I promised last time I went to Hong Kong that I would post pictures and I never got around to it, so this time, I am making sure I get into it straight away so I don't forget. I might drag out some photos of the first trip to HK and UK later on, but for now this is most of the trip to Hong Kong. Some photos on a disposable camera still to be developed and some photos to be ripped of the mobiles phones when we figure out how to do it, these are ones from the mum and dad camera and our camera we bought in HK (Don't go to Tsim Tsa Sui for electrical goods, they rip you off BIG TIME!).
OK, My b/f mum and dad live in Hong Kong temporarily while his dad works in a ex-british military hospital. We stay with them when we go visit. They live on Lamma Island just off Hong Kong Island. Thsi is the view of Hong Kong (Central district) from the ferry to Lamma Island, which takes about 20 - 45 minutes depending on the Ferry and the driver.
The Hong Kong skyline is really amazing, I live in Perth in Western Australia and Parth is the smallest capital city in the country and coming back here after being in Hong Kong feels like going to an Amish village
Hong Kong's skyscrapers are just as daunting, if not more so, from the ground, we found this one complex of apartments that buildings A - V and a lot of storeys. Can you imagine giving out your address:
Schmiggens
Apartment 1, Floor 80, Building V
123 Fake Street
Hong Kong, etc, etc
The sure do like to the same design over and over and over again. Once they find something that works, they stick with it. It's more aparent on the other side of Hong Kong island where the richer apartments are (Jackie Chan lives there), but those photos are on the phone and we lost the cable to get those off the phone on to the pooter, will have to wait for those.
This is the International Finance Centre building - twoer 2, it's the biggest, or one of the biggest, buildings in Hong Kong.
You're not allowed to go up it though, coz it's just offices, the only public place to get up high is the Peak, which is the highest point in Hong Kong, you get up there via a tram. We went up last time we were in HK, so we didn't go this time. I'll try and find our pictures form the Peak from last time, because the views really are amazing.
So - to Lamma Island. Mainly ex-pats living on Lama, but still very Hong Kong, lots of cute little places and shops and still some places where you can sit in the bushes and only have a couple of people walk past you, actually quite quiet at night,
except for the odd plane going over head.
The three smokes stacks are for one of two power stationss in Hong Kong, they run on coal, which comes from Australia ( !! ) and the soot from the smoke stacks makes everything a bit grotty, the mum and dad's outdoor furniture on the roof got all covered in soot and started rotting, we assume from sort of chemical in it. Best not to think about how much of that soot, you're breathing in
Lamma Island is great, if I lived there I would eat out every night, the main street is crowded with restaurants with hawkers out the front trying to get you in to eat, the food is good, and so cheap (except japanese food - a bit more expensive) and the veegatables are so freash. All the restaurants kill the seafood just before they cook it, they have tanks and tanks of fresh stuff all overthe place.
The mum and dad's apartment is the top storey of a three storey building, so they get solo access to the roof, that's where these Lamma pictures were taken, on the roof.
You can see everyone lives pretty close together.
To get to this apartment, you walk through a communal kind of open courtyard that the surrounding buildings open up to, as you walk past, you look straight into people living rooms and bedrooms, and can see everything. It's OK if you're only there for a while, but I think after living like that I would go crazy after a while.
It's also hard just to find space top be alone, which is why living on Lamma is so much better than living anywhere else in Hong Kong, except maybe the New Terrortorys out in the middle of nowhere, you can still find alone time if you look hard enough on Lamma.
It gets pretty busy most nights, especially on weekends, as with everywhere else. But thankfully, where we are, in Tsuen Wan Village, isn't as touristy as the other side of Lamma Island, so we get less tourists.
One draw back is that with so many ex-pats living on Lamma, you get crazy crowds when Man Utd play soccer, etc.
Not having actually lived on the other islands, or the mainland for any length of time, I can't really comment on whether one place is better to live than any other, but I think Lamma would be my choice, or Lantau, if we did move there (we're thinking about it ).
It's just so much nicer than everywhere else, cleaner and greener and more space.
So, what did we do in Hong Kong, well first thing was surprising my mother-in-law-to-be. She didn't know we were all going over there for her birthday. Big Surprise! I love surprises! (PS: My "we all" I mean, me , my b/f and his brother)
So, what did we do in Hong Kong, well first thing was surprising my mother-in-law-to-be. She didn't know we were all going over there for her birthday. Big Surprise! I love surprises! (PS: My "we all" I mean, me , my b/f and his brother) So we got to Lamma and waited around for her to come back from work and she came in, and she was just stunned. She didn't know what to say or do, she just stood there with her mouth wide open and gaping for a full minute before she started asking stupid questions like "how did you get here?" (we flew) and "How long have you been here?" (like we'd been hiding under the bed for a few days or something ). Big hugs for everyone and off for a meal in one of Lamma's seafood restaurants.
