Friday 30th March/Saturday 31st March 2007
All well so far, the trip to Heathrow went pretty well, the flight to Amsterdam fine although the landing was a bit bumpy, bouncing into the air again on touchdown!
The transfer was easy enough though there was plenty of security to get through. Food the usual plane fare but V as usual seems to get the best of it with the veggie option... must remember that for the next time we fly!
...skip forward a few hours, the usual in-flight "entertainment", snoozing and all that, until...
End of flight, 8.30am local time in Hong Kong on Saturday 31st March, we arrive looking and feeling like death warmed up (plenty due to the temperature). Thought largely uneventful the highlight of the very long flight was waking up to sunrise over the Himalayas! WOW! (on the other hand, the lowlight was the turbulence reminiscent of Airplane!).
On arrival in HK airport helped out by a woman from the tourist office who took pity on our bedraggled state and gave us a map, pointing out what to go and see in our brief visit there, where to eat, that kind of thing.
Got to Booth Lodge and checked in by 10.30, having to pay a HK$200 deposit for everything, seemingly including paying for the deposit (not too sure about that...).
We fought through the jet-lag and the overwhelming desire to sleep for the first time in what felt like weeks and headed off down Nathan Road, where I was approached by about 100 tailors all offering to make me a suit. Seriously, look at me, do I look like the kind of guy who wears a suit?!
Got to the Star Ferry and sailed for Hong Kong Island, from where we took the bus to the Peak Train then the incredibly steep tramway to the Peak (see pic at top). We had lunch there in a relatively expensive (hey, it's all relative around here!), swank-ish hotel despite looking like vagrants.
Back to Booth Lodge for the first meeting with the rest of our fellow travellers and a briefing (i.e. opportunity to pay more money I think!) before a quick nap and a shower (at last) and then off for a wander around the famous Temple Street night market and dinner. Deciding that when in Rome... we headed to the Hard Rock Cafe for a final bit of Western food for a while!
After this we meandered back up the ever-busy streets to Booth Lodge for an early night before an early start as we went inland...
7 comments:
Not strictly related to this post but... Did you guys get the news story on the hostages on the bus in Xi'an a couple of weeks ago? They were Aussies so you may not have, but their tour guide who was stuck on the bus with the crazy with the bomb was Eric!
Ps Congrats on getting this up a year later :)
No way? Never heard about that at all. Did they all get our all right? What was the protest over?
yeah they did, he let everyone off but one hostage and eric, and then got the bus driver to take him to the airport where he was taken out by a sniper and luckly the bomb didn't go off.
The story was that he was a disgruntled ex city employee of some kind I think. But this is china who knows what he was actually protesting against.
And it being eric who was acting as the translator he wouldn't actually tell the aussie hostages what the guy was yelling about.
Ha! Eric's a legend!
Will Google it to see if I can find the story...
this has a little info on it http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/world/aussies-taken-hostage-in-china/2008/03/05/1204402550342.html
isn't it time you went to bed? honestly!
Yes Mum!
We've been off this past week and I've slept so much but for some reason I just can't get to sleep tonight...
...but I am off to bed now. Thanks for the link!
great blogging, Andy... its taken me this long to have time to have a look at it! Brings back many many many memories....
China has had it rough recently, eh? Earthquake... I think the Olympics could be abit touch and go...
And thats incredible about Eric and the hostage situation... what a hero! I'm not sure about his 'hiding the truth' from the tourists would've been like tho... I would prefer to know exactly whats going on, and not have it buttered up for me! If I'm gonna have it, I'd rather know about it!
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