Hong Kong Day 6 - All you can leave behind (Wednesday)

Last day and rather than be up bright and early I decided on a relatively late start, especially given my experiences from yesterday. My first destination didn’t open till 10 and I knew I didn’t need to get there for the opening anyway. My first stop was checking in my bags. For this I didn’t need to go to the airport early. I just had to head to one of the main airport MTR stops. They had full blown check in desks there and you even paid for your train fair when you would need it then and there as well. The Oyster system would cope. Clever really.

Baggage disposed of; I now had all I would have for the next 30+ hours. Hopefully nothing important had been left inside. I was heading to Ocean Park. This is a cross between a Sealife Centre (well a much better version anyway) and Alton Towers. A strange combination, especially when you throw in the pandas that they have recently acquired as well. Oddly enough it works though. None of it seems really out of place, and it’s all divided up nicely. There’s a kids area near the entrance and probably enough there to keep them entertained for most of the day. Alternatively for the adults there’s the main park which is a scenic cable car ride away across the headland. The views are stunning, especially as you go over the initial hill and start to look out over the south pacific. Lots of little islands in the distance, many overlapping. Great photo opportunity stuff. Shame that then cable car was so dirty! Thankfully for camera buffs there are plenty of chances to take photos once out of the cable car with carefully placed gaps in venues possibly designed for this. Being a panorama shot fan, I was in a mini paradise being able to take shots to the left, right, front and back.

I headed to the rear of the park first, heading down a series of escalators. There’s a back entrance to the park, I suspect for those who don’t like heights or cable car rides. It was a little bit like a flashback to the escalator journey up through the mid levels on central Hong Kong, but at least they were two-way and a lot fewer of them. There were a couple of rides down here and a show pool that was out of use, so it was relatively quiet. Well it would have been. I wasn’t to know in the ‘Runaway Train’ ride that the girl in front was a screamer. And she had a good set of lungs to prove it! I would hate to imagine what she would have been like on a ride that did more than up and down and round corners. I suspect the whole park would have known. I met up with the same group again on the next ride, though only because they couldn’t work out the difference between the entrance to the ride and the exit! It was the parks only water ride and I felt it prudent to get wet early so that I would have plenty of time to dry off. Singular flumes tend not to get you too wet unless you’re very unlucky and this was pretty much the case here, especially as I was in a boat on my own.

It was time to do the ocean part of the park. By fortuitous timing I arrived at the Sea Lion enclosure just in time for feeding. I chose not to spend money to throw them fish, but it was amusing to see someone standing by the enclosure selling vouchers to feed them. I ponder the idea that if they didn’t sell enough then the sea lions would be on an enforced diet, but obviously that would never be the case. They have some excellent aquaria in the place, sharks, tropics, deep water. They even have one that is deep enough for you to wind your way down through three floors. There was no rush to get around the place. Again I think I was there off season on a weekday, so it didn’t take anywhere near the day that some had suggested, but I still had an enjoyable four or five hours there. It was becoming a nice slow pace and good end to the holiday.

I was planning to continue this with a break for a few hours on one of the bays that are scattered around the south of the island. I’d picked the one I wanted on an earlier bus journey and fortunately I could walk to this place from the park. Even better, on the cable car back, I could see that there was a walkway that would take me off of the main road and away from the pollution. The path was pleasant and being empty offered plenty of chances of taking timed photos so that I could be included in the picture without any fear of someone running off with my camera, not that I think it would have been an issue if there were people around. It’s said that Hong Kong is a safe place and I can only concur. At no point did I come across any situation where I felt somewhere was risky to go, nor did I see any groups of youths hanging around. There are young people in Hong Kong; they just seem to spend most of their time wired into their MP3 players going wherever the music may take them!

The beach was more or less deserted. It may well have still been a nice warm day for most of us, but in Hong Kong anything below about 25C is considered too chilly for being out on a beach. This gives some wonderful undisturbed sunbathing opportunities. To be fair, that wasn’t my goal, it was far too late in the day. I just wanted to dip my toe and relax. I felt that it would be wrong to come out all this way, spend a lot of the time surrounded by water and then not get a little wet from it. I wasn’t going swimming; all my stuff was hopefully at the airport by now anyway. But a paddle was definitely in order. It was nice, not cold, and at least I could now claim that I’d been in the South Pacific. Of course, given time, tidal drift and the like, it probably had a fair chunk of water, if you can have a chunk of a liquid, that was from Brighton and Hove. Still, as they say, it’s location location location, not content! (Anyone who wants to tell me there is a way of working out do feel free!)

I’d got a little wetter than I had intended and didn’t have a towel. Drying wouldn’t be too much of a problem and I just sat on the beach watching the sun dip behind the peninsula that housed Ocean Park. Obviously I took advantage and grabbed some photos while I dried off. I definitely think that if I’m heading out to Hong Kong again I’ll be spending more time on the south of the island. I expect it will be more expensive, but it’s definitely more scenic. Very relaxing.

