Right, this is take 2, the original version having deleted itself instead of uploading when I tried to publish it.....so apologies if it is a little short on detail, but I'm not sure I have the energy left to do it justice!
Last Tuesday morning, bright and early, we headed to Melbourne for our flight to Hong Kong. Pie and I probably groaned when we saw the bus waiting to take us to the plane, waiting somewhere on the Tarmac....but Crack loved it! He couldn't take his eyes off the plane, he thought it was brilliant getting to climb the steps! But it was a bit windy!
I don't know what I was thinking when I booked a nine hour, daytime flight, but I really wouldn't recommend it if you are travelling with a nearly-two-year old! It really wasn't our most relaxing flight but yet again the iPad made it nearly bearable!
We arrived in Hong Kong early evening, dropped two heavy bags at left luggage, then had dinner before taking the train the Hong Kong Island. Our hotel was in the Mid-levels, partway up Victoria Peak, and our room had an amazing view of Victoria Harbour, and skyscrapers with their enormous Christmas lights! It looked great in the dark when we arrived, but it wasn't half bad in the morning either! Definitely a view worth taking in over a morning bottle!
And we realised that morning, when we woke up to gibbon song, that we were right next to the zoo! It took me a little longer to figure out why there were so many nuns and priests at breakfasts....turns out I had booked us into the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong's hotel!
The next morning, after a slightly slow start, we headed out, in the direction of the harbour. The intention was to take the Mid-Levels Escalator, longest in the world at over 800m (in 15+ sections!), down the steep hill and catch the ferry to Kowloon. I had assumed that there would be one escalator up, and another one down....but no, there was one escalator. It went down between 6 and 10am, and up the rest of the time......it was 10:15, so we had A LOT of stairs to carry the pushchair down! Luckily there were some distracting sights along the way. Like this pub in Soho (no idea why the whale!)
And a street scene that was exactly what we'd expected to see in Hong Kong!
As well as some illuminating suggestions on how to eat your dog....
We found Hong Kong to be a curious mix of the very modern and quite traditional. For example, massive skyscrapers going up, and some buildings with bamboo scaffolding! Great until the angle grinders start showering them with sparks!
Also saw these signs....surely they'd seem to be self-evident!? Apparently not!
We thought this one would make Marc laugh!
After millions of steps and billions of shops (and I'm not kidding here, HK is a shoppers paradise!), we made it to Central Pier, and bought a ticket for the famous Star Ferry. And totally exorbitant it was too - all of 20p! These ferries have been running since 1888 and now carry about 80 million passengers a year! Pretty impressive considering all the trains that also cross the harbour! Crack, of course, absolutely loved being back on a boat and would have very happily gone back and forth all day!
It is a very atmospheric way to see both sides of the harbour and we docked at Tsim Sha Tsui all too soon. Our first stop was the Clock Tower, built in 1915 and ticking away since 1921, it was originally the Kowloon-Canton Railway station clock.
We paused briefly to take in some view of Hong Kong Island across Victoria Harbour...
.....before continuing to the Avenue of Stars, Hong Kong's tribute to its once booming film industry.
To be honest, there were an awful lot of names that we didn't recognise, as well as a few that made us giggle! For example:
Then there were the obvious stars
Plus a few wannabes....
There were also some statues that caught Crack's attention
Afterwards, we took Crack to Middle Road children's playground for a run around, which he loved!
We had lunch at a Korean restaurant. The food was really great, but the beer was lousy!
On the way back to the ferry, we passed Disney's Christmas decorations!
After quite a long nap, we took the train back to Kowloon to visit the famous Temple Street Night Market. It was a busy and colourful place, full of wonderful smells (and a few not so great smells, it has to be said!) and keen shoppers and tourists. It seemed that you could buy literally anything there! It was quite crowded, so I only took one photo!
We also passed numerous restaurants, all packed with locals, and some with rather wriggly menus! These crabs were wearing their price tags!
We had a slightly less exotic dinner, then headed back to the hotel and up the busy escalator once more...turns out we were in good company - apparently it's used by 85,000 people a day!
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