Country Number 9: Hong Kong!

Eeek!! We are super psyched for our next destination!! We are only staying for 4 days but its going to be jam packed, which is why we didn't go crazy and cram lots in our last few days of Taiwan.

In the morning we grabbed a taxi to the airport with a couple from Hong Kong also at the hostel (10 mins by taxi, 35 by public transport or an hour walk) and then chilled out in the teeny airport till our flight. So as you know we have a ritual, toilet, fill bottles, get a spritz of perfume and then try and spend our remaining small change currency. When we got past security you won't believe what happened... There's no shop!! So we couldn't spend our remaining TWD! From our estimations we could have bought 6 Chumpos (a chocolate biscuit). The flight was fine and really short. In no time we had the perfect misty view of Hong Kong. I think we've brought the rain from Taiwan!

It's always fun getting to a new country and working through the same routine, wee, pack our 7kg back into the rucksack that we've had to wear, walk miles to go through immigration, get cash, get a Sim card and attempt to work out how to get from the airport to the city. Normally we aren't in a rush and it's quite chilled. However this time we had to rush. As we only had limited time in Hong Kong we decided to do a walking tour and there happened to be one on the day we arrived. The only problem was that it was at 2:30pm and we were expected to land at 12:50pm. I think the stars were aligned perfectly for us. We packed our luggage and had a wee on the flight and arrived at 12:20pm, immigration was super efficient, bought tickets for the HSR into central and was in town by 1:30pm! Perfect. Obviously we didn't want to carry our luggage all day so we headed straight to the luggage store, the price was per item with various time frames. So we decided to clip my small bag to my big one and hope they don't mind as it is small! They did, it was ridiculous... People were bringing suitcases that our entire luggage and a person could have fit in and were paying the same cost! The guy behind the desk said "We follow rules in Hong Kong, if you put all your luggage in one plastic bag then we can take it." Me and Will looked at each other and instantly thought a bin bag! Will found a cleaner asked for a bin bag and we were sorted! The bin bag so big we were able to put all our luggage in instead of just my bag and the small bag. 😂 Luckily even after this palaver we still made it just in time for the tour.

The tour was OK, but I wouldn't recommend it to others as I think you could have just walked to the various places yourself. I think the guide was very new and so he didn't really know anything about the history of Hong Kong and didn't really offer any insider tips. He did take us to a couple of places we wanted to go to including Tai Cheong Bakery for their famous egg tart (really biscuity tart and really egg custard, perfect), Lan Fong Yen for their Stocking Milk Tea (OK for a one time try), and.......

After the tour we went up the Mid-Levels Esculator whicg is the longest outdoor Esculator system spanning 2,600 feet. Part of it was under repairs, which was tiring, but eventually we got to the top. A fun thing to do, but you probably could have just done part of it, mainly because the esculator is only one way and so you walk back down 😊

We quickly ran back down and met Andy, one of Will's colleagues for dinner at Mak's Noodle where we had beef brisket with wonton noodle. It was really yummy!!

Now, a famous saying among locals and expats is “A New York minute is a Hong Kong second,” and I can officially say it is true. The night started by Andy taking us to a bar during happy hour. And I'm so glad it was! Drinks are super expensive here. We just chatted for a while and one obviously became two. We then went to meet some of his friends and this is when the night escalated... two became... more than two and then we realised the station luggage shuts at 1am! It was now 12:30am. We pegged it back to the station and unbeknown to us they only seem to have one entrance open at that time, which was the completely opposite side to our luggage. I couldn't run fast enough so Will just went for it. It was getting very very tight and suddenly we hit a barrier where you would normally pay to get on the train. We needed to get through this to get our luggage, but we didn't need to get the train. Will just went for it and lept over. A minute behind I got to the gate and saw quite an angry lady and I asked her how I can get round to which she replied "Well he lept over it!!" I took this as permission to also do the same. I got to the luggage and Will wasn't there. All I could hear was him yelling upstairs asking people where he needed to go. Eventually he came downstairs and we got our luggage literally with seconds to spare. What followed next was a moment of true testing. We had a huge row. I didn't know whether to omit this from the blog but I decided to keep it in because let's be honest this is normal!! Myself and Will are with each other 24 hours a day, everyday. In the past month we haven't really met other people and it's actually been quite tough compared to our last trip due to the weather and feeling more restricted. So honestly, I'm surprised we hadn't killed each other before! After quite a drama we both calmed down, became more civilised and started walking back to meet the others. To be honest we both really wanted to go back home but the party was moving to someone's flat and as we were guests we were to English to refuse. To be honest it was a good thing, we sat and chatted to the new crowd and it was just nice to meet other people and feel normal again! But... this then went on for way to long. Myself and Will were falling asleep in the corner when eventually we all bundled into a taxi and got to Andy's flat. In the words of How I Met Your Mother, "nothing good happens after 2am" and definitely not at 7am when you are crawling into bed and it's daylight... Tomorrow is going to be painful but what an eventful start to Hong Kong!!!Read more