Waiting for the bus to take me to my penultimate stop in Hong Kong, the final one being the airport, I reminded about how there is still a heavy smoking population in the region. It’s certainly more noticeable now that smoking is banned in buildings in England. I do though suspect that such a ban wouldn’t make much difference to the over all health of the populous there. They must breathe in so much pollution from traffic that it’s the equivalent to several cigarettes a day. Given that, most probably doubt that some of the real thing can’t do that much more damage. There are a few who wear the equivalent of medical masks over their faces when out on the street, but they are definitely the minority and do have a slightly odd, comical while slightly menacing look about them.

When the bus arrived, as I had suspected, it was the most crowded transport that I’d been on all week. There was a reason for this. I was heading to where everyone else was. And everyone else was heading for Happy Valley. Happy Valley is one of two race courses in Hong Kong but is the only one that holds night races. Gambling is a big no no in China so the Valley is a chance for many to feed a tightly controlled addiction. It’s difficult to miss and possibly one of the oddest racecourses around. This is because it is smack in the middle of town. As you stand by the race circuit you have the finishing straight grandstand, tower up several stories behind you, and in front, just the other side of the oval are a series of tower blocks towering even higher, this time 10s of storey high. As a backdrop it is remarkable. The place is always packed and tonight was no exception. Everything you could want to help you is there. You can even sign up for a tour that will provide you with an assistant who will help explain and take you through the basics of gambling.

I was meeting a friend of a friend there to share a beer with and natter. It was nice, as I wouldn’t have had as much fun if I had been on my own. I think horse-racing it better shared. Having a few beers and talking between races is definitely needed otherwise there would be too much of a void. I suppose some of the hardened professionals need the time between races to do all their prep, look at the horses and stuff like that. Me, I just need to look at the names of the horses and riders and choose based on that. It’s not scientific, but hey, I left a major HK$20 up on the night. (If you want to realize how little that is, you should go back to one of the earlier days in this blog). Let’s just say I didn’t let the win go to my head. Of course I had to get a picture of me with my winning ticket, or at least a copy of it. I felt slightly sorry for the chap who congratulated me, probably thinking that I’d had a life changing win. Didn’t quite know the Cantonese for, ‘Actually, it’s more the fact that I’ve won at all, and even that was a total fluke’. He’s probably still wondering where the newspaper story of the big winner that evening disappeared to.

And that was it really. I had to leave before the end of the night to get back to the airport. Typically I had good connections and could have probably stayed for another race, but then why push it on the last day. Better to take ones time and savor the moment. I even managed to go through Times Square on the way home. It’s nothing like the one in New York, that much was noticeable. It had been a good day and a nice finish. Relaxing and fun, how a holiday should be. The flight back is probably best left to the history books.

Hong Kong - Day 5 Taking the Mickey (Tuesday)

Ok, it was time for some drastic rescheduling. After yesterdays delays I had to reassess. The answer was in reality quite simple. I had been planning on going to Macau today. I’d been told it would be a full day, but was wanting to try to fit other things in as well. Therefore it made sense to scrap that. It was a shame. Apparently it’s a good place to visit, but given there was still plenty to do in the local area, it could wait.

Breakfast was a quieter affair this time. Tam had beaten me this time and was engrossed in a paper. It gave me the opportunity to look at my maps and work out where I needed to walk and what transits I needed to get for the different things I was planning. Today was really going to be largely a non-Hong Kong type of day.

I was starting with some shopping. Nearby was the Harbour City Mall. Now this place is enormous, even by American standards. Several floors and stretching on and on and on. Fortunately they have been fairly sensible in the way that they have let out the units. Shops of a similar ilk have been kept together, rather than having to walk from one end to the other. This struck me on generous to the shopper, especially their feet, but it also meant that there wasn’t the chance of drifting off into other shops that you don’t really need to visit en route somewhere else. I don’t think that it has anything to do with a desire not to encourage consumerism, more a case that they are just very organized. If it was seen in a person it would probably be considered a mild form of OCD. A place for everything and everything in its place. (Before anyone complains I personally think that everyone can so OCD elements at times, so I’m honestly not trying to make any statement here!)

While their organisation skills may well be excellent, what was a severe disappoint was their opening skills. Maybe everyone in Hong Kong who doesn’t work sleeps like a log and really struggles to get up in the morning, but it is quite annoying to have turned up at Harbour City Mall to find that 90% of the shops were shut and going to be for at least half an hour, some even more. Opening time in Hong Kong seems to be 10am at the earliest. Some shops, whose owners are clearly extremely slumberous only just about manage to open in the morning. This was clearly going to be an issue and I wasn’t going to hang around wasting time for shops to open and mess up another day. Given they open late, they stay open late. I’ll come back at the end of the day.

I was heading to Lantau Island again with unfinished business. I’d swapped a few things around so that it wasn’t a one stopper, and it also included shops as well. I was comforted by the thought that at least by the time I’ve made it over there the shops there will be open. They were! City Gate is Hong Kong’s Outlet shopping center. I’d walked past it yesterday on the way to the cable car. It’s near the airport and I’m sure that it’s where it is to catch people who have a lay over. It was far more my sort of place, and had good priced clothing and electronics. It wasn’t as big as the other mall, and didn’t have a major selection, but maybe they will expand it.

