It has taken some time, but now I am back to writing for you again. Wanting to get off to a quick start, I will immediately provide you with our Google Photos album on our trip. Take a look at it now and come back later, or save it until you have finished reading this post; either way is fine!
Anyways, after having gone through my last trip in scripted form on this website, I have come to the conclusion that I should first list a budget and info on the trip before I go on and talk about the actual trip. So here we go:
- Flight tickets: ca 150 EUR (S$240)
- Food: ca 8 EUR/meal and water on average = 833 = 72 EUR (S$115)
- Drinks: 10 EUR for 1 Ozone Bar beer, 10 EUR for 1 CÉ LA VI Rooftop bar beer, 10 EUR for another round of beers = 30 EUR (S$50)
- Transport: 25 EUR public transport + 15 EUR = 40 EUR (S$65)
- Hostel (Yesinn Causeway Bay): 22*2 EUR + 10 EUR deposit = 44 EUR + 10 EUR deposit (S$70 + S$16)
- Souvenirs: 6 EUR (S$10)
As you can see, this budget lands on 346 EUR or S$550, which was very close to what it actually cost. Me and Markus Fa, the second of Austria, took out the equivalent of 200 EUR in the beginning of the trip, and I ended up having 10 EUR left, whereas he spent it all. One thing we noted was that public transport is very expensive in Hong Kong, as you can see. Also, you cannot party too heavy if you want to be able to pay your rent by the end of the month. Thirdly, you might have some snacks or drinks along the way when you’re walking in the city, which can add to the cost - this is however easy to control, as you only have to stick to your average meal cost if you want to keep the expenses in check. Now that we have the expenses in check, let us begin!
We first arrived at the airport in Changi, Singapore at around 00. After having searched everywhere in Singapore for a shower gel under 100 ml, I finally found one at an airport pharmacy. Me and Markus found and shared the cost for some sleeping pills for the flight, while Theresa, of course staying true to her austrian nature, went for the alcohol to blow off some steam. Yes, she took some sleeping liquid. Alcoholic or non-alcoholic way, you get to decide the truth! We also bought some sleeping masks. Yes, we REALLY wanted to sleep on the plane, as we would arrive friday morning in Hong Kong.
Of course, sleep we did not get. You rarely get the things you want; especially a functioning sleeping pill. Mine seemed to work in reverse, as I slept until take-off and then stayed awake with eyes shut throughout the whole flight. The others had the same situation, with the addition of also freezing throughout the flight. Anyways, it was worth being awake, as the sunrise from an airplane in Hong Kong’s mountaineous landscape was one of the most astonishing I have seen. Unfortunately, I do not have any photos of this, as I at this point thought airplane photos were stupid. Funny thing is, I now think that past me was stupid. Correction: I AM stupid…
Arriving at the airport, we quickly got on to our bus that was going to transport us to the Yesinn Hostel at Causeway Bay. It only cost us 4 EUR for 45 minutes of driving through Hong Kong’s bridges over mountaineous islands.
Arriving at the Hostel, we left our baggage and then headed for the staff’s recommended breakfast place: Segafredo. No, staff. You were wrong. This is not a recommendation. They served chicken that was a bit raw inside, and Theresa bought some disgusting kind of porridge. My tip to you is thus: go somewhere else and waste your 3 EUR.
After the breakfast, we took a ding-ding (local tram) and walked around in the city for a bit on Hong Kong Island. We wanted to walk over a bridge to get to the northern parts of Hong Kong, but we found out the hard way that this was actually a tunnel for cars. Not too sad about it, we instead took a selfie and walked to a nearby shopping mall and entered a grocery store, where we saw some more of Asia’s weird fruits, as well as Mattias Josefsson’s, the genius swede with weird viking genes and an undefined daily rhythm, favorite place. As we have a tea place in Lund called Java, in which he easily spends 50 EUR worth of tea in a go, I do not know how jealous he gets by this, though. I thought I would give it a try, anyways!
Soon after the grocery story, we finally found our way to the MTR station and took a subway to Mongkok, where we strolled around the market for an hour. It should probably have been fun, but as I tend to look at most of these things as useless junk, and there was no street food around, I was a little bit bored by this part. I did, however, enjoy the 2 EUR ice drinks we all bought to drink whilst walking. Anyways, we soon left the market to make our way south to the night market. On the way there, we found this temple in the middle of the city:
Eventually, we also made our way to the night market in the middle of the day, where some of us liked to pose for the camera more than I like the newly found snack/breakfast peanut butter honey toast (read: ALOT).
