Dressing down in Hong Kong

Well this is the very last place on our trip around the world. Arriving on Tuesday 16th October and leaving to go back to London on Friday 19th in the evening. So again like Hong Kong the priority is shopping. We got to Hong Kong from Macau by ferry that took an hour. Simon would have loved to go by Helicopter and whilst it wasnt that expensive we really couldnt justify the cost.
Apart from the last night we stayed in the tiniest room possible at the Bridal Tea Room hotel, which was in a great location near the tube station but was tiny. It had 2 small single beds, tv on a wall, and then the toilet/shower. TINY TINY TINY and about 25 quid a night which really in terms of Asia was expensive but it was the best we could do for Hong Kong. Having said that, the room may have been small but it was clean and it did mean that we purposely didnt spend any time in it but would sit down at the little cafe downstairs where we had free internet and could watch the back street life go past. Which surprisingly was good as we could watch the one armed octopus guy cooking food across the way and the chinese people would sit on the plastic chairs eating it. I did try some food from the cafe next door but it wasnt very nice - noodles with some spicy red things on top.

But to make up for it we paid $1200 HK Dollars (about £70) and we stayed in the Royal Garden Resort on the last night. It was the best because as well as being gorgeous we had dressing gowns in the room. This has made my year. For me it just meant that we might have enjoyed doing cheap and cheerful but its also great to do posh at the same time and completely reiterates that we are not backpackers but poshpackers. I LOVED THE DRESSING GOWNS. My list of things to have done this year defo included that.
On one our days in Hong Kong we went to Disneyland. We had a great day here, we caught the train to get there and one of the train journeys was on the disney train, it was like a fantasy limo inside with velvet seats, disney shaped windows. Very cute. We had a great day it may have included kids rides but we enjoyed them (well i did) just as much as the scary space mountain. One of the best rides (if u wanna call it that) was the haunted house where we had to walk through and things (people) would jump out on us. It was strange seeing chinese ghosts and zombies. Some of the people we walked around where really scared and would scream there heads of, it was funny watching them.
When we started our journey nearly a year ago the first night we went to a chinese restaurant in San Francisco. Now in Hong Kong we had an American meal by going to TGI Fridays. Oh my it was expensive. Struggling with the prices in Hong Kong as everything has been so cheap in the rest of Asia.
We discovered because alcohol is so expensive in Hong Kong ie a fiver for a glass of wine that they way to do it was to go to the happy hour places and do BOGOF, which is what we did. We found a nice bar that most western people seemed to go to and we was able to have a couple of beers and cider and then round the corner a kebab, eh this is the life. This was of course after a hard day shopping.
On a couple of evenings we walked down to Kowloon harbour to look across to the hong kong skyline and watch all of the buildings light up at night and then at 8oclock the buildings all have a bit of a lighting show set to music, this is definatly one of the best views we have seen.
Whilst waiting for the lights we walked along examining the Avenue of stars which is the same as Los Angeles except its all Chinese people which of course we dont recognise apart from Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. We did put our hands though on Jackie Chans handprint.

On our last evening, we spent a busy couple of hours running around, getting our hair done, shopping, seeing the lighting show and then we ended up in a mexican/chinese bar. We ended up somehow chatting to an American guy with a very interesting mustache. The conversation started off okay but it gradually started to turn into a pathetic conversation whereby he was telling us he travelled the world for his job checking planes (ie an ex pilot) but he owned a gun store in america and wanted a website down for it, and he thought me and Simon would be really good and we should talk business the next day blah blah. I very very stupidly told him (as i was still excited about it) about our dressing gowns and he asked me why was i telling him, was i inviting him in to see them. The conversation really was starting to go very dodgy so we left him at about 1 in the morning. Really i didnt want to go out for long as i just wanted to sit in my dressing gown, so i slept in it instead and then we didnt leave the room the next day until 12 on the dot so we could enjoy the room and the tele for the morning.

On the last day as well as running around looking for a white Ds from me (thank u Simon x), a teapot, Simons Ipod touch we wanted to go up to the Peak via the tram and see the skyline from high up. This was something again on my to do list but was something i expected to be a quiet affair and would be about seeing a temple at the top. How wrong i was, it was an hour queue to get on the tram, and then it was totally commercial at the top. We ended up eating at the Bubba Gump restaurant looking over amazing views and of course buying some more rubbish.

To get to the Airport we took our suitcases and our many bags of hand luggage and caught the train, we managed to get one of us on free as the Octopus card simon had bought previously to validate the airplane tickets seemed to continue to work. I spent most of this extremely fast journey trying to pack things tidyingly up in the suitcase. Once we got the airport we was extremely lucky as the plane going 10mins after our plane going to London had been delayed for 20hours. I dont think our mums would have been pleased if we had landed an extra day later.

Back home in England - 20th October 2007