Hong Kong

Soooo... Hong Kong. We had been looking forward to this stop for a while, as what would hopefully be a small oasis of sanity in between the craziness of mainland China (much like Singapore was during our southeast Asian adventures). We’ve both visited Hong Kong very briefly before on long layovers, but had never had more than a few hours to explore. So pulling into our hostel at nearly 11pm, we had high expectations. Things weren't exactly as we had hoped though!

On the plus side, Hong Kong is full of home comforts. Everywhere accepts contactless card payment. People stand to the side politely on escalators. English language is widespread, and the people we encountered were friendly and helpful. The visa office was on 'Gloucester Road'. Chelsea had a good swimming session at Tai Wan Shan pool. There was a Messina ice cream shop on the Peak. We even found some dark chocolate McVities digestive biscuits (Chelsea nearly cried with relief).

Unfortunately, there are some elements of home which we didn't like as much! It was rainy. We found the food to be bland and uninspiring, like bad Chinese takeaway in Britain rather than the rich and exciting dishes we ate on the mainland. And most of all, Hong Kong is extremely expensive. To go from £12 a night in a private room with en-suite on the mainland, to £50 a night for uncomfortable bunks in a shared room opposite sweaty teenagers was a big dropoff in travel value. We also considered doing a half-day trip to Macau while we were here, only to find out that Macau is somehow even more extortionate—no thanks!

Unfortunately, most of the activities we tried in Hong Kong were also a bit disappointing. It was surprisingly hard to find things to do, despite being such a famous city. The National Museum of Art was a big building without much in it. The National Museum of History had seen the recent, heavy hand of the CCP, with the main exhibition being on “National security” following the recent protests. We learned all about how the “Hong Kong Independence Movement” threatens the “stability of families and the economy”, and "Hong Kong's journey to true democracy". Do they know that quotation marks imply irony?

We also went for a rubbish Indian dinner (Hong Kong's answer to Singapore's little India is pitiful), and Temple Street Night Market, which felt like a ghost town. Meanwhile, trying to get up to Victoria Peak on the tourist tram was a nightmare of overcrowding, with an hour-long wait to get both up and down along with ten thousand other tourists, just for an awful shopping mall on the summit, and a delay that nearly made us miss our flight.

Overall, the city feels defeated. The markets are almost empty, many shops are shuttered. For geopolitical and financial reasons, it feels like the glory days are over, with investment shifting to Singapore, culture and tourism going to Japan and Taiwan, and Chinese shoppers staying on the mainland. We wondered if we were missing something, but it seems like a lot of commentators online are coming to similar conclusions. A big shame, but we can safely say that after four days, we never need to visit again.

One last note: we went to the Chinese visa office, hoping to expedite our application process for the second half of our trip to China. To our dismay, we found out the process would take nearly 10 days, even paying for express service, and cost five times as much as we paid in Seoul: £250 for two visas! And we'd need to rearrange our entire trip to accommodate the wait, staying in an expensive but rubbish hotel in Hong Kong in the meantime. This led to a rapid recalculation, and a big change in plan for the next few weeks. Since we've already spent two weeks in China, we've made an executive decision to skip the visa headache of going back, and will redistribute the time to other countries that will give us more time to enjoy Central Asia instead.

Hong Kong has been a disappointment. Especially considering how much we enjoyed mainland China by contrast. But it can't all be five-star experiences, and we're excited to move onto our next country... Taiwan!Baca lagi