Finding the night market quite boring during the day as well, we made our way back to the MTR and Hong Kong Island. Theresa had gotten a tip to go to City Hall Maxim’s Palace if we wanted to eat delicious Dim Sum for lunch, and so we did. First of all, it was quite hard to find our way to the entrance of the building. Second of all, we apparently entered the wrong Maxim’s Palace at first, as the waitress took one look at us and robotically asked if we were going to the dumpling place. Seems like a lot of westerners make the same mistake of going to the first floor Maxim’s Palace instead of the second floor one. Still, only one look was impressive… We must have seem so foreign.
This was, however, nothing compared to how foreign we felt when entering the restaurant upstairs. First of all, it was a high-end fancy restaurant with women wearing expensive dresses and golf ball sized jewellery and men wearing suits, monocles, hats and white gloves. And then there was us three… Sweaty, pimply teenagers in soaking wet shorts and t-shirts from having walked all day in 30 degrees and a frying sun. At least that is what we must have looked like to these fancy people.
We somehow managed to find our way to a table, but then we immediately got waitresses with food carts pushing food baskets up our face, asking whether or not we wanted to buy this particular dim sum, or if we wanted another kind. Markus immediately broke down into an autism-like outburst, Theresa concluded that if she froze, they might not be able to see her. Meanwhile, I tried to negotiate with these vultures in a desperate move to stall them until we had all gotten a better overview of this precarious situation we were all facing. Turns out, we managed to get out alive and actually enjoy the best dim sum I had ever had. Although, I had not had dim sum before. But they were extremely good. Actually on par with the peanut butter acpricot marmelade toasts I make for snack/breakfast!
Just beware of these vultures in the future…
After the lunch, we took a ding-ding for an hour. Turns out this is a great way to sightsee in the city, as you do not have to walk.
After the trip, we rested at the hostel for an hour and then made our way to the Ozone bar in order to follow the sunset into the night. Turns out, we either missed the sunset or there was not much of it to see in the first place. We had a great time up here at the highest sky bar in the world, anyways! There is also no entrance fee, but the beer costs 10 EUR…
Even their bathrooms were a joy to look at…
I also got to see an infinity mirror. Close substitute to my longing for infinity pools!
In fact, everything in this building had a very classy vibe to it. I will definitely come back here some day in the future!
We exited the building and decided to have a fancy dinner at one of their local restaurants with only chinese letters in their menu.
Yeah, this was not the best place to have dinner at. However, it was actually a pretty good restaurant (although, not as good as my peanut butter nutella toasts that I eat for snack/breakfast), and the starter shown above does not really do the restaurant justice. I cannot recall the restaurant’s name, though… Maybe because it was also written in chinese letters, I am not sure… Anyways,after this we went home to sleep.
Next day, we went to hike on Dragon’s Back. We took the MTR to Chai Wan station, followed by a bus that apparently took us to the entrance of Dragon’s Back. 50 m behind me in this photo, we could have entered Dragon’s back and saved 2 EUR (or something similar to that amount) and half an hour worth of wait. Instead, we took another bus to the other entrance of Dragon’s Back.
We got up to one of the tops pretty quickly, though. It provided a great view of the surrounding forest and bay area.
The hike was, however, a really sweaty one. I could feel salty sweat running down into my eyes, and my clothes were soaking wet halfway through the hike. Kind of like Markus the sweater below!
This made it quite nice to go down to the Stanley beach and swim for an hour, followed by going through the Stanley market and eating at a local restaurant with really nice staff. The food that I ate was actually really good, and I can recommend you to search for this place that “does not exist”, as there are “no restaurants up there in that area”, according to the indian guy who made it his life mission to promote his and only his restaurant. Anyways, the food was not as good as the peanut butter, nutella and honey toasts that I eat for breakfast/snack!
We took the bus back to the hostel and rested for a bit. The day before, a local Polish guy had given us a tip to go The Peek (Victoria peek, but he had to emphasize that it was called The Peek, so we would know the tip was correct) at sunset by tram. We had planned to go to Victoria peek anyways, so we were happy to do this now. We were in good time to the tram station, and it seemed as though the sunset was going to be great!
The only thing was, the queue for the tram station was big.
In fact, it was huge…
We stood in queue for an hour, making us a bit bored. Some of us had their autism outbursts again. Followed by bright ideas/alien abductions. I do not know…
Others decided to spend their newly found time growing a beard.
Turns out getting to the top was not worth the wait either. The tram trip ended in a big mall, whose top was apparently The Peek. We were trapped in a tourist trap. Quite literally.
