Touchdown in Kong Kong-Day 1

Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Saturday, November 2, 2013

Nov 1st/2nd 2013
Well blogsters, here we are in Hong Kong and yes, those of you who know about these things were all correct - the flat bed was worth every penny! My only concern is, has it ruined us for the rest of our lives?? We are at the very beginning of Peter’s retirement trip to the other side of the world. Accompanying us on our journey are our old friends Geraldine and Reg from Devon and this is as big an excitment for them as us. There will undoubtedly be laughs aplenty!
The inward flight was spectacular in the pearly early morning light and we were at our Kowloon based hotel by 7.30 am local time, delivered there by the HK equivalent of Jensen Button, who spent the whole journey weaving in and out of the early morning traffic and simultaneously shouting into his iPhone. Interesting, to say the least. However, not daunted, we have hit the ground running and investigated the Star Ferry, which is just round the corner from the hotel, booked a couple of trips and managed to get to grips with the MTR (tube).
Whilst waiting for the room to be ready we decided to take the tube (and it is exactly that, a metal tube with no subdivisions) to the Flower Market, which was of particular interest to me, as you can imagine. It was chaotic and not only awash with exotic blooms, but also, to my amazement English flowers, such as stocks, zinnias and ranunculus. Nearby, was the bird market and this was quite a sight to behold. Keeping songbirds in tiny ornamental bamboo cages is clearly immensely popular here and the equivalent of showing at Crufts it seems. I was both fascinated and appalled at the same time. There were dozens of tiny glossy green finches huddled together in a minuscule cage, parrots in another, minar birds and many more beautiful specimens that I couldn't name. I must remind myself that this is the culture and it is different here.
We continued to walk back towards the hotel down a long market street buzzing with locals buying their weekend goods of all types. Huge high rise apartment blocks towered above us strung with lines of washing. There were bright neon signs, much shouting and selling, street food, wonderful bonsai trees, unusual fruit and vegetables and I suspect it is a scene that has remained unchanged for millennia.
Finally, just to add a touch of meteorological interest, there is a Typhoon blowing in tonight. There's nothing like a spectacular welcome is there? We're told it is merely a type 1 storm and nothing to be concerned about, but we'll see. I'll keep you posted...........Read more