Then the shopping starts, Mong Kok (Ladies Market), Stanley (Tourist Area), Tsam Choi Po (Electrical goods). Buy, Buy, Buy, Buy. Gots clothes, shoes, bags, jewelery, etc, etc. It's good So cheap.
We went out a couple of time with groups of parent's friends. We went for yum cha.
Yum cha was daunting at first because the menu is in Chinese and none of us can really understand it, but with mum and dad having been there a few years they have picked up a lot of cantonese and mandarin and because the mum's Japanese and Japanese writing is a lot like Chinese writing she can read most of it. So her and her friends did all the ordering. The way they have it set up is so organised, you can hardly take a breath without someone reading your mind about whether you need more tea (boy can they drink a lot of tea!) and whatever, they are so efficiant and the restaurants are three or four times the biggest restaurants I have ever been in before. It amazeses me.
Going for real Chinese food makes me wonder what Chinese people think when they travel overseas and go to a "Chinese" restaurant. They must think we're pulling their legs.
So we did lots of shopping for a few days, and went all over the place shopping. Hong Kong is so easy to get around, you get yourself an "Octopus Card" and use that on all the public transport, and you can use it at McDonalds and other places to pay for stuff, you recharge it like a pre-paid phone at various places. The public transport system in Hong Kong has to be one of the best, if not THE best in the world. You can get anywhere in almost no time on the trains, buses, ferrys and there are heaps of taxi's too. Hong Kong actually discourages people from owning cars, they belive in their public transport system that much, so it's very difficult to get a car license over there. Our family's been there five - six years and they've never driven a car over there.
Then for some serious shopping, looking for big money items.
My b/f wanted a proper leather jacket for his motor bike, so we went and looked hard for something, but all we could find was vinyl race replica jakcets, so we got one of those it was so cheap but it's only vinyl, badly sticthed, so I won't let him ride his bike wearing that. He has to wear his real jacket.
I thought about getting a human hair wig, thinking it might be a bit cheaper and it was a BIT cheaper. I don't recommend you fly all the way to Hong Kong to get one, but if you're there you might as well if you're in market for it.
(it was a long, hot day, I looked like crap!)
We looked at a lot of shops and they all wanted to custom make a wig for me, not let me buy one of the shelf, but custom-made human hair, you're looking at $10,000.00 HK and I don't have that kind of money. So we finally found a place that would let me buy one off the shelf and we got it for $4,000.00 HK, much cheaper. The parental units and my b/f all chipped in and made it a birthday present for me.
Next big thing we did was to go to "Ocean Park" a kind of amusement park on the far side on Honk Kong island. It has dolphins and seals and sharks and stuff, but for some reason it also has pandas. Although for the life of me I can't think of what pandas have to do with the ocean. The pandas were the main reason we went there, I have never seen a real panda before, we don't have them in the Perth Zoo.
We went on a few rides, the roller coaster and whatever, saw lots of animals, best bit was the Pandas. The first one was sound asleep, but they were feeding the other one when we went. They give a box full of water and put veges and stuff in the water so the pandas has to splash everywhere to get his food. It's cute to watch.
Pandas have the biggest bottoms I ever saw (I thought wombats were the biggest before), they have like a flap that sits over their bottom that they sit on. It's wierd.
The Panda starts walking around the enclosure like it's looking for something and then cocks one leg up in the air as if it's going to pee like a dog, then it lifts it's other leg in teh air as well and, whilst doing this hand-stand, it pees all overthe wall. I have never seen anything like it.
Bet you never knew pandas could do that!
There's better photos (I think) on the disposable camera, just have to get them developed.
They also had a bird show, which was cool, they had lots of big birds, parrots and owl and all that, but no birds of prey, which I thought was wierd, but it was worth seeing for the owls, they are mum's favourite animals and she thought it was great.
Next big deal was going to Macau and China. We went to Macau for the day (caught the ferry, took about 2 and a 1/2 hours to get there, if you go by Jet Foil ferry: it's faster).
Macau is very interesting for the Portugese heritage. I think my b/f was bored, all he wanted to know was when we were eating but I thought it was cute. It is very charming.
05-06-2005 04:25 AM
). 
So cheap.
