Still in Hong Kong
We thought we would be in China by now, but when we met up with our tour leader last night she informed us that our flight to Guilin didn't leave until tonight. I guess they book the cheapest flight each day and it could be at any time of the day.
We met up with our group last night and there is quite a variety of people : 3 couples from Tasmania, one couple from England, two ladies from Australia and one couple from California. Except for the couple from England, everyone else is much older than us. Our tour leader, Alexandra, is originally from Poland but has been leading tours in China for about a year now. After a brief meeting last night around 6 pm we all decided to go to the sound and light show on Victoria Harbour and then go out for dinner together. The Harbour is only about a 15 minute walk from the hotel and there is seating all along the water front. The lights appear on all the huge buildings along the water front and according to the Guinness Book of World Records, this is the world's largest permanent sound and light show. After the 15 minute show, we took the ferry to the main Hong Kong Island (our hotel is on Kowloon Island) and all went out for dinner at a "healthy" Cantonese restaurant. (no oil or msg) Alex told us that she usually orders a huge meal for everyone and then we split it, but Jonathan and I opted to order our own last night because we had a large lunch. We didn't get back to the hotel until almost 11 pm but since we're still adjusting to the time difference it didn't feel that late.
We got up early this morning, mostly because I thought the alarm clock said 7:30 when it said 5:30, and decided that we would head over to one of the other islands to see some sights. We had to check out of our hotel room by noon and be ready with our luggage to leave for the airport for 4:30 pm so we thought we would do some early sight seeing and then head back to our room to pack up. Unfortunately we didn't time things too well and by the time we took two ferries and got to the other island it was after 9:30 and we didn't have time to see anything. We grabbed some water and got back on another ferry so it was a bit of a long trip just to get a cold drink. We did manage to get a quicker ferry back to the Hong Kong mainland and were back at the hotel around 11. We definitely got our share of sea air today! After checking out we spent the afternoon wandering around the shops outside and spending some time in some of the air conditioned malls. It's very hot here and my hair has turned into a giant frizz ball!
We've had quite the taste of international food while we're been here - we had a North American breakfast (bacon, eggs etc), Starbucks drinks and hazelnut gelato part way through the day and then we ate panzerotti for lunch. (It had ham and pineapple on it and corn too, so I'm not sure how Italian that really is!) They also have lots of 7 11's here as well, although they are definitely more fishy smelling than the ones back home!
Our flight for Guilin leaves this evening so we won't be spending much time there as we leave for Yangshou (sp?) tomorrow morning. Will write more in the next couple of days.
Thanks for the comments, "honorable father!" Anyone else wanna say hi? =)
(posted from Hong Kong, Tuesday Sept 11 at 2:55 pm)
We met up with our group last night and there is quite a variety of people : 3 couples from Tasmania, one couple from England, two ladies from Australia and one couple from California. Except for the couple from England, everyone else is much older than us. Our tour leader, Alexandra, is originally from Poland but has been leading tours in China for about a year now. After a brief meeting last night around 6 pm we all decided to go to the sound and light show on Victoria Harbour and then go out for dinner together. The Harbour is only about a 15 minute walk from the hotel and there is seating all along the water front. The lights appear on all the huge buildings along the water front and according to the Guinness Book of World Records, this is the world's largest permanent sound and light show. After the 15 minute show, we took the ferry to the main Hong Kong Island (our hotel is on Kowloon Island) and all went out for dinner at a "healthy" Cantonese restaurant. (no oil or msg) Alex told us that she usually orders a huge meal for everyone and then we split it, but Jonathan and I opted to order our own last night because we had a large lunch. We didn't get back to the hotel until almost 11 pm but since we're still adjusting to the time difference it didn't feel that late.
We got up early this morning, mostly because I thought the alarm clock said 7:30 when it said 5:30, and decided that we would head over to one of the other islands to see some sights. We had to check out of our hotel room by noon and be ready with our luggage to leave for the airport for 4:30 pm so we thought we would do some early sight seeing and then head back to our room to pack up. Unfortunately we didn't time things too well and by the time we took two ferries and got to the other island it was after 9:30 and we didn't have time to see anything. We grabbed some water and got back on another ferry so it was a bit of a long trip just to get a cold drink. We did manage to get a quicker ferry back to the Hong Kong mainland and were back at the hotel around 11. We definitely got our share of sea air today! After checking out we spent the afternoon wandering around the shops outside and spending some time in some of the air conditioned malls. It's very hot here and my hair has turned into a giant frizz ball!
We've had quite the taste of international food while we're been here - we had a North American breakfast (bacon, eggs etc), Starbucks drinks and hazelnut gelato part way through the day and then we ate panzerotti for lunch. (It had ham and pineapple on it and corn too, so I'm not sure how Italian that really is!) They also have lots of 7 11's here as well, although they are definitely more fishy smelling than the ones back home!
Our flight for Guilin leaves this evening so we won't be spending much time there as we leave for Yangshou (sp?) tomorrow morning. Will write more in the next couple of days.
Thanks for the comments, "honorable father!" Anyone else wanna say hi? =)
(posted from Hong Kong, Tuesday Sept 11 at 2:55 pm)
posted by The Patterson Pair at 2:37 AM
1 Comments:
Just so you know that someone else is reading your stories! Although I think that Honourable Father might be more prone to the numb butt syndrome as he has more time to sit around than I do ;-)
One of the teachers at the school spent 4 years in Hong Kong teaching English and loved it. Sounds like there's all kinds of hiking and biking trails that you could have checked out. I guess you'll have to save that for the next trip, eh?
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