Hong Kong

Finally arrived in Hong Kong after our overstay in shanghai! We keep randomly bumping into the Scottish couple that we met in Xi'an (it's strange how these cities are so huge, yet you still bump into the same people!!) and once again they were on our train! When we told them we'd gone to the wrong station and so missed the train we were meant to catch to Hong Kong they admitted that they'd missed their train to Shanghai. However, they weren't as lucky as we were and could only get standing tickets...for a 16hour journey!! So not surprisingly after a few ours on their feet or perched on the disgusting sinks (it was the only place to sit down!) they decided to pay extra for a soft sleeper! They didn't tell us this at the time as they were too embarrassed, but it made us realise we were quite lucky when we met the lady who helped us!

Hong Kong's metro is again really good and an Aussie guy told us to get an octopus card (like London oyster). It's the same price but a lot easier and you blend in more with the locals - well... as well as you can anyway!!

Our hostel was in an ace location on Hong Kong island right next to a tube stop. We headed straight out to find the vietnamese embassy to get our visa. As china was about to embark on a 7 day holiday we were worried there may be a problem but in the end it was going to be ready in 4 days as they only closed for 1 day. Got back to the hostel to book our extra nights at the hostel only to find out the price had been doubled for the Chinese celebrations!!

In the evening we went to the Temple Street night Market to get some good street food and knock off nigel style products! Unfortunately there was neither, so we headed for a restaurant a little disappointed. The meal was more western style as most food (in our price bracket anyway) here in hong kong seems to be. It's a really welcome sight seeing sweet and sour chicken as you expect it but it does take the fun element away of ordering. Although earlier in our trip we found it difficult to order food, we did enjoy it more, with flavours and dishes we've never experienced before.

Day 2 - Disney land!!

Yes that's right kids. It was goodish value so we thought lets do it. We had heard it wasn't that good but after a good day there our only criticism would be that the 'monorail' was rubbish and showed the backs of trees (I know trees don't have backs!). Tarzans tree house was also rubbish. As it was Halloween special they had a few extra haunted houses. Emma and I can confirm that these attractions were the scariest haunted house style attractions we've ever been on! You walk through pitch black rooms and then real people jump out at you all the way round! The first house we went around we were with 2 yanks and a group of Chinese girls. The yanks led the way through the dark rooms and corridors at first,but after about 3 near heart attacks they decided to go to the back, leaving me and emma leading the way! We walked round in the pitch black with the group of Chinese girls holding onto to Kris's tshirt and bag screaming and saying 'help us'! Why they had been taught 'help us' at school is funny, although if they're visiting the darker sides of bristol they may need it! When we would get to a seemingly empty corridor they would shout 'run', needless to say it was quite scary! And there were 3 of these haunted houses all with a slight variation (jungle fever and alien attack).
We also went to watch a 3d movie which had water and wind special effects which was suprisingly really good. Especially when Donald Duck came flying at you and was impailed on the wall behind us!

We had to watch the 'rainy day parade' (accompanied by those words in a song format) as it was, raining! It was ok, what made it were the characters from toy story- There was a man dressed up as a plastic army man, v.funny! We needed to pass time before the glow in the dark parade and there's only so many times you can do do space mountain and astro blasters, so we decided to get our photos with all the characters we could find! We will try to post them soon! :)

We stayed until 8pm to see the evening fireworks, which were pretty impressive, especially considering they do them every night. We then decided to go to the Night Market (Ladies market) near Mong Kok.

The ladies market was better than Temple Street market, but still not quite as good as we hoped. The clothes etc were better (and not all for women, despite the name!), but there weren't any street stalls selling food, and i was really looking forward to some more of their random snacks!!

On day 3 (30th Sept) we went up the peak tram to see the views over Hong Kong Island. It's an old style tram that takes you up the VERY steep hill. The views at the top were impressive, but i maybe thing they would be better at night. The afternoon was really wet!! Apparently it was the edge of a Typhoon that had hit Vietnam. The street became rivers in places!! We found a small cafe not too far away from our hostel and ate there. We tried the local soup/broth for starter. It was actually really tasty, but that goes to show how I've become less squeamish about random foods as it hardly looked appetising and had big bones in it which they had obviously boiled for taste -yum!!

The 1st October is the day that the Chinese have been building up to since we got here (and before). It was the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic. Luckily the whole city didn't shut down as we feared, although it may have been that way if we weren't in Hong Kong. With all the build up we were expecting big things, so headed to Victoria Park where we heard the celebrations were being held. I have never seen such subdued celebrations! We sat in the park and had a few beers (our first taste of Chang beer) watching the world go by. I guess the celebrations were really being held that evening, as the usual night time display over Hong kong island was being replaced with a big fireworks display!! We headed over early to get a good spot, although not as early as 1000's of other people it seemed! But we still got a good view. The fireworks were impressive, the best I've ever seen (even better than Disney World Florida!) They actually had smiley faces and spelt out things in Chinese. We could only make out 6 - 0, but we got the idea, and were still impressed. When you go to see a fireworks display you do tend to have a slight feeling of you seen it all before, but I didn't realise you could get some many different types of fireworks!! the Chinese made it extra funny with all their oooohing and aaaarhing!!!

The morning of our 5th day in Hong Kong was taken up by having to go and collect our visa, but at least it was all sorted, which was a relief as we had already paid for our flights. We then took the subways over to Lantau island (the same Island Disney is on) and took the cable car from Ngong Ping to the Tian Tan Buddha Statue. The cable car ride was pretty cool. You could get great views of the airport (on the man-made island) and the valleys. We chose a carriage that had a glass floor, to be honest it wasn't worth it as there wasn't much to see directly below (and the picture in the advert oversold , but it was worth a try!

We got off the tube at the 'Avenue of Stars' but the only ones we recognised were Jackie Chan (although we took a picture of Jacky Chaeung thinking it was him first),Jet li and Bruce Lee out of about 100 handprints! We took the ferry back to the Island (a snip at $20hk ~1.75gbp) For our final evening in Hong Kong we went to see the Tai Hang Fire Dragon Festival. The main attraction is basically a dragon made of thousands of lit incense sticks 200ft long, held up by a team of the Tai Hang residents parading through a few streets. they dance around the street to traditional music. The history behind this is that the sulphur from the burning will rid the 'village' (as it ionce was) of disease. It was pretty cool to watch!! Will post the photos and try to post the video.

There was a lot to do in Hong Kong - we were quite lucky with the fireworks and the Dragon festival!

Our final day was spent tracking down an open post office so we could send a few things home (yep already - fridge magnets, painting, clothes), and then travelling to Guangzhou Airport. This involved 3 subways to Hong Kong station (East Tsim Sha Tsui) then an MTR double decker train to Guangzhou East train station, then another train to the main train station (we didn't realise he had to do this!!) and a bus to the airport! What a day!! We were going to make another stop in China in Yanshou and Guilin which has amazing scenary. Due to the Chinese holiday and the price hike/fully booked hostels/no information if trains were running/ we decided to get out and head to Vietnam.