Hong Kong - Special Administrative Region!

This is a continuation of Seoul-Hong Kong Trip. If you are interested in Part I, please find it here!

The flight from Seoul to Hong Kong was fairly short - 3 and 1/2 hours I think. Since we (Charles and I) had left Seoul early in the morning, we arrived in Hong Kong before noon. As soon as we landed at the airport the first thing struck me was the airport. If you don't know, Hong Kong is a big island surrounded by several islands. Anyways,so the airport is also on a separate island and it's made by landfill. It appeared that there was no barrier/wall between the airport and the adjoining sea. We can easily see the boats and ships in the sea. It seemed like somebody could easily jump into the sea from the runway and vice versa.

We de-boarded and proceeded towards the immigration counters. Even though, HK is a part of China and it's officially called Hong Kong - Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), the economic and visa policies are independent of China. For most countries HK gives visa on arrival, and the stay ranging from several weeks to months. Indian passport holders can stay for up to 14 days.

Anyways, we cleared immigration and proceeded towards baggage claim. And something unusual. On the baggage claim belt, all the bags were arranged nicely such that for most bags the handle faces upwards/towards you, so that you can easily fetch your luggage. Now, this was unusual, surprising and impressive. I've been to many airports but never saw anything like this before. I mean, who cares about those damn bags, anywhere else most of them can be found upside down, but here there were some special airport staff people who were arranging the bags and aligning them. Wow - that was my reaction! I don't know if it has always been like that at the Hong Kong airport or they are going that extra mile to impress the international community due to the Olympics! Whatever may be the case, but it was a nice gesture!

Apparently, due to the Olympics, there were lots of Beijing Olympics banners/posters/billboards/stalls put up around the airport. Unfortunately, this was my first time at HKG airport, so can't really compare it, but some things/informations kiosks appeared real new - may be just because of the Olympics!

Moving on, Charles went to the ticket counter of 'Airport Express' train. This train connects the airport and downtown Hong Kong. They market it very well at the airport - '24 minutes to downtown'. While Charles was buying the ticket, I was wondering how fast is it, since I didn't know the distance between the airport and downtonw? In about 5-10 minutes we were in the train and it started moving. Well, it wasn't that fast, however the seats and interior was designed to look like a plane than a train.

So, the train is moving along the mountains on one side and the sea on the other! And within minutes lots of multi-storied building started to appear along the train tracks! They were impressive and there were hundreds and hundreds of them, each probably averaging at least 40 stories. Now, that's something you don't see anywhere else. Most/All of those buildings were residential apartments and they truly define Hong Kong. The more I saw them, the more was I getting impressed! Truly, I had never seen anything like that before. It's one thing visiting a downtown like Manhattan and visiting something like this. A simple reason for such tall apartments is that - Hong Kong doesn't have land to build societies and town houses. It's total area is just about 1104 sqkm (426 sq mile, NYC is about 470 miles) and population of almost 7 million. That makes it world's third most densely populated country at 6352 humans/sqkm.

Anyways, we reached our destination - Kowloon (it's one of the islands), took a free shuttle to the hotel and checked-in. It was about 1.30 pm and we decided to meet around 3 after some rest!

We were walking on the streets of Kowloon and Charles is leading since he had been there before. While in Seoul you can only see Korean people, Hong Kong is totally different - meaning, all kinds of nationalities. Interestingly it has a very significant Indian population, and you can see them on the streets of Kowloon, either selling something or offering some service or inviting to eat in an Indian restaurant. Anyways, we are walking, streets are fairly crowded and narrow with lots of shops side by side - A typical market in India! One interesting thing - Hong Kong is famous for its tailor-made suits - they make it for cheap and in most cases they can get it ready within a day in some cases the same day. So, many Americans/Westerners who visit HK, make a point to get a couple of those. However, I think we can still get them cheaper in India..;). Also, many of those tailors are Indians, earlier they used to be Chinese but now Indians have captured a big chunk of the market.

Anyways, we are getting hungry and looking for some place to eat, that's when we spotted a traditional Chinese dragon-lion fight/dance being performed live. A watch shop was being innaugrated and they had arranged this special item to impress the CEO. It was fun to watch! One thing worth mentioning - the weather in Hong Kong usually is very very humid, and that was getting into my nerves ;)! So, if you ever visit around this time, be mindful of that humidity - cotton is the best, no jeans..;)!

