Hong Kong - Day 1 & 2
Hong Kong - DAY 1 & 2
So our last update was from our hotel room on a rather wet and dreary Tuesday morning... Mmmm after a bit of a rest we ventured out for DAY 1 in HONG KONG!!
So our last update was from our hotel room on a rather wet and dreary Tuesday morning... Mmmm after a bit of a rest we ventured out for DAY 1 in HONG KONG!!
More observations from Hong Kong :
1) There are ALOT of one way streets and most of them very narrow. The shops also were very tiny almost on top of each other. Many of them seemed to be family businesses'. What we did notice is that many of the little shops had fish products in them..and heaps of shark fin!! Just about every second shop on the street was like this. Makes for a bit of a smelly neighbourhood. Also, they are very focused on herbs and herbal remedies, in between all the fish shops there were shops selling a whole lot of dry herbs.
2) Hong Kong seemed to have almost NO pharmacies. They have these neat little shops called WATSONS. You can get almost anything there. I went in there to get something for my travel sickness..and was shocked to find you could buy an oral contraceptive pill over the counter! Oddly, you can't buy anything with codeine in it, but they do sell Paracetamol Plus with an addition of caffeine..its like a cup of coffee in a tablet.. LOL
3) We also noticed that this culture was obsessed with cleaning! Everywhere we looked they were cleaning something, in our hotel, on the street, even the light fittings in some of the shopping centres! In a bizarre twist, they don't seem to care much about good food handling. Along the street in their fish product and meat selling shops it seemed to be hanging out in the fresh air. In HONG KONG, fresh air generally means it is filled with fumes from cars, buses and so on but the temperature outside was a balmy 29C with approx 90% humidity... Obviously they do not care too much about the risk of Salmonella! It also never seems to cool down overnight much either. When it rains, it just seems to get steamier and more uncomfortable.
4) In Hong Kong, their buildings are insanely tall and narrow and some of the neighbourhoods are built on the side and up massive hills. A good example of this was SOHO, not far from where we were by foot. The streets were so steep, they have installed ESCALATORS in order for people to access their apartment blocks, restaurants, bars and cafe's. Only UP though, going down there are what seem a million steps! They also have these funky looking trams around the place, double story trams which are so narrow and so light that they just fly down the rail and around the corners.
We also made it down to the harbour that particular evening. Although it was hazy for most part, the views are simply breathtaking, particularly across the water to Kowloon. Kowloon is where our trip took us the next day..
Day 2 : We ferried it across from Hong Kong Island over to Kowloon. The ferries between them run very regularly and with a map and a destination it is easy to figure out on which ferry you should be on. (There are a few piers and the ferries run to different parts across the harbour).
Over in Kowloon, the areas are very modern. One of the main streets is shopping central, from Prada to Chanel it's all there. During the day we had a nice walk around and found our way to Kowloon Park. We took plenty of pictures. It was a gorgeous area with a Chinese Garden and an aviary with exotic birds. One other thing we noticed about Hong Kong is that absolutely everywhere is smoke free, even in the outdoors! We also managed to find a Hard Rock cafe (and in true tourist style I purchased a Tshirt!) as well as a TGI fridays! In a rather unadventurous style we did have our dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, but it was delicious! After a long day we made it back to our hotel room and curled up into bed prepared for our early wake up call - THE FLIGHT TO LONDON...
2) Hong Kong seemed to have almost NO pharmacies. They have these neat little shops called WATSONS. You can get almost anything there. I went in there to get something for my travel sickness..and was shocked to find you could buy an oral contraceptive pill over the counter! Oddly, you can't buy anything with codeine in it, but they do sell Paracetamol Plus with an addition of caffeine..its like a cup of coffee in a tablet.. LOL
3) We also noticed that this culture was obsessed with cleaning! Everywhere we looked they were cleaning something, in our hotel, on the street, even the light fittings in some of the shopping centres! In a bizarre twist, they don't seem to care much about good food handling. Along the street in their fish product and meat selling shops it seemed to be hanging out in the fresh air. In HONG KONG, fresh air generally means it is filled with fumes from cars, buses and so on but the temperature outside was a balmy 29C with approx 90% humidity... Obviously they do not care too much about the risk of Salmonella! It also never seems to cool down overnight much either. When it rains, it just seems to get steamier and more uncomfortable.
4) In Hong Kong, their buildings are insanely tall and narrow and some of the neighbourhoods are built on the side and up massive hills. A good example of this was SOHO, not far from where we were by foot. The streets were so steep, they have installed ESCALATORS in order for people to access their apartment blocks, restaurants, bars and cafe's. Only UP though, going down there are what seem a million steps! They also have these funky looking trams around the place, double story trams which are so narrow and so light that they just fly down the rail and around the corners.
We also made it down to the harbour that particular evening. Although it was hazy for most part, the views are simply breathtaking, particularly across the water to Kowloon. Kowloon is where our trip took us the next day..
Day 2 : We ferried it across from Hong Kong Island over to Kowloon. The ferries between them run very regularly and with a map and a destination it is easy to figure out on which ferry you should be on. (There are a few piers and the ferries run to different parts across the harbour).
Over in Kowloon, the areas are very modern. One of the main streets is shopping central, from Prada to Chanel it's all there. During the day we had a nice walk around and found our way to Kowloon Park. We took plenty of pictures. It was a gorgeous area with a Chinese Garden and an aviary with exotic birds. One other thing we noticed about Hong Kong is that absolutely everywhere is smoke free, even in the outdoors! We also managed to find a Hard Rock cafe (and in true tourist style I purchased a Tshirt!) as well as a TGI fridays! In a rather unadventurous style we did have our dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, but it was delicious! After a long day we made it back to our hotel room and curled up into bed prepared for our early wake up call - THE FLIGHT TO LONDON...
Photo's can be viewed at : http://picasaweb.google.com/hillsj/HongKongKowloonPark
