Hong Kong - Ferry passage

One of the things recommended to me to try when I made it to Hong Kong, was the ferry. This was actually one of the cheapest, more enjoyable things I did there. It was something like 2.5 Hong Kong dollars to take it from one side of the water, to the other.

There was too much smog for my liking, it kind of ruined the view of Hong Kong in general.

Lots of passing boats.

The destination terminal, a nice brief ten minute ride away.

The ferry from the destination terminal departing before ours arrived.

Much more enjoyable than the subway - and cheaper!

Hong Kong - The Peak

Another tourist attraction that I decided to see in Hong Kong, is The Peak. Basically you go to the tram stop at the bottom of the hill, buy a return ticket, wait in line and then ride the tram up the hill.

I arrived just after it opened, where the queue was about this long. It was a much better time to arrive than when I left, where the queues were huge. Life's too short to queue :-)

It's expensive to enjoy yourself in the tram.

But you can always enjoy the heady view.

Then when you reach the top, you enter the bottom of this building. At that point, if you've paid the premium fee you can go out onto the roof and get a better view.

Greenery at a confusing angle.

The city with a nice natural healthy haze.

A path through the bush. This looked quite appealing. Next time I am going to go up the hill, clog my arteries with one of the many junk foods sold there.. and then go for a nice healthy walk.

A view of the tram tracks up the hill, where I arrived from.

The other side of the hill.

The plaza at the top of the hill, and the mall on the other side of it.

The help center is an old tram.

Not sure if the wording was wrong, or my English is not to good. But something about this seemed Engrish-like.

Some runners came down the track over the hill. Wish I could be doing that myself, but the health wasn't too good.

This path goes back down the way I came. I walked down it for half an hour until I realised it didn't go down, but round the hill. So I walked back up..

.. and took the tram down. Oh well.

Worth it? No idea. Beats sitting in a hotel room :-)

Street vendor disappearances

Last week, I was talking to a coworker who lives in the same complex as me how the street vendors had all disappeared. Today I came off the metro to see no street vendors, but lots of people standing around. One of the street vendors had her cooked goods and cooking paraphernalia on the ground, but no cart. Then suddenly a horde of policemen descended on her and took some of her paraphernalia.

In the picture above, you can see steam rising off the "sweet potato and corn cart" which all the policemen are gathered around (waiting for it to cool?). And on the back of the truck, you can see the "unremarkable omelette cart" waiting to be taken away. I wonder why the police do this.. street food is one of the many enjoyable things that make Shanghai and I imagine China in general a great place to live.

Hong Kong - Miscellaneous pictures

One of the things I liked about this part of Hong Kong, were the pedestrian overpasses that you could take to get around. It beats waiting at traffic light pedestrian crossings, and makes for a more enjoyable tourist experience.

Near the ferry terminal, the main pedestrian overpass that goes right into this part of Hong Kong has this construction going on underneath it. What's going on? A new metro line? Some huge building? Beats me.

Further up the hill, there's a park. And I took a photo of it. Which I'm posting here. There's plenty of parks in Hong Kong, which is quite nice if you want to sit down and have a rest.

Vegetable pancake street food

The number of street vendors at my subway stop almost doubled, both in the morning and evening. They included this vegetable pancake type deal. Quite tasty. Cost 2.5 RMB for one.

Hong Kong - Avenue of Stars

One of the tourist attractions five minutes walk from my hotel, was the Avenue of Stars. It's basically a strip of pavement on the waterside, with concrete "stars" featuring names of people mostly unknown to me.

It wasn't so busy at this point in time.

Here's Jackie Chan's star. It's very hard to get a photo of a star without the shadow of someone else looming over it.

Take for instance this clown, who is characteristic of the problem. A stream of people wander from star to star, putting their foot on it and taking a picture.. or god forbid, a movie of their foot on it. To me, it looks like a sad attempt to establish a remote dominance over whomever the star belongs to. But someone I asked back in Shanghai told me, that it's more like a "I am here thing." In any case, this clown stood there for several minutes videoing the intricacies of his foot on a lump of concrete with Jackie Chan's name on it.

There's a few statues along the avenue, one of Bruce Lee I think, and this of.. I am not quite sure.

There's a free night time light show. I wasn't too well, but sitting in a hotel room is hard to bear, when you're in a different and interesting foreign country. So I headed out and took a gander.

The actual light show is.. hmm.. how to put it positively. A restrained affair that takes care to be subtle and not to excite anyone much. If it wasn't free, I would have asked for my money back :-)

Hong Kong - Triple-O's

Travelling by subway is kind of soulless, so I tended to travel by ferry from the side of Hong Kong where my hotel was, to the side where the visa office was. Walking around the area near the ferry terminal, I came across this place. It's hard to find a decent burger in Shanghai, so I decided to try one here.

I didn't actually look at the menu on the outside, the one inside was kind of confusing. Otherwise I would have tried something more interesting.

Seeing the menu offered the option to add extras like eggs, I decided to New Zealand it up, and added a fried egg. All they needed was the option for pickled beetroot and pineapple slices and it would have been even better.

The burger was pretty lacklustre, but this was on the table. It looked a lot more promising, but I wasn't hungry so decided to come back.

On the day I was leaving Hong Kong, I came off the ferry and gave it another shot while waiting for the visa office hours where I could pick up my newly work visaified passport. This was actually pretty lacklustre also. Never again, this place.

Hong Kong - Visa Trip

In order to get a working visa, I had to leave China and get it in another country. Hong Kong is the closest most convenient place, so it's where everyone goes. Airplane food on the way over.

My hotel was the Ramada on the right. Pay per view porn channel pamphlets on the table beside the bed, pay per view porn advertisements on the television when I turned it on. Definitely a bit different from China, where that shit does not fly. The restaurant in the center offered homestyle heavy carb-laden meals.

A closer look.

Bought a meal there. Unfortunately, most of their meals seemed rather stodgy, but the value was pretty good for Hong Kong.

Their coffee. This came free with the meal. Too bad it had milk in it, why do people do that to their coffee? What do I care, I don't drink coffee anymore anyway.

Free wireless internet in Hong Kong was hard to find, Macdonalds was the easiest place to find it. Decided to get breakfast there one day.

How can a business sell slop that looks like this?

Thankfully, I found another cafe underneath Macdonalds which had better coffee and unlimited free wireless, not the half hour affair they had at McD's.

Decided to splurge out and try the apple pie. Tasted mostly like nutmeg or cinnamon. Not very appealing.

Went back for breakfast another day. The eggs were still raw on top, with raw whites.. ewww. And the rest was a token endeavour, got about six beans.

A shot of the visa office. I waited a bit before I went in. It was a pretty painless affair.

Can't wait till next year, although I think I will go to Outback Steakhouse everyday, not just once..