So after a very sad weekend of final goodbyes to the people and places I grew to love with all my heart in Houjie, it was time to leave China and enter the big wide world... starting with Hong Kong! Now, I went to Hong Kong without any predisposed opinions... I know people who have loved HK and people who think its entirely overrated so I wanted to make my own mind up. I think it took me a while to grow to love Hong
Kong, but now I'm sat in HK airport waiting for my flight out of
here, I'm actually so sad to leave. Initially I guess I felt so
guilty for enjoying the simplicity of Hong Kong compared to mainland
China... the perfect organisation, the cleanliness, the easiness of
simple tasks that were always such a monumental struggle in China.
The best way I can describe it is that Hong Kong is kind of like
China's better, more well-liked older sibling, and seeing as I grew
to really love China, even with all it's downfalls and general
weirdness, I really didn't want to join the masses of people who
prefer Hong Kong.
I still wouldn't say I PREFER it, as
China still fascinates me and annoys me all at the same time which I
kind of love. But it is amazing!! The general buzz and atmosphere is
incredible, kind of like London but obviously with a lot more Asians.
Well-dressed Asians I should add... a million miles away from the
err, 'interesting' fashion choices I grew to get used to in mainland
China.
Anyway I decided to spend a week here with Elin before meeting up with the others again, so we've kept ourselves pretty busy. On Tuesday we went to Ocean Park (it was that or Disneyland, and Ocean Park had the edge), and although the heavens decided to open as soon as we arrived we bought ourselves some overpriced ponchos and went on all the rollercoasters anyway. Yolo and all that.
After that we headed down to the waterfront to catch the symphony of lights, the lightshow that all the buildings on the Hong Kong skyline do every night. It was pretty impressive actually, if a little bit cheesy.... but maybe I was still just feeling a little bit anti-Hong Kong at this point.
On Wednesday we decided to cross the
water and spend the day in Macau, the 'Las Vegas' of China. It was
without a doubt the strangest place I've ever visited. The buildings
and streets were like a replica of somewhere in Europe, I mean I
literally could have sworn I was in Italy. But then you look up and
see Chinese characters everywhere which brings you back down to the
fact you are actually in Asia. The street signs are in Chinese and
Portuguese, and then occasionally English, so we had to work out our
way trying to translate the Portuguese... not something I thought I'd
be doing while in Asia. It was generally a nice place though, the
fact that the island is so small means you can literally walk from
each tourist spot to the next which is nice. Unfortunately it decided to rain again so we
couldn't wander about as much as we wanted to, but I think we got a
feel for the place... and yes there are casino's everywhere (probably
a good thing that Elin wasn't old enough for us to hide from the rain
in there.... I could have left Macau a very broke woman).
Asia.... or Europe?
On Thursday, the other girls arrived
and as Elin was due to leave the next day, when we heard about a 'pub
crawl' that takes place every Thursday night in Hong Kong we were
obviously more than a little keen. For 100 HK dollars we were lead
around Hong Kong for the evening with a group of more than 100
travellers, given free entry and free shots to every place and
generally had a pretty fantastic night. I wish there were photos of this night but I didn't risk taking out my camera or Iphone. Probably a very wise choice. The next day we went to the world's
cheapest Michelin star restaurant. It took us ages to find because if
you didn't know it was Michelin star you wouldn't even look twice at
it, it just looked like every other little Asian restaurant. The
signs weren't even in English (which for Hong Kong is really saying
something). The food was incredible though, and for a proper feast of
Dim Sum we only paid 50 HK dollars each, which is around a fiver...
happy days! We attempted to go see the Symphony of Lights light show
afterwards, but the heavens decided to open so instead we went back
to our rooms looking like drowned rats.
So now I am still in my China state of
mind that everything is going to take 3 times as long as it should,
forgetting that I'm in Hong Kong where everything runs like
clockwork, so I'm at the airport far earlier than I need to be. But
soon I'll be on my flight to Bangkok where I begin the next leg of
the journey.... get me on a beach with a cold beer in my hand!
Victoria Peak, HK
