After 6 weeks in China, we lazily laid back and enjoyed Hong Kong’s comfort – and air conditioning!

Hong Kong is made of many islands (the two main ones are Hong Kong Island -on which the main city stands- and Lantau) and a continental part, where we passed the border from Shenzen, China.

You may exit a country by plane, by car, by train, and sometimes by boat – in Shenzen, you leave the country by lift as shown on the following picture:

The fog is actually not fog: we just had a 12-hour ride in the train from Guilin, with air conditionning. As soon as you get out in the hot and humid subtropical air, moisture condenses on the lens and you basically have to wait half an hour until the camera has reached the air temperature before you can take proper pics!

We arrived in HK on June 21, and left for Bangkok on June 28; in the meantime, we mostly hung out in the appartment, since it has all the necessary commodities like A/C (but that’s the case everywhere in HK, even some outside patios! Yes, only in Hong Kong do they air condition the outside!), internet and a large screen TV with a lot of DVDs!

Nevertheless, we managed to do a few things (in between rain showers, since it’s rainy season there at the moment), and here is the summary of our lazy week in Hong Kong:

the town, the trams and the travelator

we walked around town to discover the city…

the small old-looking streets are just behind the big new buildings:

we met up with Yverain for lunch

taking a look at the live fish

little streets shops selling Mao’s figurines:

lots of dried fish everywhere – strong smell!

sea cucumber:

some kind of lizard’s stretched skins:

a very narrow building in Soho: 2 windows wide, and 2 windows large, but many stories up!

the botanical garden is located under the highway, in the middle of the town:

This is the park where we found our first HK nice toilets ;-)

Kowloon across the channel, with the future highest building of HK and its tip in the clouds – still on construction at the moment

the trams date back from 1904

you can sit either at the bottom or at the top of the tram

The travelator is the name of the longest walking sidewalk in the world – supposedly:

in goes uphill in-between buildings, but actually stops for some streets: you have to walk to cross them! totally inacceptable!

HK still has a lot of British character, and it’s not only the cars driving on the wrong side the road: Kath was pleased to find Ribena (which is a black currant drink, originally from the UK):

Hong Kong also has a bit of Vancouver flavour:

In the evening, we went for Dim Sum with Maud and Yverain

but that was just one of the many great meals we had while in HK!

While eating, they like to drink tea with lemon or tea with milk (sweetened condensed, Kath suspects), like on this picture:

the computer quest

we spent a lot of time looking for a computer: there are a few “computer centers” that are basically malls of small stores that sell hi-tech stuff… so we decided to go through them to find the best and cheapest computer possible.

We found it during our visit to the fourth center, in Kowloon, where there are many shopping crowded with store signs and people shopping

there are also streets filled with huge stands selling tourist crap

The bad news was that the computer had a hardware defect, and we had to return it and have it replaced on our last day in HK – since they configure it for you, and they wanted to check that the defect was real, we spent more time in computer centers than on the beach :(
…but it works fine now!

the ferries

the ferries are a much cheaper way of moving around than using the subway

The sailors have old-fashioned outfits:

Strike a pose:

the skyline… by day

Hong Kong has quite an impressive skyline of buildings, seen best from the other side of the channel

… by night at the symphony of lights

If one needed a proof that Hong Kong is Chinese, one would just turn towards the inner sense of kitsch that all Chinese have, and it is materialized in the Symphony of Lights: a show that the City of HK plays for tourists every night at 8pm.

People gather on the continental shore facing the famous -and actually beautiful- skyline of HK, and at 8pm the show starts, with cheesy music and flashing lights and lasers on the buildings across the channel:

… and by night from Victoria peak

You can take a tram to the Peak (the cable car is actually very impressive, with near-vertical parts… or os it feels ;-)

From there, you can have a breathtaking overview of downtown Hong Kong

the avenue of stars

We took a stroll down Avenue of the Stars, and we were pleased to recognize a couple of names.

In the footprints (or handprints) of Jackie Chan (Kathyrn’s ultimate film hero, as those of you who know her best will know)

The resemblance was uncanny:

Neat boat:

the hike and the nature

We went for a hike on Lantau island, the biggest island of the archipel. Most of HK is actually covered by forests!

a fishers’ village

a temple:

HK’s flora:

and fauna:

these spiders are as big as an open hand!

the monastry on the hill:

you can see downtown’s buildings in the distance

At the top of the hike, before going down to the ferry dock:

the nightlife and the race track

Hong Kong seems to have great nightlife (when we weren’t too tired to enjoy it)
This was a crazy vodka bar that Yverain took us to. Coming in off the street, where it was 30 degrees, I thought we were nuts to be putting these huge, yet ravishing, coats on, but when we basically stepped into a freezer moments later I was not complaining anymore.

I don’t know whether the fur was real or not, but we were happy to have coats since the temperature was -12 degrees celsius!

When they’re not drinking and dancing, people in HK go to the horse track and place bets on their favorites!

presentation of the horses

there were several races, and that night was the last one of the season:

horses racing on the track:

the big screen helps you determine whether you’re rich… or not just yet ;-)

the taxis are waiting for the crazy gamblers outside the horse track:

In conclusion…

… Hong Kong is a weird city, because it has many different faces: some times you feel like in an old Chinese town market, sometimes you feel like in a street of Manhattan. But we definitely enjoyed it!

We spent a very relaxing and agreable week there, mostly thanks to our friends Maud and Yverain, and we were then ready to fly to Bangkok, Thailand for the rest of our adventures!