One of the things that I was still trying to get used to was the cost of everything. Converting HK$15 to the pound is easy enough, but you can easily forget how cheap that makes things. Spending HK$800 might seem like a lot, but it’s very little given the amount of traveling I was doing.

The major visit of the day was to Hong Kong’s newest attraction. Disneyland. I can imagine the groans, but I’m over here and it’s not like I’m going to get the chance again quickly. It’s not what most people would imagine. As a park, in comparison to the others, it’s tiny. Definitely no more than half a days worth, which was good as it was about lunchtime when I got there. The other advantage, and again this may be timing, is that it’s empty. Well empty compared to Disney standards. Queues for even the main rides for almost non-existent. The longest I had to wait was 15 mins, and that was a combination of bad luck and having to wait for the English speaking guide. Getting to the park was quite nice. Disney has its only little loop on the MTR that it has sole use of and they run special trains. As you would expect with Disney, they have really gone to town. Their trains have different windows. Mickey Mouse windows. There are statuettes of the characters between the seats and, well the normal MTR seats are comfortable, but these take comfort to another level.

The entrance to the park is the same as all the others. You don’t mess with a winning format. Additionally it means you instantly know what you’re looking at. However in this case something wasn’t quite right. I was standing on Main Street, looking down at Cinderella’s castle and I really felt that was exactly what I was doing. Looking down at it. It was tiny. It wasn’t that Main Street was particularly long, if anything it was shorter. As I got nearer, it was clear that is was no illusion. Cinders castle had clearly been lopped. I don’t know whether it was due to building regulations but there were several levels missing, giving it the feeling that someone had stamped on it and squashed it someone and I felt that if I stood on tip toes, I’d be able to see over it. This really summed up the park. Small and the feeling that for one reason or another there have been restraints on its creation. I’m not too surprised given that they are taking a largely uninhabited island and building a massive theme park on it. I’m sure that the last thing the authorities want is that the view from the Big Buddha is that of the tops of a load of theme park rides.

I stayed to the end, Disney fireworks always being well done and me loving fireworks. It was now time to head back to the shops that were late opening. Half an hour later I was back more or less where I had started the day, and disappointingly with the same feeling. Many of the shops that were opening late in the day had clearly decided to shut early in the day. Maybe the peak shopping time is 12 to 6, but if so, it doesn’t give people much of a chance, though must be a nice relaxed lifestyle for the shop keepers. Even more amazing was one shop that gave me a quote for something and almost as soon as I had stepped out to think about the price, shut. Clearly they didn’t need my trade. Someone else got it instead.

Disappointed with the more conventional way of shopping, I returned to the Temple Street market. I’d seen some pictures that I wanted to buy as souvenirs and knew the price I was willing to pay. It’s not difficult if you set a price in mind and given things are so cheap anyway, it’s not difficult to get a bargain and still leave the seller feeling that they haven’t done too badly out of the deal either. One of the things that I have noticed is that they have lots and lots of original oil paints of more or less the same scene. These are clearly mass produced, but each is slightly different and each is clearly done with oils, meaning that it’s not simply a printing press churning them out. Maybe somewhere there are loads of art students who are given the same painting to produce as coursework and the markets get to sell them afterwards. I wasn’t going to let it tax me too much; it was time to call it a night.

Hong Kong - Day 4 From One End To The Other

My breakfast ‘date’ once again seemed to be waiting for me. Don’t know what it is about timing, but however randomly you try to make something, it never works out. I didn’t mind too much, he was someone to tell what I did the previous day, but sometimes it’s nice to breakfast in relative quiet.

Today was going to be spent totally away from the main parts of Hong Kong. I was heading to Lantau Island. This is where the new airport is, but it also has some other attractions as well and my aim was to visit the main ones today.

First stop was Tai O village. This is a small village at the far end of the island that is mainly built on stilts and the residents quite literally step out of their back door and into a boat, or get wet if they parked somewhere else for the night. Venice it definitely isn’t, but it does have an odd charm to it. It’s managed to get itself on the tourist map by having the stilts, but it doesn’t seem to have let that affect it. No-where is there any sign of souvenir shops. In fact I had the feeling that there were only about 5 tourists, including myself, in the area at the time. It may be that it was just the weather, of the off season, but I struggle to see guided tours being successfully taken round the village. I suspect that one of the things that puts people off is the trip there. It looks remarkably simple and quick on the all the maps I had. Of course it was nothing of the sort and the bus journey was the best part of an hour and on the way there I was thinking that this may cause problems with the rest of my plans for the day. There’s a lot of work going on in preparation for the Olympics in the summer, and a lot of that is in the infrastructure. Roads are being improved and modernized all the time, and it seemed to be that Lantau was being done all in one go. Once finished I suspect that the bus journey will be wonderfully fast, probably even have a bypass or express route to get across the island, but at the moment it is far from complete. Add to that the fact that the journey there and back was hindered by a lorry that had lost it on a turn and gone straight over (and stranded itself on) one of the road side boulders. I’ve no idea what the driver was going to say to his boss about the accident, but I suspect that like me, he was looking forward to the new roads being finished.

