Hong Kong – one of our all Time Favorites
We both looked very much forward to re-visit Hong Kong a city we both have been many times and really love.
A bus ride brought us from the Airport to the Silka Seaview Hotel near Yau Ma Tei MTR station – a perfect location to explore the city. As always in Hong Kong the room was small but quite new and clean (and affordable). We finished the day with a late night snack at a nearby food stall. Hong Kong food here we come!
One of the reasons why we stopped in Hong Kong was to get our China visa. Hong Kong is the easiest and fastest place to get a Visa for China especially if you want one for more than a month. And indeed it was easy, you go to an agency, pay about 500 HKD (about 60 USD) and in one day you get your visa.
A short ride with the iconic Star Ferry (a symbol of Hong Kong which runs from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island) brought us to the Hong Kong Island Ferry Pier from where we took another boat to Lan Tau Island. Our destination was the Big Buddha (a really big Buddha statue…aha). Lan Tau Island has a lot of greenery and you would never guess that super dense and buzzing Kowloon is just a few kilometers away.
Once back on Hong Kong Island we visited the Happy Valley Race course for some fun at the weekly horse race. The hippodrome is gigantic and it was good fun to watch some races and do some betting (unfortunately no luck this time) while enjoying a cold beer.
The next three days we spent with sightseeing, meeting old friends of Kevin and having a lot of Dim Sum (we need to mention our fantastic Dim Sum at Tim Ho Wan – perhaps one of the best Dim Sums we had ever had). One good thing if you know a city fairly well is that you don’t need much time figuring things out but you can concentrate on the things you really like.
As always Hong Kong was super busy, fast paced and the number of people on the streets was just overwhelming (visit Mong Kong on a weekend evening and you will see). You can spend ours just walking the streets and watching the contrast between new super skyscrapers and old buildings. What a fantastic city!
As always we enjoyed our days in Hong Kong and we are looking already forward to our next visit but now it was time to visit the “real” China – which is quite a bit different than any other country in the world. So let’s go and follow us (if you like)!