Our flight from Frankfurt to Hong Kong went off relatively smoothly once we had gotten over the hurdle of having to obtain a visa for our flight plan’s final destination: Sydney, Australia. Neither Sam nor I were informed that those are required. For future reference, they are required. For everyone. Unless of course you have an Australian passport. But I digress. Once we fixed that speed bump, we got through security and on the plane quite alright, and Cathay Pacific has pretty good service. You get all meals, with wine if you want it for no extra cost, and if you get hungry in between you can ask for cup noodles. Anywho, onto this post’s feature presentation. Sit back, relax and enjoy: How to See Hong Kong in 12 Hours By: Anya Phillips To start off I will say that this route will not work for everyone. Mostly because mine involved showing Sam some places where I lived and worked, which are not of particular interest to anyone outside of myself. But still. I hope you all find it interesting! We landed in Hong Kong from Frankfurt at 7am. Our flight from Hong Kong to Sydney did not depart until 11:55pm. With having to sort stuff out at the airport upon arrival and travel to the city from the airport, as well as getting back to the airport early or our departing flight, that left us about 12 hours to enjoy all that Hong Kong has to offer. And for me to reminisce and bring back all the lovely memories from when I lived there for a short time. Once at the airport and off the plane, we headed out through immigration and customs into the main terminal lobby. We still had our carry-on rolling suitcases so we took them to terminal 2 where there is a “left luggage” service. For about the equivalent of $1.50 per hour per bag, you can leave your luggage at the airport and pick it up when you get back. It was perfect for what we needed. However, we were dressed in our fall weather clothing from Europe and were about to walk into 80 degree humidity, so we changed first and then took our bags over. Once we had checked our bags in there, we went straight to the express train to get into the city. By the time we got into the city, it was about 9:30am. And here starts our 12 hours. I feel a little bad for Sam because we were walking around and I was being really nostalgic. Like to the point of “oh look there’s the grocery store I used to shop at **sigh**”. But to her credit, every time she replied with an “oh cool”, even if she didn’t mean it. Bless. Also, Hong Kong is an ever changing city so many of the places or shop or restaurants that I remember don’t exist any more. So anyways, we started with a look in at the gym I used to go to almost every morning. It’s pretty interesting because it’s officially on the 16th floor but it actually spans five floors (from the 11 through 16). This is a pretty unique idea, so we went on up and the same two women are working the front desk from when I was there! Then we walked up through an open market so Sam could get a taste of that before going over to Lang Kwai Fong, which is a section of bars and restaurants that are very hip and popular. By this time it was about 10:15am and the mid-levels escalators had started going up again (from 6:30-10am they go down so everyone can get to work/the metro/ferries etc. and then at 10am they switch to go up) and I showed Sam the building where I worked and the building where I lived. Next on the list was the Peak Tram. If you’ve only got time for one tourist thing in HK, I suggest the Peak Tram. It takes you right up to the top of Victoria Peak and you can see a great panorama of the city. We did it during the day, but if you have the opportunity to go at night then that’s even better. The city when it lights up is truly mesmerizing. We ate lunch up there as well because there is a great restaurant to eat some proper chinese food. And I got mine nice and spicy, naturally. We took the Tram back down and walked back to the Central MTR (metro) station where we got on the red line to head to the Kowloon side across the harbour. We got off an Mong Kok station and walked the few blocks to Ladies’ Market. There is a whole walking street that is devoted to tents with traveling shops and it’s some great shopping for people who are okay with negotiating prices. You can usually talk people down to at least half of what they’re selling it for. I got a pair of sunglasses at the market that I talked down from $100 HKD to $40 HKD (which translates to me going from potentially spending almost $13 USD to about $5 USD). Pretty good. Sam wanted to buy a birthday present for a friend back home, so I haggled with the lady for a bit and knocked about $5 USD of a pair of nicely decorated chopsticks (which was just about half of her original price). Pat on the back for me. We headed back towards the water down Nathan Road, which is the big main road on the Kowloon side. There are many shops along this road, as well as a number of hotels and restaurants. While we were walking along, we stopped in at the Tin Hau Temple. Like many of the temples in and around Hong Kong, there was a ton of incense burning. But this temple houses it in a unique way: they have incense coils hanging from the ceiling. After we let, we took a look into Kowloon City Park on the way back to the water. The Park is large and definitely worth taking a look/walk round if you’re in the city. We then attempted to go to the Avenue of Stars, which is essentially the Hong Kong version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It honours actors of the Hong Kong film industry, including actors from other countries that have taken up a permanent residence in Hong Kong. The most famous plaque by far is Bruce Lee’s. However, apparently they’re doing construction right now so we couldn’t go. By this time, it was about 5:30 and we were meeting Ian, my mom’s friend from college that I stayed with when I lived in Hong Kong, for dinner and a beer at 6:30, so we caught the Star Ferry back across the bay (definite must do!) while the city lights were slowly turning on. We met Ian in the SoHo area, which is along Hollywood Road, at this pub called The Globe. It had been two years, but let me tell you their chili was still amazing. It was so nice to catch up! We left for the airport at about 9:30pm, grabbed our bags and headed through security to our gate! Where we were then delayed for 40 minutes. Literally, I was asleep before the plane took off. But at least this gave me some time to come up with some other stuff that are great in Hong Kong! Well, I mean everything in Hong Kong is great, but just a few other things you could/should do that we didn’t do:
Anyway, we successfully landed in Sydney! Yay for warmer weather and relaxing. Catch ya later, I’m going to go tan.
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Meet AnyaHi, Hola, Bonjour, Ciao!
I’m Anya Phillips, a data analyst and travel enthusiast who is always on the lookout for the next adventure! Categories
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