At the end of the bus journey back the to the MTR I was getting close to being an entire attraction behind time, and was beginning to suspect that it wouldn’t be made up on the next leg. Until recently Lantau Island was probably best known for being the sign of the Big Buddha. Now, this shouldn’t be confused with the Fat or Laughing (and Fat) Buddha. This is a BIG Buddha. It’s totally in the middle of nowhere. In fact for most of the time round the island you can’t see it, even though it’s on top of one of the mountains. I had three choices of how to get there. I could walk, take a bus or take a cable car. This presented a bit of a dilemma. Walking was clearly out of it. Had I chosen that, I’d have been out of it pretty quick as well, possibly still walking back the next day, though a night in the monastery next door might have been interesting. I was now also dubious that the bus would get me there in anything like a reasonable time. That left the cable car. Not a problem normally, but I was aware that it had only been open a month or so after an ‘accident’. What the accident was I have no idea. I’d looked (not hard) beforehand, but not found the details of what happened. However it was the only reliable way to get there so I had to bite the bullet. It’s probably one of the longest cable car rides I’ve been on, and while it’s pretty, it’s also pretty repetitive. Only at the end does the Buddha come into sight, though that is impressive. I was expecting the cable car to take me more or less to the site of the Buddha, but it didn’t. What it took me to was ‘Buddha Village’. That’s not its name, officially at least. However, given that they have turned the whole thing into a massive tourist trap, it may as well be. Think of all the tacky things your friends have ever bought you as presents from their holidays, well they are all on sale here, just with a Buddha or cable car logo on them. Probably not what Buddha was expecting, or the people who constructed the Buddha originally. I’d been given a voucher to spend for taking the cable car return journey. A massive HK$20. Before anyone gets excited, that equates to about £1.30 on a good day, probably less for most. There wasn’t much of a selection. I’d have to think about it on the return leg.

The Buddha itself, as a certain fence treatment company would say, was exactly what is says on the tin. Big. It was clearly a sign of devotion that it had been built, and I assume it was built after the monastery was founded, by monks at the monastery. If it’s the other way around I have to wonder what would possess a group of people to build it so far from the middle of nowhere. A monastery in the middle of nowhere I can understand, with the Buddha following. The other way! Madness! Given that visiting monks to Britain now tend to be famous for their acrobatics rather than their peaceful ways, a vision of bits of the Buddha being put in place my monks doing extremely high somersaults over it came to mind, but I doubt it was done that way. Even having gone as high as I had on the cable car, it was still a long walk up a lot of steps to get to the top. It houses some wonderful views up there, and there’s some statues offering stuff to the Buddha. There’s even a history of Buddhism inside the base and if you’ve paid for it, you can have a meal in the Buddha itself, but that has to be prebooked. I hadn’t because I wasn’t planning on being there at that time. However it was now perfectly clear that I wasn’t going to be completing my visits to Lantau Island today. I therefore had to think of something else to do instead.

It was then I hit on the idea of going to Stanley Market. This wasn’t ideal. It was totally the other side of Hong Kong, and I mean the other side. In terms of the main areas to go, I was going from furthest point to furthest point. However the alternative was to do nothing and try to squeeze it in on another day. Given that I’d be using the MTR for the majority of the trip, I figured I could trust the transport to get me there in good time (probably quicker than it took me to get to Tao O). So, off I headed, to traverse the whole of the Hong Kong area. Of course I still had the problem of what to do with this voucher. I was loathed to just waste it totally, but there was such tat for sale I really didn’t know what to get. In the end, my trip to visit the Big Buddha is remembered fondly now by the shot glass that I got!

It was a close run thing in the end. Not getting to the market before it shut. That was easy. The journey time was probably just a little more than that of the Tao O one, but not by much and I suspect that had I managed to time the connections right, it would have probably been a match. I’m not sure what I was expecting when I got there. Other markets I’d been to had vibrancy to them. I can’t say that this one did. There was also little of interest for me to buy. Maybe I was just becoming an old fart, or maybe I’ve never been one for normal markets. I can do Spanish street markets in seconds, and this sort of reminded me of that, only covered and permanent. The way that it was laid out, and you were going down small alleys, I just felt the place was a little grubby, though not in the dirty sense of the word. I bought what I had to and moved on. I doubted I’d be coming back to that little corner. Hopefully the whole of the southern part of Hong Kong Island wouldn’t be the same. It hadn’t looked it on the bus ride through, and given I was intending to return to the southern part of the island, I was going to be disappointed if it was.

The day was nearly done, but I still had a bit of time before I called it a night. The sun had set and I was intended to revisit the peak. Primarily it was to get some night shots of the harbour all lit up, but also, I wanted to see what the nightly lightshow was like from the peak. The view, as I expected from the posters I’d seen, was great and with my lightweight tripod in the bag, taking some photos was a pleasant an unfrustrating experience. No having to see how long you had to hold the camera still for and realizing that you actually suffer from a bad case of the DTs when you see the result. No balancing or resting it on railings to try to make it steady. Looking back through the tourist book I can see that there is a reason why they mention the views from the peak but not the light show. From the other side, you can’t actually see a thing. Not one laser, not one spotlight. Quite disappointing. Still at least you won’t now make the same mistake I did! I stayed for a bite to eat and then headed back. It had been a long day and though I hadn’t walked everywhere, the feet were telling me they needed rest. The trusty 7-11 provided me with something to drink without having to raid the mini-bar and I soon dozed off. Tomorrow I would have to do some rescheduling!

