Update – Hong Kong

We arrived mid-afternoon on Monday and managed to train (with all the correct bags) and then taxi in two cabs to our apartment. It is tiny!! The whole place is smaller than our lounge at home, but it has two bedrooms and will comfortably sleep six of us.

We headed out for a little explore, the apartment is close to Cat St, the antiques market and a short walk along to the mid-levels escalator. We headed in that direction and ended up at a restaurant that I had been at with Christine and Gail – so we headed there for a lovely meal with a bottle of Gladstone SB to wash it down.

On Tuesday, we all slept quite late after a bit of a muddled night’s sleep. Once we were up and had had some breakfast, we headed back along towards the mid-levels and then kept walking along towards the Peak Tram terminus. We all enjoyed the Tram ride to the top – although I think Bridie was worried that it was the start of a roller-coaster and we were going to go down fast once we had got to the top. We had a look around the terminus and went up onto the top for a look at the smoggy view.  After that we managed a bit of a walk around the peak – there is a loop walk, we didn’t do all of it, but did the bit that was in the shade of the bush and then turned back when we hit the sun. The views from the walk were great and we had fun spotting creatures on the way – massive ants, loads of butterflies, a skink and a tiny snake.

We headed back down the tram and walked down the hill and caught a tram back to our end of town, spotted some good eating spots on our way back to the apartment and picked up some groceries for breakfast and lunch. We freshened ourselves up a bit and then headed back along Queens Rd to find a great hole-in-the-wall spot for a yummy Thai meal.

Wednesday 28^th, we walked to the nearest MTR station and trained out to Tung Chung to catch the cable car across to the Buddha on Lantau. There was a bit of a queue to get on the cable car, but it was a pretty amazing cable car/gondola ride, we stopped for our sarnies at the top and then walked up the 260 steps to the Buddha, which had a great view.

From there we caught the local bus down to Tai O, a fishing village on the coast. It was great, we had a nice walk through the village looking at the stilt houses all jumbled together, saw dried everything in the markets and loads of live fish, crays, eels, crabs all waiting for sale. The kids had a great time, all finished off with and ice cream before we caught another bus round to the Ferry terminal for the fast ferry back to Hong Kong.

We meandered our way back home, dodging a few showers and stopping for tea at a Vietnamese diner on the corner by our apartment, another great meal.

Thursday, we had a great day planned, bus out to Stanley Market, unfortunately when we (finally) woke up – we’re on our own time zone at the moment – the streets of Hong Kong were deserted. Quite un-nerving really, and a bit like a disaster movie. We headed for Central, but it became apparent that due to a level 8 typhoon warning, there was no public transport, all the markets and shops were shut – bar a few supermarkets, all government buildings were also closed.

We headed into the ifc mall and were in time to catch SpyKids in 4d. A good way to while away some time. Everything except the coffee shops in the Mall and the supermarket were shut. The kids learned how to window shop in Roberto Cavalli, Prada and Valentino. Once we were bored silly, we grabbed some snacks and headed back to the apartment for a DVD sesh. Yawn!! Around 4pm the warnings were downgraded, so we should be OK to fly out tomorrow, and maybe get out to Stanley in the morning for a few hours.