Our annual getaway to another part of the world starts this year with a visit to Hong Kong. Keeping the budget in mind, the cheapest tickets we could find were with a transfer through Moscow.
Once in Moscow, we had two hours to kill, so while Dima was curing his nostalgia with Russian pancakes and cake, I was busy finishing some things for work.
By the time we started to board, it began snowing, and as the result, we departed with almost 2 hours delay. Eventually, with some favorable wind we landed in Hong Kong an hour later than expected.
On the plane we met a couple of Russian guys who leave in Hong Kong and asked them whether the easiest way to get into the city was by airport express or its better to take a taxi. They assured us that we will be much quicker by train.
Information about it is the first thing you see after clearing customs, so we had no trouble finding our way.
The train is available every 10 minutes, quite comfortable and not at all crowded.
It even comes with a short "preview" of Hong Kong, but only for a couple of moments and only if you sit on the left.
20 minutes later we were at Kolwoon station from which there is a complementary bus to all major hotels.
So far, we've only been underground, but once we were on the bus, we finally got to see outside. Hong Kong met us with blue sky, lot's of sunshine and a construction noise from every corner.
The bus ride wasn't long, despite the heavy traffic we managed to maneuver through everything and got to the street with our accommodation in just 10 minutes. We booked a room in Chungking Mansions, a place with probably couple of hundreds guest houses, notoriously famous for its incredibly small rooms. The entrance is pretty much a cheap stuff shopping mall.
Before getting to the room, there is waiting line to use the elevator (first time we spent 20 minutes in it). Later on we discovered stairs that were closed for using but nobody cared. The highlight was the room itself, we NEVER saw a room this small!
6 square meters, 1,5 of which is the bathroom ans the width is 2 meters... Dima didn't fit into the bed :-)
Well, luckily we were not planning on staying in it all day, anyway.
To kill the jet-lag, we decided hold it till the evening and to start the trip around the city with Kowloon island, since we were already here. To do that we took a metro to Mongkok and then walked back to the harbor.
The easiest way to get around is the metro or MTR. It's really clear and easy to use. The big and only plus about our guest house was location which is opposite to the entrance of the MTR's main line.
Mongkok is the older part of Hong Kong, mostly known for its markets, neon lights and being featured in pretty much every movie where Hong Kong is part of the story.
We decided to start with the Goldfish market. First time we saw fish of all kinds and sizes being sold in millions of plastic bags.
Dima especially liked this one with a hat!
The buildings in this part of Hong Kong are quite outdated and each has a the whole ground floor filled with little shops and cafe.
Everywhere in the city there are signs that tell you where you can go and how to get there, so it's very easy to move around without getting lost.
Our next stop was Flower market, which as it turned out looks identical to the flower market in Amsterdam. Dima is totally convinced that the flowers are from NL as well.
On the way to Nathan road that leads to the harbor:
Dima is by far the tallest one in the crowd, easy to see when I have to catch up.
The red light market :-)
We couldn't guess what this was, looked like an enormous snail...
Further down, there a couple of streets that are full of electronic stuff, cameras, computers, etc. There was even a 10-story apartment building, with all ten floors converted into shops to sell cameras and photo equipment!!
This one is the Ladies market, no idea why its called so, though...
On our way we only saw one street artist, I was actually expecting more to be honest.
Opposite to the lack of street artist, there was no lack of street food. Although it smelled really good, we decided to pass on those snacks, because they are all various animal inside, chicken feet, etc. Not our thing...
The Portland street famous for it's neon signs wasn't lit completely yet, so we decided to come back tomorrow after dark.
Finally, we got to the Nathan street which runs all the way through Mongkok to the harbor.
This little buses operate through the poorer streets of Mongkok.
While the main streets and the areas further away are serviced by the shiny new double-decker buses, just like in UK. Nathan road is filled with them 24/7.
Next to buses, Nathan street is filled with huge crowds of people, which makes it difficult to walk faster. It took us an hour to walk 2 kilometers.
The closer you get to the harbor the nicer and modern it gets.
Finally at the harbor, we got to see the famous Hong Kong skyline lit in the dark.
At 8pm the light show begins, and a huge crowd of people arrives to the harbor and the promenade to see it.
We didn't think it was worth coming specially to see. The skyline is absolutely great and lit the same all evening long, but the light show was just a couple of lasers and a music for 20 minutes.
The promenade itself is quite nice as well.
Parallel to the Nathan street, there is a Canton street were all the famous brands have huge shops and shopping malls.
There is some famous tree in the middle of this one and tons of people come to photograph it or with it.
There was something going on that day because the whole tree area was filled with dressed in costumes girls with personal photographers, taking pics... May be it's a Christmas thing in HK??
Canton road - I think the most expensive street in Hong Kong, heaven for brand and glamour lovers :-)
The side streets are, on the other hand, for much simpler people.
Another thing that surprised us in Hong Kong was the fact that smoking on the street is only allowed near such orange urns as on the photo below.
We forgot about this rule a couple of times, but luckily didn't get a fine. While we were smoking at this particular corner, we spotted a place to eat. Love, love dumplings and buns!!
After not sleeping on the plane and walking all day, we were very ready to call it a night.
Next: the Hong Kong Island and Victoria peak
Once in Moscow, we had two hours to kill, so while Dima was curing his nostalgia with Russian pancakes and cake, I was busy finishing some things for work.
By the time we started to board, it began snowing, and as the result, we departed with almost 2 hours delay. Eventually, with some favorable wind we landed in Hong Kong an hour later than expected.
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| Click on the photo to see larger pics |
Information about it is the first thing you see after clearing customs, so we had no trouble finding our way.
So far, we've only been underground, but once we were on the bus, we finally got to see outside. Hong Kong met us with blue sky, lot's of sunshine and a construction noise from every corner.
Well, luckily we were not planning on staying in it all day, anyway.
To kill the jet-lag, we decided hold it till the evening and to start the trip around the city with Kowloon island, since we were already here. To do that we took a metro to Mongkok and then walked back to the harbor.
The easiest way to get around is the metro or MTR. It's really clear and easy to use. The big and only plus about our guest house was location which is opposite to the entrance of the MTR's main line.
Mongkok is the older part of Hong Kong, mostly known for its markets, neon lights and being featured in pretty much every movie where Hong Kong is part of the story.
Next: the Hong Kong Island and Victoria peak
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