Hong Kong - Day 3 Ever Upwards (Sunday)

Well I slept better than I expected and even though I woke for a while during the night it was a good rest I'd had. The hotel's breakfast room wasn't really set up for a hotel. About a dozen small tables with a few chairs scattered around. I ended up breakfasting with a chap named Tam. I think that was his surname though. As with all situations where you have two different cultures, the commonality for us was sport. To be fair he knew far more about the weekends UK football results than I did.

Traveling around on the MTR was becoming second nature and I was off to see what Hong Kong Island itself had to offer. It was a clear day, which isn't always the case, so I took advice and changed plans accordingly. My destination was The Peak. There are two ways to the top, bus and tram. The tram is considered the only real option as it is considered to be part of the whole experience, and that without taking the tram you will end up paying as much in extra bits to get yourself to the top that get included in the tram cost.

Considering the peak is talked about as one of Hong Kong’s must do visits, there isn't a MTR to get you to even the lower tram level, and it wasn't even close to one of the stops on my line. There was really only one thing that I could do. I would have to take the escalator. Odd though this may seem, it was an entirely logical step (or rather stand still) to take. Additionally it would also be another attraction to tick off. Now I appreciate that this might sound daft, but these escalators just keep on going, physically and metaphorically. I didn't actually count just how many escalators there were, one after the other, but I never had to go more than a few yards to the next on in the chain. They only went in one direction, which was up for the majority of the day, thankfully, and I was glad that I was only going part of the distance back down to get to the peak tram. I can't imagine how annoying it must be to time your trip badly and end up being sent back the way you came.

One of the things that I was starting to notice about Hong Kong was the little surprised that you find tucked away in the middle of nowhere. Well not nowhere, but where you least expect them. I suppose with the place being so small and steep they have learnt to economical with the truth. Strolling down from the top of the mid-levels, (I wasn’t going to wait 18 hours for the escalator to change direction), much to my surprise I came across the Botanical Gardens. To be fair I was approaching it from the wrong direction, but it was still a surprise and even more amazing, it was free. Now that might not seem a big deal, after all there are lots of gardens in England that are free to get into. Mine for example, though if you are visiting, a bottle of wine or a few beers would not go a miss! The thing about this place was that while it was called a botanical garden, it was actually far more. It was also a mini zoo. Far bigger than the central park zoon in Manhattan, and far less to get it! Quite an extensive collection of birds, though due to a suspected outbreak of bird flu there were all behind double netting. At least the place was still open. One of the local parks had shut its aviary section. There was also a mammals section and, obviously a plant section. All this was fascinating, but I couldn’t spend too much time there as I had a train to catch. Well not a train, but a tram.

Continuing on down (not difficult as I’d gone quite a way up) I eventually came to the Peak Tram. The tram has been operating for year and is probably the easiest way of getting to the top. Buses go there, and for the adventurous (and I have some friends who would be), you can walk it. I wasn’t going to be adventurous today. The tram was one of the ‘must do’ events and they have made a tourist attraction out of it. It was interesting to see that you can officially queue jump here. Now queuing isn’t necessarily a specialty in Hong Kong. At certain times if you aren’t forceful enough, you do get left behind, particularly on the MTR. However this was different. This time, you could pay to queue jump. It would get you into the Madame Tussards at the same time, but I was here for the tram. The dummies could wait for another visit. If need be they will cram the tram full of people for each ride. This means standing for some. Normally an easy feat, but with the incline involved, this wasn’t going to be easy. There were some ledges in the floor for people to be able to keep their balance. Unfortunately for me, where I was standing they clearly hadn’t finished the work. Not the normal Hong Kong work ethic I thought I as stood there leaning forward at a silly angle, trying not to slide backwards. The only thing I suspect that stopped other people laughing at me was that those next to me were in the same predicament.

Difficult as the tram ride may have been, it was at least short, well under 10 mins, though I suspect that if it was in the UK it would have taken double and there would have been a change onto a bus half way up for engineering works. What was stunning was the view. Well worth the short ride up. The difference in weather was noticeable, and while I was glad of the fleece I was wearing, a jacket would also have been useful. Down in the center of Hong Kong the wind doesn’t get up too much. The tall buildings tend block the wind and because they aren’t all at the same angle, you don’t get too many wind tunnels forming. Up here through there was nothing to slow the wind down. Not even the tallest of buildings in the city. Obviously it was a time for photographs and I got some funny looks from people as I tied by camera to a railing so that I could be in the picture as well. I wanted to explain to them that it wasn’t a matter of trust. I didn’t think that someone was going to be running off with my camera. It wasn’t that sort of place, they knew it and so did I. They just thought I didn’t. The only reason I was tying it up was so that if the wind blew it off the railing it wouldn’t fall into some inaccessible place. However I think had I tried to explain that I would have looked more foolish, so just kept stum.

