So Hong Kong - our 2nd last destination before Australia - our fifth country thus far, the passport pages are beginning to fill up now! We decided to pamper ourselves a bit also because we’ve been “slumming it” a lot of the time with accommodation over price. But in Hong Kong everything is expensive anyway so a quick check on latestays.com and Gareth found a really nice hotel for only €50 a night - very good by Hong Kong prices. And completely work it - I know I like to exaggerate a lot but I don’t kid when I say that our beds were THE MOST COMFORTABLE HEAVEN-LIKE BEDS WE HAVE EVER SLEPT IN!! Dear Lord! We arrived in late in the evening to the city so we took huge delight in wrapping ourselves into bed and passing out in a peaceful, air-conditioned, feather pillowed slumber!
Now I’ve been to a lot of cities around the world, done my fair share of travelling but never have I been in a city with such impressively sized buildings - pardon me for sounding like an architect nerd but these buildings, in structure and pure height just blew me away. We spent our first day just taking it all in - strolling around the bustling streets, the modern commercial feel juxtaposed with a real sense of heritage, of not forgetting their roots. One of the most impressive buildings is the IFC 2 (the taller brother of IFC 1) - made famous by a scene in The Dark Knight where Batman jumps from the roof of IFC 2, flying around the building, across the stunning Hong Kong skyline, and crashing through the window of IFC 1 (ok so now I sound like a comic book nerd!). You are allowed to go up to the 55 (of 80 floors) of the building so we marked that down as a “must-do” on our itinerary. As part of our pampering we decided to clean ourselves up - haircuts and shaves for both of us. We were recommended an old school hot towel shaving barbers which was a great experience - and strange to see my full face again after 7 months or so!
So feeling all clean and tidy we went for our first few drinks in Hong Kong that night and couldn’t believe it when walking down the main street we hear our names being called out by a pair of Danes we had met a few weeks previous - it really is crazy how we keep seeing people again! The next morning we had planned to go to Ocean World, a theme park/zoo but Gareth was struck with a bout of food poisoning, not nice on the stomach! Thankfully he couldn’t be in a more comfortable place (yes, I’m still talking about the beds!) so he took the day of while I did some more wandering around the island. I swear I had a crick in my neck from craning skywards as I walked all day. In the evening, with Gareth feeling more lively, we went up the IFC 2 building and almost got nose bleeds from the height we were at - great view though. We then got a ferry over to Kowloon, another island just across the bay, in anticipation of the Guinness Book of Records “World’s largest permanent light and sound show” which was scheduled to light up the already breath-taking view of Hong Kong’s profile (I’m running out of superlatives to describe the view!). The 15 minute show was the perfect example of showing how much pride the locals in their city and left us with dropped jaws!
So after another fun night out we made our way to the other side of the island for roller coaster fun. The weather had turned a little soured with ominous dark clouds gathering, but we weren’t going to let that dampen our fun! If you didn’t know already, Gareth has a big fear of heights and our first ride was a 60 metre freefall drop - Elvis Presley couldn’t shake as much as Gareth was! But fair play to him, he did the ride and actually enjoyed it! It had started raining by this stage and our main fear was that the rides would be shut down for safety reasons so we quickly made our way from ride to ride, making two of them just in time before being shut. On our way back out we stopped off at the panda enclosure to say hello. By this stage it was really pouring rain so we ran to our bus but couldn’t stop getting absolutely soaked! We made it back to our hotel room with ideas of going out that night but we’d squeeze in a quick power nap first as it was only 6.30pm…we woke the next morning at 10am - damn those beds were just too comfortable!! I even contemplated emptying out half my bag to fit the pillow in!
Headed to the airport (Hong Kong airport has won “World’s Best Airport” 7 years in the last 8, impressive) full of excitement as Gareth was about to realise a childhood dream of his - to fly Cathay Pacific. And with good reason too - the plane was very comfortable and spacious, the in-flight entertainment was fantastic and the food was above average for a plane. From really not knowing what to expect in Hong Kong I must admit I thoroughly enjoyed it.
