First thoughts after disembarking the plane: 1. it smells like Chine (ie. humid air) 2. its really hot here.
Coming from a -26 degrees Celsius environment to a +26 degrees environment in February was very unexpected, but I'm definitely not complaining for the change in temperature.
A 30 minute cab ride brought us from the airport, right into the urban area of Kowloon (literally Nine Dragons).
(First thought when seeing the taxi: omgomg they drive on the right side!)
Fun fact about HongKong taxi cabs: red taxis are for the urban area, and green ones bring passengers exclusively to suburban areas.
My family and I stayed in the southern area of Kowloon, Tsim Sha Tsui, which is right beside the Victoria Harbor (on the other side of the water is Hong Kong Island).
After hearing so many stories about Hong Kong, I finally have to admit that the scenery is pretty amazing. Kowloon is bounded by a mountain range on the northern side and by the bay on the southern side; there are buildings built on the mountains itself, nestled between trees and cliffs.
After checking-in to our hotel (or rather, motel), it was already 7pm and we hurried out to have supper.
And as we all know, an uninformed and hungry tourist will fall victim to all the tourist traps. We tried to find a suitable restaurant (not too fancy, but not too sketchy either) by walking along one of the main streets (Nathan Road, which is sort of like the equivalent of Saint-Catherine Street back in Montreal), which was not such a great idea, since most restaurants there were tourist traps (by tourist traps, I mean mediocre food that is unnecessarily expensive). Anyways, we settled for a seafood restaurant. One thing we were certain of was that HongKong is known for its excellent and fresh seafood, so a seafood restaurant should have decent food, right? Wrong. We ended up paying 700HKD (which is about 100CAD) for a three person meal and the fish that we ordered was chewy and tasteless.
However, the night scenery was amazing and everything I expected; bustling with people and neon signs everywhere that brought the city to life.
On our first day there (still jetlagged), we woke up bright and early for breakfast. We had done our research about restaurants the night beforehand and this time we were ready. breakfast was at a small Macau-style place, and the Macau crispy buns so unique, an absolutely must-have! It basically looks like a hamburger bun, except that the bun is uitra crispy (almost flakey) and piping hot from the oven. Customers have the choice to garnish it with butter, peanut butter, granulated sugar and condensed milk. Its a very sweet food, but the taste was definitely worth the extra calories.
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| The Macau style restaurant. They serve breakfast lunch and supper how convenient. |
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| Porridge! 粥＋油条 miammm |
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| the BUNSSSS (yes that's butter). |
Like any major city or urban area, traffic is annoying, so the number one way to travel is definitely by foot or metro. So, before heading off to any type of exploration, purchasing an "Octopus Card"(is essential. The Octopus Card is like an Opus Card, except that in not only works for metros and buses, it also works for ferries, trolleys and trams (ie, my new best friend).
First major city attraction: Hong Kong Avenue of Stars.
Basically, the Asian version of Hollywood Boulevard. The avenue is right next to the Victoria Harbor, with the impressive skyscrapers of Hong Kong Island just on the other side of the water.
I think that this place is worth going to during the daytime as well as during nighttime.
Daytime is good for taking proper pictures with the Stars on the ground, with the handprint of famous actors and such. Not surprisingly, the Stars that received the most attraction were 1. Bruce Lee, 2. Jackie Chan, 3. Jet Li.
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| Jackie Chan!! So awesome |
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| Mr. Bruce Lee himself (ish) |
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| View from the Avenue of Stars (Hong Kong Island on the other side of the water) |
This avenue is also worth visiting during nighttime because of its night scenery. The skyscrapers on the opposite side of the Harbor illuminate after sunset with brilliant colours and at 8pm, there's even a "light show" (basically, beams of white and green light flash upwards towards the clouds in sync with a background music). The ferries crossing the Harbor are also decorate with lights, so all in all, a pretty awesome sight so see.
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| Light show :) |
Second stop: TaiPing Shan (aka Victoria Peak) on Hong Kong Island.
Victoria Peak is a 500m mountain on Hong Kong Island, one of the major tourist attractions in the area.
From the Avenue of Stars, and with the help of the trusty Octopus card, Hong Kong Island is a 5 minute ferry away (for about 10HKD = about 1.5 CAD so cheap!). Once on the other side, Victoria Peak is accessible either by tramway or by bus.
We decided to take the bus, which was a good choice, but not something I'd do again. Allow me to elaborate. Taking after their British heritage, all Hong Kong buses are double deckers. This is extremely convenient for crowded urban areas, but not such a good idea for getting on top of a mountain. The bus had to zigzag its way up a one-lane steep slope, frequent bus stops along the way. The driver drove pretty quickly and combined with abrupt turns, a steep climb and a lot of swaying due to the height of the bus, I got slightly car-sick. Thankfully, the motion sickness did not turn into anything nasty and after a good 30 minute bus ride, we arrived at the bus terminal at the Peak.
The good thing about the bus ride was that we were able to see the residential areas and various buildings along the slope of the mountain. Since these buildings were built very high from the road itself, there were only accessible by the narrowest staircases. Everything on the mountain was surrounded by great trees and stone walls and we were able to get a progressively higher view of the Island and beyond.
Anyways, at the Peak, there was a free observatory (we didn't go to the Peak Tower observatory, which led to a higher observatory, because it costed money haahaha...) with a nice view of the city and Kowloon in the distance. There's also a shopping center but apart from that there was nothing much to do.
So we went back down the mountain, taking the tram this time (Octopus is such a good friend). Ever been on a roller coaster before? Well that's exactly how the tram ride felt except it was always downhill and going very very very slowly (and we were in a tram car, of course, not an open-air seat). I swear, the tram was almost at a 60 degree angle the whole way down. So in other words, there was no zigzagging down the mountain. The ride was 5 minutes tops, so it wasn't that bad. One downside of this ride is that there are only 3 cars on the tram and only 1 tram going up and down the mountain. So there was a pretty long waiting line to go up the mountain.
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| The Peak view |
We stayed on Hong Kong Island for lunch and went to yet another Macauian restaurant, as recommended by Google. One dish I found pretty cute was this beef and tomato soup, which was served in an actually rice cooker.
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| mmmh beef soup |
Hong Kong Island is much more stuffy than Kowloon. The buildings are older and more crowded together, making the streets narrower and the people clump together on the sidewalks. We passed by Times Square Hong Kong, which was pretty amazing. We didn't do any shopping though; name brands in Hong Kong are even more expensive than what you can get in North American outlets.
One thing I noticed about Hong Kong is that there's much more foreigners (especially Indians and Filippinos) than in mainland China. Its probably a British colony thing.
Another fun fact; I've always wondered: if people drive on the opposite side of the street, that means that the "fast" lane on the highway is also the opposite side. But then what happens when people stand on an escalator? Back at home, you stand on the right side of the escalator so that people who want to walk up faster can do so from the left side. Well since everything is reversed for Hong Kong people, should they stand on the left side of the escalator and let people pass from the right side? Well, for all of you who have also been wondering about this useless fact, mystery solved: it's exactly the same convention as back home.
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