A First Leap

My first flight took me to Hong Kong where I arrived at 7 AM on Thursday morning. According to the captain there would be a typhoon arriving that evening. What an exciting start of my tour I thought! However, not much happened that 1st day besides a single drop of rain falling from a grey sky. I did feel the need to hide in an Irish pub at the end of the day anyway. What a city!

My hostel is located in the Mongkok part of Kowloon which means it is quite a walk to the harbor, the main tourist attractions and the pub. I have no windows in my room, so it's ok for sleeping but during the day when I get tired I hang out at Starbucks. I tried to sleep for a few hours the day I arrived and then decided to get some lunch and walk down Nathan Road towards the harbor to get an impression of the city. It is very Chinese here: many big signs lighted at night, crowded streets and many many jewelry stores. Don't think I have ever seen so many diamonds, rolexes and other golden objects together in my life. The people are friendly, but the bus drivers don't speak English so I walk most of the time.

For Friday I had a city tour planned. We went to HK Island, but unfortunately there was a lot of rain so the Victoria Peak lookout wasn't much of a lookout at all. Neither was the Victoria Harbor light show very impressive. I did see Jackie Chan's house and yacht, Aberdeen and Stanley Market. We took the Star Ferry to have dinner at the Kowloon side again. Lots of MSG I'm afraid, but it tasted good.

My bag is packed again and I'm ready to go to Fiji for some sunshine and the beach!