Bye bye North hello South

The 9th of March to the 14th of March ... Hong Kong

After being driven through the long and winding snake of traffic to Heathrow, Steph and Emma dropped us off at Terminal 3. With 1 year's worth of essentials on our backs we began the first leg of our escape Down Under.

The Flight

The flight itself was a forgettable experience but the views from the window were breathtaking. Not a single whisper of cloud in the sky and the expanse of the earth were left fully exposed to our gaze. We flew over (what we suspect to be) the dry plains of the Gobi Desert, some massive miscellaneous Chinese mountains and the sprawling mass East Asia.

Hong Kong

As we were landing on the island, the plane first had to navigate through a deep, thick, grey layer of polluted cloudiness. 10/10 to the pilot!

Once out of the plane, we got struck by the humidity, but we were expecting that. In fact, it was quite dry compared to the first time Julie stepped on Vietnamese land. What we were not expecting however was the first advertising board we saw: Royal Bank of Scotland. “Oh crap, did we really fly for 12 hours just to be back in Edinburgh?” Well, it seems that RBS don’t just own Scotland. They own a part of HK too.

Our hotel was simply lovely. In fact, we would describe it as extremely luxurious (thank you Expedia.com). Really, too luxurious for us simple working class folks! At least it is far from the filthy, repugnant mass of unwashed, soap dodging backpackers.

The jet lag made us awake at an ungodly hour and we went to explore the 'town that never sleeps'. Naive and foolish error. Turns out, the Chinese aren’t early birds at all, well, not the ones in HK anyway. We walked until 11am before finding our first open shop and that only sold dried fish. On the other hand, the shops don't close till at least 10pm, so fair enough.

Hong Kong is a towering metropolis whereby skyscrapers dominate over other skyscrapers and their summits and spikes dominate the skyline like a line of sharp teeth. Bellow, the streets are bustling with the apparent chaos of the native lifestyle. People zig zag, duck and dive around one another and the traffic hoots and beeps. Not much different to London in that respect.

The restaurants serve delicious and interesting foods ranging from beef noodles to spring rolls and pig cartilage soup to deep fried chicken feet (Frank/dad, how could you?). Thanks to Septh and Emma we had our last meal in one of the massive skyscrapers and enjoyed a fine meal by the window. Probably the best view ever had from a table. From high above, we could feast out eyes on the stunning views while our guts gorged on the culinary delights.

In summary, Hong Kong was a delightful city whereby despite the speed of the place we always felt relaxed and comfortable. A great example of Chinese determination underpinned by British organisation.

Comparison with Viet Nam:

Similarities: food (massive carb content), whiteness (or as the locals say ‘porcelainess’) of skin and being rather thin.

Differences: locals much more laisses faires, streets much cleaner, richer than VN and food didn’t make Phil feel ill.