England has crazy roads

This morning we woke up around 4:30am local time – not bad really, considering this is 11:30am Hong Kong time (or 1:30pm Melbourne time). After our cooked English Breakfast, it was off to Canterbury to see the Cathedral. The Cathedral is certainly impressive. The complex includes a number of old buildings, as well as the Cathedral and a recently built education centre for visiting scholars and clergy.

Its pretty amazing to see the site Thomas Beckett was murdered, and where he is enshrined, as well as the many chapels dedicated to various saints and Royals.

Following this (which took the whole morning!) it was a quick lunch, and off to Leeds Castle for the afternoon. Leeds Castle is definitely worth the visit. The extensive gardens, aviary, and, of course, the castle itself takes hours to wander through. Incredible that it was occupied till the 1970’s and since then it has been used for weddings, conferences and seminars.

We had decided it was better to see the countryside by using roads other than the motorways. Little did we know that this would mean driving down roads that were just wide enough to fit our car, let alone pass other cars! This was very evident when, driving around a corner, we met a truck. Having to reverse back around a corner, completely blind to anything coming up behind us was an interesting experience! Half way around the corner, another car did appear behind, but luckily there was a driveway, so the truck could get around both of us and we were soon all on our way again – Phew!

We wont be doing that again!

Right Flight, Right Day!

After the little mistake yesterday, this morning we were finally on our way to London. We could have a bit of a sleep in, given that we were only 5 min from the airport, and definitely took advantage! The flight was uneventful, which is what you want really… On landing at Heathrow, we quickly went through passport control, collected our bags and headed to the Hertz desk to pick up the car.

We have a Ford Focus, really nice car to drive. Havent worked out the cruise control yet, but will have plenty of time to do that! Travelling out of the airport was a breeze – which we were pleased about, then it was on to the M25 on our way to Ockley, past Dorking. There was a bit of traffic for the first few miles on the ring road – it was 6pm after all! Then clear sailing for the rest of the trip. It is a lovely drive once you head out into the countryside.

Finding our accommodation was easy too! The Inn on the Green is on the main road, has a lovely atmosphere and comfortable rooms – although is quite different to the hotels we were staying in in Hong Kong! (That’s a good thing though) After a lovely dinner at ‘the Inn’ we had thought to stay for the pub trivia night, but couldn’t stay awake long enough!

Flight … what Flight?

Well, today has been quite an adventure… so where to start? Yesterday we booked our shuttle to the airport. Alarm clocks set for 5:30 we had our last nights sleep at the Cosmopolitan. Morning came quickly; we woke, dressed, and headed down to wait for the bus. After checking out the bus arrived and we eagerly boarded, ready for the long flight to the UK. About 20 minutes into the trip to the airport Alison checked the flight details… and said “Wednesday the 6th?”… woops… we were not heading off until the next day! After a few minutes of panic we settled down and checked our hotel booking… yes we had stuffed that one up. Well there was little point worrying about this now. The remaining time to the airport working out what to do next. The statement “I can’t believe…” was repeated quite frequently.

Eventually we arrived at the Airport, only 26 hours before our flight ☺. We headed down to the departures area, trying not to look too silly and took up a seat. Out came the handy MacBook and we quickly scanned the wireless networks… there was one called Free WIFI, which sounded great. Once we were on we headed to the Expermedia web site, and booked a last minute room at the Novotel in Tung Chung. The hotel had a shuttle bus, so we waited around for about ten minutes before heading off to our new hotel.

Now we had a whole day free in Hong Kong. Nothing planed, much like all the other days here. Tung Chung is a bit out of the way, and our Octopus Cards were running low so we wanted to stay in the area. We had already done the Skyrail, and well… we don’t know much else about Tung Chung. However Sunny Bay is near by, so we quickly decided to spend the day in Disneyland.

We had visited Disneyland on our last trip to Hong Kong; so much of it was the same. We hadn’t spent much time in Tomorrow Land so we headed straight there. Space Mountain was our first ride, and then the Buzz Lightyear ride that was so good we went on it twice.

Most of the day passed really quickly and we eventually headed back to the Novotel and checked into our room. The room was fantastic, a great location to stay. Bags are packed, the alarms are set, and tomorrow we will be on our way again.

Hong Kong is full of surprises

After another wonderful breakfast – such great variety – we headed out to the Tai Tam Country Park. Hong Kong island has some fantastic walking tracks, although this isn’t really the time of year to take advantage of them. It was another 75% humidity, 32 degree day, and the first 5 minutes of walking was uphill – very steep up hill. Although it was easy for us in comparison to a lady we passed pushing her toddler in a pram!