The peak is often called the top of Hong Kong, it actually isn’t. It’s a bit like Gibraltar in that respect. You can go to the highest point, but you’re not actually at the top because that’s a MOD base and you tend to get chased out of there unless you’re filming a James Bond movie. To be fair there isn’t much more above the peak, but there are a few scatterings of residence, including one very grand place. Apparently it’s meant to be more desirable to live on the peak as there is less pollution. An awful lot of wind, but less pollution! There is plenty to do at the top. You can go for walks, shop, eat and even have a Starbucks. I grabbed a quick bite to eat and then headed back to the tram station. The queue to get down is just as long as the one to get up, but by a craft bit of waiting; I managed to be first in line for the ride down. This time I could pick my spot. This time I would have no silly stances to keep my balance. The ride down, looking down is a little like a slow moving rollercoaster on the downhill section of the ride. You keep looking down into the abyss (well Hong Kong) and never pick up the speed you are expecting.

Touching down gently at the end of the tram ride, I headed on down towards the central area of the city. Once again there was a pleasant surprise awaiting for me that I nearly missed out on. In fact I walked straight past and only then decided that maybe I should have a look. This was Hong Kong Park. It was only because it was highlighted on the map that I changed my mind. Otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered. But like the botanical gardens, this was a little green gem again in the middle of high-rises. In fact this place created more of a contrast than the botanical gardens as the place is right down in the middle of the financial district. You can stand in the park and have to crane you neck up at some of the tallest buildings in the area, most of which are glass based. The park is a real sanctuary and I can see that lots of business people would use it for lunch to escape the city feel that would otherwise overcome them. It’s well landscaped with waterfalls the lot. They’ve even made some of it a nature reserve, though I’m not entirely sure how you can manage that in such a built up area, but they have, apparently. They’ve got some wildlife there and the most photographed had to be the terrapin that had got itself seemingly stranded at the top of a rock. It was rather cartoon like with its belly balanced on the top and its head and feet inside the shell. I have to wonder what it would do to get down, but I suppose that it would just have to lose its balance and tumble down the slope into the water. Not the most dignified of exits from a high point.

I was doing well for time, so I thought I’d put in a visit to another recommended site. This time is was the Mo Mann temple. It meant a bit of a detour, but so far the book had been good with its recommendations and from the queue when I got there, I thought that it would have been right again. Maybe it was just me, but I came out disappointed. Possibly I missed most of it, or there was a hidden room, but there wasn’t a lot to it and the queuing took about 15 times as long as the visit. Only problem was I wasn’t at a theme park on a ride, so the excitement factor was lacking. Possibly it was the fact that as you entered the temple, all that people wanted you to do was buy more and more incense sticks to light in the temple. I realize that this is what they do, but having all these stalls in the grounds of the temple seemed to cheapen it a bit. Possibly if I had bought some, I’d have been shown the hidden room or given a guided tour. I didn’t, so the visit was short and I was soon on my way again, only this time a little more wary of the books advice.

It was now going to be little bit fine, but if I timed things well I would turn up at the ferry terminal, just in time to catch the sightseeing Star Ferry. I’d walked a lot so far and a chance to rest my feet for an hour would be welcome. Timed almost to perfection, I walked more of less into the terminal and onto the boat. I had seen it coming in, so I knew which was the front (not as easy as it sounds, and you’ll see why in a moment) and walked through to get a seat where I could video the interesting parts of the trip. It was then a bit of a surprise that the ferry moved off and I found myself going backwards. I now knew why the boat looked symmetrical. It was going to change direction of travel each time it called into a tour stop. So much for another well worked out plan. I had no intention of changing ends of the boat every time it changed direction. My directorial decisions would have to be compromised instead. The tour itself was informative and took me further along the harbour that I would have gone otherwise.

Having caught the sailing bug, I decided that the only way to get back to the mainland and the hotel was to take the official Star Ferry. This is the way that the natives travel (apparently), though most seemed to be making use of the far faster MTR and the road tunnels, but I’m assuming the researchers in the book have done their homework. They hadn’t and while it was a nice gentle and unrushed trip, it was pretty obvious that this was now more of a tourist route than a business route. Whoever the PR bod is at Star Ferry, they deserve a pay rise because they are getting the ferry used far more than it would otherwise be though their sections in the tourist guides.

There was just enough time to have a quick recharge (quite literally for the electronics) before catching the nightly light so again, this time so I could video it rather than take stills. Sadly it was another day when I wasn’t going to get the English translation of the story, still never mind. (It was only at the end of the visit that I found the bit telling me what translations would be held on different days. I felt a little foolish, but I wouldn’t have been able to make it on the English days anyway, so I felt less bad).

A very long day, so that was it. Bed called.

Hong Kong - Day 2 Not Much Room (Saturday)

It's not often that I wake up on a plane. To be fair, most of us can probably that statement, but I'm not really commenting on my previous lack of long distance flights. Its more a case that I've never really been able sleep well in transit. It does have its advantages. Falling asleep at the wheel isn't something that I've found myself doing. Sadly today its not been an advantage. While I may be waking up, its more from a catnap rather than a sleep. An hour and a half at most. As I stir, I stretch and forget how little room I have width ways and my new set of headphones, hours out of the box, snap at the jack, leaving the jack in the socket and the cable dangling limply on the floor. This was not the start to the day that I was looking for. At least I was heading for the right place to get replacements.