After taking a detailed walk around this streets Charles led me to the Kowloon waterfront from where we can see the Hong Kong skyline. Once again, I was impressed by the down town! In a sense it's just another downtown, but still different! I think it's far bigger/better than Manhattan at least from distance..:P.. anways, took some pictures for 5-10 minutes and decided to take a ferry across into Hong Kong down town. The ferry was pretty cheap - I guess USD 1.30. 1 HK$ = 7.7 US$. HKD is directly tied to USD. And something I didn't know before - in Hong Kong any bank can print the dollar notes. I came across one note/bill which was printed by HSBC - no RBI or something..;)!

The ferry was pretty short, within 2-3 minutes we were on the other side. Being Sunday evening, there were lots of people on the streets - mostly shopping. Charles enlightened that, Hong Kong has a very huge Phillipino poppulation. They are mostly employed in low-wage jobs. Sunday being their only day off, it seemed like all of them were on the streets. Downtown Hong Kong was flooded with them..;)..everywhere!

We were walking in the down town and it's just another down town, nothing unusual about it! So, we are walking and walked into one of the cloth shops - 'Bossini'. And it appeared the clothes were real cheap..I mean 1/2 the price of US or even less. So, that was real tempting and both of us couldn't resist..and wasted money..;)! But still, I wish I had more time, I could have bought something more for others as well..;)!

Anyways, that was enough of downtown and shopping - time to go back to hotel. This time we took the underground train to get back, we dispersed and decided to meet for dinner in 30 minutes or so.

Somebody had suggested Charles that there is a nice Indian restaurant very close to our hotel Kowloon, so we decided to check that out. As it is, I was almost starving for past 3-4 days in Seoul..;), and wanted to eat something desi desperately :P. But to my bad luck, that hotel waitress really screwed my order and didn't bring my order after more than an hour of waiting. So, while Charles was eating his 'Goan Fish Curry', I had nothing to do...:(, in the end, packed some veg-biryani and went back to hotel empty stomach. That hotel really pissed me off that night. Anyways, ate some biryani in the hotel room and decided to go to the water front to check out the skyline in the night. It was truly beautiful, took some pictures and that's all, end of day 1 in Hong Kong!

Next morning, I was alone, Charles had to got Shen Zhen, China to meet some customers! I was also supposed to, but yesterday at the airport I came to know that I couldn't get visa for China from Hong Kong, I need to go to India :(. They stopped issuing visas from Hong Kong due to the Olympics.

Anyways, I decided to take a guided tour of the country side, since there was nothing much I could do in Kowloon or Hong Kong, except to watch the same streets and same down town, so country tour seemed an enticing idea. But before that, I had to buy some batteries, remember from Seoul, I still rely on Alkalines..;). I must say, they turned out just fine and can easily fill the gap of rechargeable batteries, even for digicams.

I took the 'The Land Between Tour'. It was a half day tour starting at about 1.30 and ending at 6 or so. Being a Monday, there weren't too many people on the tour, only 5 + guide + driver..;). Anyways, the tour took us to the region called 'New Territories'. This is the place where the 5 original dynesties of Hong Kong settled hundreds of years ago when they came from China. It's a fairly big area, I believe 4-5 times the size of Hong Kong.

The first stop on the tour was Yuen Yuen Institue, it's a temple dedicated to 3 major religions of China - Confucism, Taoism and Buddhism. This was the first time I was visiting such a temple. Some things looked pretty similar to our Indian temples with one exception - you don't take off your shoes in these temples.

Next stop was Fanling Walled Village. But, this village came as a shock to me. I mean, I had a totally different definition of a village - dusty, 'kaccha' houses with minimum amenities etc etc. Fanling village rather had very very narrow streets and very cramped houses. The streets were just wide enough so that 2 people can walk in opposite directions. I don't know what was the deal with that, but looks like they have some historic significance, that's why they don't move out. I am sure the government can provide housing better than that! But, it's all about their dynesty!

And a funny incident at this village, in the entrance of this village a little boy was playing with an old man - probably his grandfather. Anyways, the old man was sitting a squatting position, and this boy would push him from the back. The grandpa got very irritated and tried warned the boy not to do it, but he would push him again with double force. So grandpa pushed him in my direction and said something in Chinese, the boy got scared and tried to run away. I am sure grandpa must have said something like 'Isko le jao re, bahut masti kar raha hein'.:), he he..that surely reminded me of childhood, I am sure such incidents happened to all of us...kids always get scared when threatened to be taken away by strangers...;)..moreover, in my case I was a real stranger, far from looking Chinese..;).