The rest of the walk was down hill, which was great, and we had some lovely views.

After an exhausting walk, we headed into Central for lunch at the Luk Yu Tea House – one of the oldest tea houses in Hong Kong, and famous for its food, and old, grumpy waiters. It is a wonderful place, and I recommend anyone heading to Hong Kong to visit. The food really is great, the building has a lot of ‘old world’ charm, and although the waiters are old (apparently most have worked there for 40+ years) they are pleasant, although don’t speak English. The menu has quite a bit of variety, and is much more than the ‘standard’ dim sum fare. Contrary to reviews we had read, they do provide the prices now, and are not that expensive.

Having spent so much time walking around over the past 3 days, our feet and legs were tired. The hotel advertised the Foot Joy Club, offering reflexology and Chinese massage. We thought we would treat ourselves, and headed in. It was fantastic – just what we needed. Starting with a warm footbath, we each had a shoulder and neck massage, followed by reflexology (foot massage). The experience was wonderful – if you’re in Wan Chai, head on in – it’s located behind the Cosmopolitan Hotel.

It's hot in Hong Kong!

This morning we thought it would be a good idea to head to the Peak and do one of the walks recommended in the Hong Kong Tourist Bureau walking brochure. 7km isn’t too far, so we headed into Hong Kong to catch the bus up to the Peak, in readiness to walk down. It was a lovely walk, but in 34 degrees, with high humidity, we decided against the extra 30minutes to walk to the top of the mid-levels escalator then walk back down to Star Ferry Pier and took the bus instead.

The new Star Ferry Pier is much improved on the old one, and there is still a lot of building work going on – when it is finished it should provide a much improved entrance to Hong Kong island. We headed into Jade Garden for lunch, then on to Kung Fu Corner, Kung Fu demonstrations in Kowloon park. Some of the demonstrations were quite interesting, but it was hot, we were standing in the sun, and our legs & feet were sore!

From here, we headed up to Yau Ma Tei and the Bird and Flower markets, both of which were interesting, then to the Ladies Market, before finally heading back to the hotel. So after walking around in the heat all day we are now extremely sweaty and exhausted!

Big Buddha Revisited

We haven’t spent much time planning our time in Hong Kong, so the first thing we did today was to think about what we should do this visit. We both enjoyed visiting the Big Buddha on our first visit, so we thought that we would go back again. Last time we took the bus up the mountain, which took some time but was an interesting trip. There is now a cable car that goes from Tung Chung up the mountain to Ngong Ping, a new village near the Buddha.

The trip up on the cable car was really interesting. We got some really good views of airport, Lantau Island, and the Budda. At the top Ngong Ping is an interesting little area consisting of a number of shops selling a wide variety of things. It reminded me a little of a theme park. It was a little disappointing as the atmosphere of the place was very different from our last visit.

We headed through the village toward the monastery and Buddha. We decided not to go up to the Buddha again, but walked around the monastery. Even the atmosphere here was a little different, but much more of what I remembered. There were more shops selling food around the monastery and it tended to have a bit of a tacky feel.

Heading out from the monastery we were going to head back, but noticed a small path to the Path of Wisdom. Without knowing what it would lead to we decided to head down the path and see what we found. The path wound up hill through the forest for about ten minutes before we ended at the Path of Wisdom. The path is a set of large wooden pillars with inscriptions describing the path of wisdom… however without any English signs we were not enlightened.

From here it was back to Tsing Yi for lunch and a look around Maritime Square – Tsing Yi is where we have stayed on our previous visits to Hong Kong, so it was interesting to see the changes in the shopping centre. Unfortunately our two favourite shops have gone, but the good restaurants are still there!

A

Skyrail to the Big Buddha

Hong Kong

B

Its somewhere around here :)

EXTENT

Destination Hong Kong

After finishing work yesterday, we had planned to simply pack our bags and have an early night. But things don’t always work out the way you want…

Finally at 11:30, we headed off to bed – after packing, repacking, throwing stuff out and packing again! After a restless night, the alarm went off at 4am, and half an hour later we were on our way to the airport.

It was an uneventful flight over to Hong Kong. Watched 3 movies (Miss Potter – a story about Beatrix Potter with Rene Zellweger, highly recommended feel good film, The Holiday – Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz swap houses for Christmas, highly recommended feel good film, and The Good German – Arthouse film with George Clooney, set post WWII, OK, bit strange).

When we left Melbourne it was 8 degrees, When we landed in Hong Kong, it was 32! A bit of a shock. So after checking in to our lovely hotel (where we have been upgraded to an Executive suite), we quickly changed before heading out for dinner. Found a great Thai restaurant in Time Square shopping centre, very yummy…