Time on the plane passed slowly. Twelve hours is a long time especially when your options for amusement or distraction are limited. I'm going to have to look at changing that before I head home. Eventually a warm breakfast arrived. This was a welcome distraction. The omelette wasn't the best to be fair, but it wasn't the big issue. I'm all for ensuring food is properly heated, but that shouldn't include the milk, butter, and fruitsalad. Of course by the time I've discovered this the crew have moved on. Never mind, I need to shed a few pounds. The coffee would have been welcome, just not with a greasy film on top from the turned milk.

With about 30 mins left of the flight the cockpit camera came back on. What was clear from the start was that the view was anything but clear. Coming into land the runway was invisible until the last few hundred meters. That said, the captain put the plane on the ground very smoothly. The planes taxi to the airport seemed to take forever. Maybe its because I was watching it. I'm definitely thinking of changing the phrase from 'A watched pot never boils' to 'Watching your planes taxi is unending'. I think it may catch on.

Unsurprisingly there was no one there when I arrived. This I was ready for, I knew what to do. The airport express was going to be quicker anyway. The signposts were clear and I was shortly using my best rehearsed English to ask for the train ticket I needed for my stay. My timing couldn't have been better. I'd get my ticket and the train would arrive a couple of minutes later. Its only fair to point out that the trains arrive every twelve minutes, so there is never an excessive wait, but I was still impressed with the timing. After the hassles of the flight, things were looking up. And then my perfect timing went out the window with the discovery that I could not pay for my ticket with a credit card. This dealt a mortal blow to my swift transfer. I hadn't yet taken out any Hong Kong dollars. I was planning on doing that once settled and 'charging' my travel. And no there was not a cash machine nearby. Back to the main airport concourse was my first journey. Now maybe I've just been unlucky with where I've looked, but I've yet to find anywhere to pay for my travel around Hong Kong other than in cash. (In reality you pay to top up a travel card, but it still has to be cash). This has surprised me as I thought that Hong Kong would have an option for all transactions to be electronic. Maybe I've been unlucky and will spot the chance later in the week. Cash in hand I exchange some of it for my Octopus card and wait patiently for the train.

I'd decided that I was going to film the train journey. I'm sure if it had been a sunny day it would have all looked inspiring. Being foggy and dull I expect that I have a very grey opening. There definitely seemed to be more concrete blocks out of the side I chose to sit.

From the train station in Kowloon I decided to walk to the hotel. Having been sat down for twelve hours, stretching the legs was going to be good for me. However this walk did tell me what Hong Kong was about. The reason! Well its probably going to sound silly but its road crossings. Hong Kong, like some other cities, is described as being constantly on the go and the road crossings for pedestrians sums this up. Every road crossing emits a sound (sadly not unlike that of a drill). When its time to cross it speeds up and when its slow its to say don't cross. Thinking about it, there is sense there as it warns people that they are at a crossing. I'm just not used to it yet and the constant sound of drills isn't ideal. I guess that's why everyone else is wearing an mp3 player. Still being minus one set of headphones I don't have the 'blockout' capability. The hotel was easily found and pleasingly they take money off my bill for having not picked me up. More than it cost to get from the airport, so that's good. The room is functional. I'm only sleeping in it so I don't need much. No long soaks in the bath tub though, given its barely a meter long.

Once unpacked I'm off exploring. Nothing too much, it has, after all been a long couple of days. A stroll to the harbour for night views of Hong Kong will do me just right. The night skyline is stunning at first view. It is a neon display for what must be over a mile. In these days of watching our carbon footprint such displays should probably be frowned upon, but I have to say there is a sense of wonder an amazement, especially when seeing it for the first time. This sense is then enhanced at 8pm every evening (probably much to the eco-warriors disgust) in a lightshow spread over several buildings, on both sides of the harbour. How they have set up the lights to trigger remotely, in time, over such a wide area is part of the magic of the show. They also have music blaring out and the whole thing is reminiscent of the Disney light parade, just with buildings instead of characters. Right next to what for most would be the preferred viewing area for the lightshow is Hong Kong's own walk of fame. Its called 'The Avenue Of Stars' though its more a promenade built out into the harbour. The Asian film industry is probably second only to Hollywood, certainly in terms of its rich history. Sadly I'm not a buff. I could only recognise about 4 names and was left feeling rather ignorant.

As you might almost expect in a place dedicated to current and past stars, there are a mixture of performers entertaining the crowds with both traditional and western songs. Whether it is considered to be a spot where people get scouted I don't know. I suppose it is possible that you get the right sort of people around, especially when someone is having their hands cemented.

On the way back to the hotel I decided to divert via the Temple Street night market. It was far longer than I had imagined and sold just about anything you could want. Clothing and watches that were branded were fakes but very difficult to spot as such. There were interesting other items. Board games and dominoes were regulars at stalls as well as a lot of oil paintings all of the same scene.

