China Part 5 - Hong Kong and Beijing

A combination of sleep deprivation and constipation was starting to get me down, I was drained and cranky. A great mood to celebrate our anniversary!! We got on a self driving train to South HK island, and then a bus to breezy Aberdeen fishing town. Then it was another bus to Stanley which was pleasant enough. Hard to imagine it's on the same island as the rest of the metropolis. Running on empty, we went back to the New Territories to visit the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery, which was pretty impressive but best of all it wasn't too busy. After a bit of a wait, we had a decent meal at mall restaurant. 

After recharging at the hotel, we killed some time on the Blackpool-esque tram lines before meeting my cousin Dom on HK island, taking in a couple of bars and sampling some fine local beers. Neither of us could remember how long it had been since we had last seen each other, but it was amazing to see another familiar face on this side of the world. The Rugby 7s tournament surrounded us with drunks all dressed up like one massive stag/hen do, spilling out of the bars and making a scene. Walking the streets was like a night out anywhere in England (apart from weather etc etc). 

I had a good night's sleep at last, but unfortunately this was our final night. We took in the History Museum, which was thankfully free on this occasion, before finding a cat café. Then we met Dom one last time for lunch at Second Draft, a great Craft Beer bar with brilliant food. It was another example that it doesn’t matter how long you’re apart from someone, you  can almost always catch up whenever. Then it was time to board the shiny airport express to zoom past the many, many tower blocks. We spent our last HK$ on beer and chocolate. I watched Coco on the flight and cried. 

Then we had a shit time. Here’s a freeform ramble on what went down:

Our original flight to Beijing was cancelled and moved back 24 hours, so the airline was supposed to put us up in a hotel. We landed at midnight to find most help desks closed. A woman at the Hainan Airlines desk sent us to the information desk. Information Desk person told us to find the Hong Kong Airlines office on the third floor. These were administrative and not open to the public, and also closed. Back to Hainan woman, who did not want to help us, and basically told us “not my problem, bye”. Information Desk guy, who was well meaning but ultimately clueless, told us to go to another terminal. Arriving at this terminal, we finally found someone willing to help, who sent us downstairs, and someone else directed us to the Transfer Accommodation desk. Onto our fifth person, who rang Hong Kong Airlines. The airline told her “not our problem, bye”. We responded with their email that said “don't worry, we'll provide a hotel!!” Finally getting somewhere. This was 1am. We were told to wait to be driven to hotel, this shouldn’t be longer than 15 mins. 30 mins passed. Then an hour. People who arrived after us were being taken away before us. I burst into tears. Finally we were taken to hotel pushing 3am. 

The lesson is - if an airline cancels your flight and offers you accommodation, don't accept, just book with someone else if you can. And we won’t be travelling with Hainan Airlines again.

Lots of people had recommended things that we should do with our half day in Beijing that we weren't meant to have. Unfortunately I woke up not feeling like doing anything, and just wanting to go home. We emerged from the hotel around midday and headed into the city centre. Tiananmen square and the Forbidden City were both closed, but it meant things were pretty quiet everywhere went went. We walked round a few parks, one with a large lake was pretty nice, plus local and tourist neighbourhoods. However, the previous night had extinguished my spirit. I was done.

We got to the airport and experienced more Hainan Airline fuckery. We had reserved seats, what we thought would give us legroom, but we were told had to pay again for the real deal. We protested, but ultimately I had to do pay up in order to even be remotely comfortable. Then they said they wouldn't accept Mastercard, when that was all I had. I was about to give up, when to just get rid of us they said “for free!” and shooed us away. We definitely won’t be using these clowns in the future.

Our final hours were spent with yet more beer and chocolate. We boarded at 1am, and after all that nonsense I ended up having the most rest I’d ever managed on a long haul flight.

So, some conclusions! It was another amazing trip that was unfortunately blighted by the last 24 hours. If we had gone straight home from HK, as was the original plan, it would have ended on a positive note. That aside, Hong Kong was everything I had hoped it would be, and Macau was a revelation. People always make something better, and seeing Ed & Dom along the way was a definite highlight. There feels like so much more that we could have done, so a return is very likely. But there’s still so much more of the world to see for the first time.

China Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

China Part 4 - Hong Kong and Macau

Our journey to HK started with a little bump, we’d accidentally booked to go to the wrong station in Shenzhen. Thankfully that didn’t take long to rectify, and we made our way through another well air conditioned mentro - boxing gloves were attached to the hand grips in some faded sponsorship. It was a smooth transition across both borders, and before I knew it we were on a train through the New Territories. I’d read about Chungking Mansions and thought god no, that place sounds like hell. So guess where we were staying! In it’s defence, it was cheap, the wifi worked (no more VPN needed) and it was a prime location. But it was also a sweaty cupboard that kept finding new ways to injure me, and I hardly slept during our four nights there. And the photo from the hotel booking website was unbelievably misleading. 

Hong Kong really is London on the orient, there’s so much familiarity. Driving on our side of the road. Double decker buses. Same font on the road signs. People stand on the right on escalators. Many, many little details that made the whole place feel strangely familiar, albeit full of millions of strangers. But these were strangers that carried themselves with a bit more politeness than what we had experienced on the mainland.

We started with a walk around the skyscrapers, then we met a former colleague of Angelos’ who lives out there now, and went for what was probably the best Chinese meal of the holiday in Mong Kok. We finished the evening back on the waterfront, seeing all the buildings lit up.

With minimal sleep, we got up early for a ferry to Macau (pro tip - book your ticket the day before, and don’t forget your passport). I think this was a national holiday weekend, but we managed to avoid the crowds for most of the day. If HK is an outpost of the British empire, Macau is a chill mediterranean city, from the tiled pavements to the vibrant painted buildings. The old part of the town had the same sun bleached urban decay vibe as Patra. It was a another strange experience seeing something so familiar yet so foreign. We spent the afternoon walking from one garden or castle to the next, Lou Lim Ioc Garden being a particular highlight. Once again I could feel the sunburn and once again did absolutely nothing about it. This led to some serious Lobster Face.

Struggling to find a bus, we took a taxi across to Taipa. Starting in an older part, again busy with tourists who seem to all walk up and down one street, we managed to ditch the crowds by just turning a corner and heading for Antonios. One guide book said “if you only eat one meal in Macau, this is the place” and I couldn’t agree more. It was the best food of the whole holiday, beautiful Portuguese cuisine. We had octopus salad, cod fish cakes, crisp salty salmon with white sauce, garlic mash and vegetables that exploded with flavour, washed down with my old love Super Bock. We then took a walk to casino region, utterly bizarre to be in Lisbon one minute and Vegas the next. We took in The Venetian which had a shopping mall in the style of an indoor Venice, because of course it does. Unbelievable opulence everywhere you turn, and very chatty gondola operators. We exited through one of the casino floors, my first time amongst the card tables and fruit machines. Now I never have to go to New Vegas or Venice, not that I wanted to. We made our way to the ferry terminal past other crazy casinos - water displays and cable cars everywhere. We naively thought we could just get any boat back, but seeing the crowds gave me a nagging feeling. Nag confirmed - there were no standard class seats available until midnight (four hours away). To speed things up a little, we splashed out on some first class seats to get us home earlier. Sometimes you have to treat yourself. Got two free beers on the way back and everything.

Our next day took in several locations. We started with what was probably my favourite of the day - Nan Lian Gardens. That was followed by a nunnery, a busy temple, flower and bird markets, cats in windows and Kowloon Park. By this stage, it had started to rain a bit. As we were near the end and hadn’t experienced a drop before now, I didn’t mind so much. However, as it also wasn’t forecast, we were without jackets, so we sheltered somewhere for lunch and the rain had gone by the time we were done.

We went for more of a walk around HK island - this is where all the white people have been hiding, amongst the antique stores and coffee shops. Then it was on to Hong Kong park, which was nice enough, and I made a bird friend in the aviary. The queue for the Peak funicular train was nuts, so we got on a bus and I promptly fell asleep. Waking up a bit groggy, my first experience of the view from the top was on a half closed viewing platform in a shopping mall. The main viewing area was another one of those tourist tat areas, but the view down to the city was pretty stunning. It was also pretty breezy, which felt good on the old sunburn. There was a large queue for the bus back down. Maybe it was the lack of sleep talking, but I was feeling some disappointment. If we had walked up to the top, would that have been better? Would we have earned it more? We’ll never know. Back to the waterfront for it’s big light show, which quite frankly was no Bund display. The night ended on a better note - our block of Chungking had a fantastic curry house which was very popular.

China Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5