Hong Kong 2-5.6

It was hot and humid as hell. Our hotel Butterfly on Victoria was right next to a metro station on the Hong Kong Island. To our pleasant surprise we noticed that the hotel was covered in a hood since the building was under a renovation. So we kept our windows shut.

On the first day we visited the Victoria park and took a tram up to the Victoria peak to see the city from a panoramic view. Later we walked to the harbour and were wondering why there were so many people sitting around in middle of the streets having a picnic. Coming closer to the harbour we saw that one of the main streets was closed off from cars. We walked under a brigde to get to the harbour and under it were close to 100 women having a picnic, doing manicures and pedicures to each other and sleeping. Weird people those Hong Kongese. Later we found out that it had been some kind of common holiday which was why everyone were out of the offices and workplaces enjoying themselves. Eventually we took a boat to Kowloon, explored the harbour area there and walked along the promenade when the sun had set.

 

Next day we visited the Big Buddha on Lantau island. The Gondola lift that took us there was a cool experience and we saw some nice views from it. We walked through the small and quite touristy village inhabited by cows. Climbing to the top of the hill to see the buddha wasn't as hard as we thought. Here we took our first unconventional tourist picture. When we got back to the Hong Kong island we hopped on to one of the trams driving through the island. There we met a Finnish guy whic was a nice coincidence. We also did some shopping and in the evening went to see the night market in Kowloon.

The last day in HK we spent at the beach in Stanley, on the southeast side of Hong Kong island. The bus ride there was long and uncomfortable but totally worth it since we were already eager to swim in the ocean and sunbath. They even had cider!

Before heading off to the airport to catch our flight to Indonesia Bali, we ate in a restaurant near our hotel that had the Michelin guide recommendation. The food was good and cheap, hence the recommendation, but it was hard not to compare it with the Michelin guide recommended restaurants we've visited in Helsinki. There was no real effort in food display and the restaurant had a real diner feel to it. It was clearly family run with the mother and daughter waiting the tables and the dad in the kitchen. Very sympathetic all in all!

Our thoughts about Hong Kong were that it's an easy city to get around and felt safe to wonder about. We liked HK with its buzzing atmosphere. One thing to experience are the old trams driving through HK island. They were a very convenient way to get a bigger picture of the island. The humidity makes the temperature feel ten times worse than e.g. in Bali so now when looking back at it this would be one thing that bothered us about HK.