I looked at the shoes. These activities seemed to go on the whole time we were in HK, making for a strange holiday experience for me. I usually always try to seek out the cultural, environmental and unique features of any place and here I was having to think hard about what we should do and see.
The time allocation for both cities turned out to be a pretty good balance. While I loved Macau it really is very small. Hong Kong turned out to be much larger, but you still would not want to be there for more than 5 days I think (as a tourist).
I love to spice things up with travel by taking as many different kinds of transport as you can. I've yet to ride a donkey to another town, but on this trip I had already done plane, train and bus. Next was to get the ferry from Macau across to Hong Kong on Monday 3 April. Once at the ferry terminal (courtesy of a free shuttle bus from our hotel - YAY!) we worked out the right ferry to get to Hong Kong Island and pretty much stepped straight onto the ferry after a stop at Border control. Weirdly the ferry had no place to store luggage like our big backpack so we just had to stand it in the aisle next to RB's seat. The ride was pretty comfortable and passed quickly. We had a giggle at the woman two seats up from us who kept taking pictures of the blue sea. There were no islands and no other boats in view but she was snapping away like crazy!
From the ferry we ticked off one of the things that was on my sightseeing list. I had heard that the world's largest outdoor seated bronze Buddha, the Tian Tan Buddha on Lantau Island was worth seeing. We could see it for miles from the sea as we rounded Lantau Island to come into the harbour in Hong Kong. It was huge!
I hadn't given too much thought to sightseeing in HK before we landed there. RB had some shopping to do and so did I. I was chasing the best deal on a pair of Nike shoes. We spent the first afternoon soaking in the vibe in HK, and making non-stop comparisions to mainland China. We had been warned by a friend whose family come from HK that mainland Chinese people were "coarse, rude and loud". We actually found them to be really nice people, so that left us wondering what HK people were like! Our first impressions weren't so good. Our hotel was smaller than the one in Guangzhou, but the people sure weren't too excited about greeting us. Similarly it had a big town feel outside with loads of people walking around on footpaths that seemed so small and narrow compared to GZ. Everyone was busy in Causeway Bay that afternoon on work day!
We went exploring in the hot humid air and felt a deja vu. Being in HK after mainland China was just like being in Singapore after Vietnam. There were loads of signs everywhere saying what you could no do, it was clean and efficient and had a big city vibe. It other words it wasn't exciting, chaotic, mysterious or different! That had to be some good things about HK to make so many people love it as a tourist destination/stopover so we pressed on hoping to find them.
We checked out some super-nerd filled computer malls for RB, visiting 3 different ones in one afternoon/evening as he priced checked all the things he wanted to buy. In between those shops I looked at the shoes. These activities seemed to go on the whole time we were in HK, making for a strange holiday experience for me. I usually always try to seek out the cultural, environmental and unique features of any place and here I was having to think hard about what we should do and see.
posted by Polecat at 12:40 AM
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