How about the other way around, then?
Nope. Remind me to never trust polish bartenders working abroad ever again. Good thing he really emphasized that we should go to The Peek during sunset. That way I can really know why I really do not like that guy! I managed to snap a really good picture up here, though.
There is also a really cozy looking restaurant up here that I want to try out in the future!
Seeing the queue down by tram, we decided to take the bus down. It turned out that there was also a road to The Peek (thank you for that information, polish guy), that I really recommend you to take. After this, we took the star ferry across the water to the northern part of Hong Kong, where we met up with Theresa’s boyfriend and his friend.
Over at the northern part of Hong Kong again, we went to eat dinner at Dumpling Pro, where we had the best noodles I have ever eaten in my life. It was by far the best dish I have had in Asia so far, and we asked for the recipe for their Dan Dan Noodles, which we were only able to obtain in part, much thanks to Theresa’s boyfriend Leo. Memorize the restaurant outline, because you should go here and eat while you are in Hong Kong. This is definitely better than any of the toasts I eat for breakfast.
Later that night, we went to CÉ LA VIE, a rooftop bar, to enjoy drinks surrounded by the Hong Kong skyline. It was a very nice rooftop bar, but as mentioned above, the beer cost around 10 EUR. We also met a group of older australian women; some of which turned out to have or have had swedish husbands. Apparently, swedes love Australia! Who knew?!
Also, later that night we snuck into the very popular night club (whose name I cannot recall) at floor 5 through a fire door. We went to its second floor and saw an empty table with a full bottle of liquor and shot glasses. For some reason, someone in our gang started pouring up the liquor into shotglasses. If I had seen someone do that with something I bought in a club, I would have gotten really mad, but apparently the chinese person who had bought it got really happy about it and invited us all to sit with him and take some drinks. He did not know a single word of english, though, which made the night quite an interesting blend of leeching and confusion! He seemed to really like us, though.
Next day, we went to another one of the polish guy’s recommendations. He really knows how to nail his trip advices… Anger aside, the brunch was actually pretty good, even though we had to cram in with some other people in order to get it! I still enjoy having my peanut butter banana toasts for breakfast, though!
Today was the day we went to Lan Tau, another one of Hong Kong’s islands. We were headed there to see the giant buddha statue on one of its peaks. We took a ferry to the island, followed by a taxi ride; something I definitely recommend you to do, as it provides a great view of the island, as well as some fun road encounters with a turtle, cows and geese. Apparently, cows are pretty common on the island - even in the temple area we saw one.
The buddha statue itself was enormous, and the view from it was amazing, as can be seen below.
In the same area as the buddha was also a few buddhist temples, as well as a restaurant that will in my head forever be remembered as “The great coffee spill on my shorts restaurant”! One of the temples can be shown below, and for future travellers, I really recommend going behind this temple and looking inside the temple behind here - it is a quite nice sight.
After this, we went with cable car from the area to the airport (almost), and got a really nice view of the landscape from above for half an hour. It felt like a perfect ending to this trip, and I really recommend future travellers to book a late flight back in order to experience Lan Tau during the last day, and then take the cable car back to the airport (almost).
Getting to the airport, we had some food and bought bakeries with the last of our Hong Kong dollars for the flight back. I have no idea what Markus picked, but he seems happy with it. I also have no idea what I picked, but it was delicious! It worked as a great substitute for my daily snacks!
Sitting on the flight back, people seemed to have managed to pick the right sleeping pills, as they slept like below throughout most of the flight. The guy right next to me had the weirdest kind of sleeping I have ever seen, as his head always fell down when he started sleeping, followed by a quick bop back to normal sleeping position. Rinse, repeat. Throughout the entire flight. Always. I wonder how he sleeps regularly…
Anyways, this is it about my trip to Hong Kong. You definitely have to go here someday in your life, as it is an amazing city with a blend of UK and Asia. I did not think I would grow to like the city so much after having only been here for a few days, but I definitely do. The difference from Singapore is also huge, as this city seems to have a lot more soul and personality to it. One can really sense that people do what they want, and that culture decides people’s behaviour, not law. Buildings here and there are worn down, and one can find dirt on the streets here, but the city is very safe to be in. A great advantage about being a swede in Hong Kong is that their currency is almost equal to SEK, so it is easy to keep track of your expenses.
Lastly, I want to give Nils Hjelm a huge thanks for recommending Hong Kong. It was definitely a great travel advice!
Next up is Bali, Gilli Islands and Lombok… Looking forward to showing you that chapter, which begins on Thursday!