Moving on, made several stops and almost touched the boundary with China! Some real nice landscapes and heavenly mountains, it was lush green and different from those concrete jungles! Our last stop in the tour was a fish farming zone called Sam Mun Tsai. I had seen such boats in many Chinese movies, this time it was for real! Anyways, it was still from pretty far distance so couldn't get a closer look!

Reached again at the hotel and slept, it was just 6 pm! Woke up after several hours and decided to make one more stop. I still hadn't visited one major tourist spot of Hong Kong - the Victoria Peak. Victoria Peak is located just behind the downtown and there is a tram which takes us there. It was about 10.30 in the night and I didn't feel like leaving the room ;), besides it was raining all day and it was very cloudy. But still somehow managed to leave the room :P, took the train to downtown and then tram to the peak. But couldn't see much, too many clouds, and fog and smog from Shen Zhen ;).

So, just took the tram again to the bottom and started walking towards the train station. But then realized, I didn't have enough Hong Kong dollars to buy the train ticket..:(, now what to do ;)! There was an HSBC ATM nearby, but no use of that, it would give only 100 HKD bills, which are of no use, the ticket machines won't take them anyways - they are too big for them! I had some 3-4 dollars and the fare was 8.50, where to get the rest from ;)? I had lots of USDs with me, so I thought I could ask somebody if they can give me some Hong Kong dollars for them..it was past midnight so no shops were open, only people like me were my hope, but that too were rare like those Hong Kong dollars at that time..;)

So, walked upto a guy nearby in hope of exchanging some money -

Me: "Do you speak English?"

Guy: "A little"

Me: Offering one USD note, "Can you give me 4-5 Hong Kong dollars for this?" (The rate was 1 USD = 7+ HKD, I was asking for less)

The guy got confused by my question probably, or may be he thought I was some homeless guy..:P. He started looking in other direction, and one girl came, probably his girlfriend - both looked Chinese. He talked to her in Chinese and explained my situation!

Girl: "How much do you need?" (It seemed like she had American accent)

Me: "5 Dollars" (seemingly embarassed)

She gave me 3 coins of 2 dollars each. This was more than what I needed.

Girl: "Is that enough?"

Me: "Yes" (giving 1 USD back to her)

She: "No, no, you keep it!"

Now, this was bad.;), she thought I really was begging for money for fare.

Me: "No, no I am not begging, I just ran out of the Hong Kong Dollars and need some to buy the ticket, I have this USDs, but they are no good, please take this!"

She just wouldn't take it and I had to insist, eventually she took the USD, but just as a favor to me. I am sure she still wasn't convinced that I wasn't begging :P. But anyways, I didn't have any choice at midnight. I gladly accepted the change and thanked them.

So, we entered into the station and I was buying the ticket and they were waiting for me and making sure, if the cash was enough to buy the ticket. The girl asked again if that was enough. I said yes and then they walked away.

Wow, what a night - one more Master Card moment, Priceless..:)! Took the train and then back to the hotel.

That was the end of everything. Nothing more was planned and no more places to visit - back to the US of A. Packed the bags and tried to sleep. It took a while to fall asleep - kept on thinking about the past week and the places and the people.

We were flying the next morning - though in separate flights but at about same time. The return journey wasn't as enjoyable as outbound. That's because of the Continental Airline staff. They really pissed me off that day. The flight attendant was so rude and it seemed like she was doing us all a favor by working in Continental. No manners, no respect for customers nothing at all. I couldn't stop comparing them with the Korean Airlines staff. The Continental staff was really bad - no sense of dressing, hair, nothing whatsoever. It seemed like they were just working in their homes and feeding their teenagers. I hope I won't have to fly by Continental again - especially with that Chinese-American flight attendant. She shouldn't be working at all!

Anyways, that was all about South Korea and Hong Kong. While writing this, I still am thinking what was I doing this time last Sunday? Answer is, probably sleeping..;)!

In the end - New places, new people, new experiences, new memories!


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Trip Photos
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1) The Land Between Tour, New Territories
2) On the Streets of Kowloon
3) Hong Kong Downtown and Skyline
4) Hong Kong Airport and Train to Kowloon