Sunday, April 16, 2017

Friday April 14th 2017

Hong Kong Action


After making short visits to Shanghai And Beijing the last six months; Hong Kong was last on my "China-list".
Here is what I did that weekend.


I landed in Hong Kong airport during the day.
After immigrations, I took the train straight to Hong Kong island - then a taxi to my hotel; 9 Boutique Hotel.
They had four rooms and I don't think I have ever had a smaller hotel room than this.

After a quick stop at the hotel, I went out to Hong Kong island again.


I took a taxi to the Victoria Peak tram station to ride the Peak Tram up the hill.

What I ment to do before I got here was to purchase a ticket to the tram online. But I never did and paid the penalty; standing more than one hour in line to the ticket office.

Finally I got to go!

 Up we went through the trees and to the Peak Tower.

It was a very nice view from the building!

And it looked even better at night!

I ate at a japanese sushi restaurant at the top - not that good though. :(

It was a long line to get down as well; almost one hour,..

Then straight to the hotel to get some sleep.

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Saturday April 15th 2017

Second day in Hong Kong!

I walked to the subway station and took the train to Tung Chung; I am going to the Big Buddha statue the Tian Tan Buddha.

The cable car was not operational so I took bus 23 to Ngong Ping.
It was a beautiful ride through the lush, green mountains of Lantau island.


When we got closer we could even see the staue from afar:


After about 50 minutes we had reached our destination and I was there!


It took a few steps to get to the top, but eventually I got there.


It was a big statue, but... I expected a bigger one..?
I mean, after all, it was the largest seated Buddha in 1993 when it was built.




But it sure wasn't small.
Either way, it was cool to be here. :)

There were also some smaller statues around the Big Buddha.


After seeing the Buddha, I took the bus back - and then the subway to Kowloon, which is the main land part of Hong Kong city.


Here also smaller (and older) buildings could be found next to the tall skyscrapers.

I went through Kowlon Park and finally arrived at the The Garden of Stars.

Here they celebrate the movie starts of Hong Kong. There were a lot of hand prints from actors/actresses like Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Jet Li, Maggie Cheung and Raymond Chow.

But the main reason for being there is that they have a statue of the big hero; Bruce Lee
 So. Cool.

I also went to the pier and took photos of Hong Kong island; this is a panorama picture of said side:

After this I took the Star Ferry over to Hong Kong island.

I walk back to the hotel and... didn't really do that much more during this day (truth is I fell asleep at five in my bed and didn't wake up until around midnight).


Tomorrow I will go to inland China for work so this is the final day-report for this trip.

Friday, April 14, 2017

Hong Kong Ending

I guess Hong Kong has always been there in the back of my head, but it wasn't really until I had a transfer on my way to Cambodia a couple of years back that I put it on my Travel ToDo list.

Unfortunatly, the city itself wasn't super exciting; it was rundown, somewhat filthy and the stench of the harbour was always there. It was fun to have been there, but I doubt if I will ever go back.

The green hilltops around the city was beautiful though. A very nice scenery to look at.


If I were to redo it; I would have only stayed there for one night instead of two. Everything I did could be managed in one full day.

They did have neat thing that really helps you exploring the city without that extra night; you could check in your luggage already on the train/subway station on Hong Kong island!
Had I known this before, I would have just done that and continued my trip one day earlier.

In any case, it was fun to be able to check this city off my list! :)