All in all I'd been up a lot over the previous 48 hours and I could feel it starting to take its toll. The bed was calling and I knew I would sleep well.

Hong Kong - Day 1 Novelty Value (Friday)

Its funny. Ok its not all that funny. This may well be the furthest that I'm going to be travelling in my life so far, its also the illest I've been when about to travel. Now on both aspects its probably sounding far more dramatic than it is. By my ripe old age (37) a 12 hour flight in a plane is long overdue given the shrinking world. However I got into this travel thing late in the game. I never did the almost compulsory year out, though I have to say that it seems to be two years out now. One before university and one after. Demand being what it is I can see young people wanting three years out. Where it could be fit in is the problem and not one I intend to answer!

Anyway as I started saying, this is the furthest I'm travelling, 12 hours to Hong Kong. Until now its been the pond that has been my longest trip and this is another 50% further than that. Additionally I'll be landing into a culture and climate very different from anything I've experienced before.

I should be really excited, even if a little bit nervous. However the build up to the trip has been undesirable. 48 hours before stepping onto the plane l was about to spend a night waking every hour in shivers in a house at 25°C. I would have only just about classed myself as fit to travel, and that is mainly thanks to several days of top strength cold/flu remedies. I've got so many tablets in my suitcase I suspect immigration would easily accept that I was planning on opening a chemist. Of course I'd far rather be ill just before going on holiday (if I have to be ill, and I don't do being ill well) rather then when on the break itself, so in that respect I'm counting my blessings.

The normal airport processes were painless. No long queues or the like. I think they actually got the numbers wrong when calling people into the plane. I'd picked a seat at the front of a section for that little bit of extra leg room that would come with it. However what I did notice was how little 'wriggle room' there was compared with how I remembered seats on a jumbo. Maybe I was a lot thinner back then or maybe it is an issue with the middle seats. I'd not had any choice by the time I'd got on line, but it had been my own fault for forgetting. This now meant that simple flight operations were tricky. The seat belt clasp was down on my right side. Squeezing my fingers there and manipulating the clasp was not easy. I made a mental note not to have to go through the process too many times in case it sent the wrong signal to the chap next to me. Even harder to access was the tv remote. I'd come across as a total dimwit at the start of the flight by claiming my tv wasn't working. Part of me hoped they would move me into the empty business section just in front. The stewardess pointed out that I would need to use the remote in the left armrest. Given how chunky it was, to unclip it and then ease it out meant a series of body bending techniques that even top contortionists would have been proud of.

One nice touch that I'd not seen before was what you could only call a cockpit camera relayed to the cabin. This wasn't like with radio stations where if you are fed up watching paint dry you can instead watch someone talk into a microphone all day. To be honest I don't want to see what the pilot and co-pilot are doing while the plane is on auto-pilot. The was a pilot's eye view of the airport. There wasn't much to see at that time of night anyway. Just a line of lights going on and off to show us where and when to go. Kept me amused for a while anyway. It reminded me a bit of the images you get on the screens in the simulators just before everything goes haywire. Gladly none of that happened.

I'm about to have 8 hours of my life ripped away and I'm trying my best to think how much sleep I should get on the plane to cope. In the mean time I'm also trying to work out whether I will be collected at the airport or not. I never got a reply to the e-mail requesting confirmation. Still that, and other things, like not having a copy of my planned itinerary, will have to wait for tomorrow, or is it already that given the big time differences. Its too late or early, or both for me to cope with at the moment. Night, I think.

So I'm about to go on my longest flight ever, traveling to what will be the most foreign culture I've experienced. What do I have. The cold from hell, or something similar. Have spent most of the night up shivering in a house at 25C.

I suppose most of it is my fault. I shouldn't have worked when I felt myself coming down, but thought I'd be ok. Little did I realise that it would be a far more unpleasant version than I was expecting. I've got about 20 hours to get better and to be fair I'm starting to feel a little more human (even if I probably don't look it).

But why do we always go down ill just when the holidays strike, or is it just my body taking a dislike to me.

Anyway, going to blog the Hong Kong trip in the same way that I did New York, so if I can post it live I will, if not, then I'll do it once I get back on a daily basis.

New Year - New Trip

Start of a new year, and I've got a new trip planned. Just like before I'll also blog it as well. With a bit of luck I might even manage a real time blog as well.

This time I'm heading out to Hong Kong. I've noticed the flights are getting longer so I don't know what that will say for any trip I'm planning after that.

I'm going for slightly less days, so there won't be quite so much to read for those of you who feel I suffer from verbal diarrhoea and I suspect you won't want to hear much about the days that are almost entirely flights, but we'll see if anything interesting happens for me to comment on. I'm currently working on an itinerary and will see what the nice people on Travel Advisor make of it.

If any of you haven't found out about this site yet, can I recommend it for anywhere you're planning on holidaying. Loads of locals and regular visitors use the site and will answer questions you have about where you're going. They'll even give you advise on an itinerary if you post it there. On top of all that, there's general advice posted there permanently plus reviews of hotels etc.

I'm also going skiing as well but don't know how much that will work as a blog. It's hardly sightseeing, but again, if there is anything that I feel is worth turning into a blog for the trip I might go for it.