Jani Bizjak

Friday was our last (full) day in Hong Kong. We woke up early (at around 9 AM :D), there was still thousands of things we wanted to see and do. When we arrived to the main island it was already around 11AM so we decided to go and try a Korean cuisine. We arrived to the restaurant just before lunch rush hour so we could actually get the seats without waiting.

Again in this restaurant we cooked our own food. I just love this concept, too bad we don’t have it in Slovenia! We were seated at the table with “hot stone” burner in the middle, got some vegetables to put on and then meat and seafood as we ate. The food was really really good (maybe because we made it? =) ). I especially liked the meats with good spices and side dishes.

After we ate we had another check box to tick from our TODO list; ride in a tram. While this looked interesting at first we soon regretted it. The tram was really narrow, almost half the width of a normal bus and as this is Hong Kong - full of people, we were packed in it as sardines. After short ride with the tram we transferred to a bus and drove about half an hour to the edge of the Hong Kong (country/region) to visit a nice sandy beach.

The beach was quite big, with yellow sand, it looked nice, though no-one was swimming. I’m not sure how clean the water is. There were also a lot of walking paths further down the coastline that ended at a small altar.





Soon after we returned back to the city, we had one big thing left to do. And when I say big I mean high. We wanted to go to a restaurant at the top of the tallest building in Hong Kong – 480m high with a restaurant in the highest – 118th floor. The restaurant at the top was really fancy and we stood out but the view was worth it. We were so high up you could barely see cars below yet alone people. And the buildings that looked super high before (30+ floors) looked like normal houses from up there.






The building also has an observatory on 100th floor, but it’s not worth visiting. You have to pay around 15€ for a ticket to go there, or you can just go to a restaurant in 118th floor, buy a drink for 15€ and have an even better view.





At 7PM we descended the tower and went to a restaurant, where we met with Jean and Leff. The restaurant was really full of people and it was an interesting design. It was more like a market (indoor) surrounded by different “food stands”, but the waiters brought food to your table. The food was again more traditional Hong Kong’s food.






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This was our last night in Hong Kong. Later that night we returned back to our island to prepare for departure on Saturday evening, but before we left Hong Kong we had one last thing to do. Again all of us met; Veronika, Jean, Maggie, Leff, Allen and I, for one last meal. We went with traditional Hong Kong theme again, with lots of steamed dumplings which are so good.

After the lunch the rain started to pour – the first time while we were visiting. We said goodbye to Leff and Allend and went to the airport, where we said or goodbyes too Jean and Maggie who were traveling to Korea.

But before we left we just had to have another scare. Our flight was delayed for about 2 hours, so we only had 30mins left for layover in Beijing. There were actually people waiting for us in the airport in Beijing and took us pass the security too speed up the boarding.

On Thursday morning we had to wake up earlier than usually, we had a trip planned to the neighbouring island to go and visit the big Buddha statue and Po Lin Monastery. After half an hour ride with a boat we went on a bush which drove us for an hour on a narrow mountain road with steep ravines on the side of the road.

As we stepped off the bus we could see a big shadow emerging from the mist further up the hill. It felt almost like in movies in some monastery high up in the Himalayas. Even the vegetation was different. And because of the fog and wind it felt cool, nothing like tropical climate down below.

From the parking lot the path lead us through enormous arch and by about 10 statues of warriors. It looked quite majestic. Soon after we arrived to the bottom of enormous staircase that lead to the Buddha statue. After climbing 270 steps we were in front of the statue. Wow, it is enormous. You can actually go inside and there is small museum in it.






After we took some photos we went on a short walk on the numerous paths around and saw some weird cows. The area was really nice, clean and tidy with a lot of walk paths.






Lastly we took a look at the monastery. It looked surreal, old buildings with strong Asian style. Lots of dragons and decorations. We also saw a room filled with 1000 statues of Buddha. Can you count them all? :)





Again the monastery was full of people, some were tourists, and some came to pray with big smoke stick all over the place, it really felt like in a movie. In their culture you give-burn gifts for your ancestors so there were quite a lot of watches scattered around or some burned money on the altars.






Before we left the monastery I felt strange surge of courage and decided to try a random food from the stall nearby, for the first time on the whole trip. I tried some “fish balls” whatever that was xD, it didn’t taste as fish, though that may be because it was so spicy I couldn’t feel /taste anything else.





After the balls we went to a nearby restaurant, the area in front of the monastery is full of tourist shops and restaurants, where I could finally had another portion of ramen. I really like this dish :)

On Tuesday morning Veronika and I alone again embarked on the adventure of discovery the city. We started on the main island and went to look for some parks and shopping malls nearby. Despite city being so huge, you get a feeling there are parks around every corner. And no some small parks, but they are quite big, full of vegetation a lot of them have mini zoos in them as well.

And in these parks you see all kind of people, from children (well it was school day so not that many children) to adults playing with their toys. As I later learned its normal to see adults playing with RC toys etc. since they didn’t have time/money when they were young they do it now.





Another thing I really liked was tons of walkways, lifted from the main road, going through the buildings and bringing you anywhere you want. There is even the longest escalator in Hong Kong going over 800m in distance and 140m in elevation – and all this on the street beside sidewalk. Hehe seems like some people there really don’t want to walk.





After walking whole morning and failing to buy anything from expensive malls we met with Maggie in the afternoon who took us again to Bang Kok – the largest stall market in the city. There were stalls everywhere and really a lot of people wherever you looked, it was quite hard to move actually.





We bought quite a lot of things this day, from souvenirs to counterfeit bag that was around 200€ cheaper than original, but looks surprisingly same as original. The bottom nominator for all purchases was haggling. I personally didn’t like it but at each thing you bought be it few € to 50€+ you haggled to get your price down. I managed to get the chopsticks from 30€ to 10€ and Veronika lowered the price of the handbag for more than 70%.





Next day – Wednesday morning we again went alone to the city. Near the pier on the main island we found a double decker bus tours that drove you around the city. We took it and it was really fun to ride on the upper deck, where wind breezed around our heads. Well it was fun until we went through the tunnel below the sea – at that point we thought we are going to suffocate.






Using bamboo for construction on tall skyscrapers.





After about an hour of riding we disembarked near the Avenue of Stars.







Because the air is usually so polluted, you can't see the city on the other bank, they have this big billboards so you can take a picture as it were clear weather. And for some reason they have a picture of Paris as well.





After taking some pictures we decided to find something to eat. This ended up in us walking for 3 hours through the city, and finally giving up in finding something local that looked safe to eat and going into a first McDonalds we could find.





At this point we were already quite lost, I think we were somewhere in the middle of Bang Kok area, having no internet meant no GPS from Google maps, so yea, we were lost. On our way of aimlessly walking to find subway we went through some really big markets again full of fresh fish. How do I know they were fresh? They were still alive in the aquariums.





This area was exactly as I imagined Hong Kong before coming here. Thousands of people, stalls everywhere and stalls were selling anything you could imagine. A lot of exotic fruits, minerals, precious stones, flowers, trees, meat… There was one area where they were selling thousands of exotic fishes for aquariums (like pets – not for eating). And oh boy were they expensive, some fishes had price tags at over 400€.





After walking for another 2-3 hours we must have looked really lost because someone actually asked us if we are lost and if we need help. He quickly gave us some directions to get to the metro and voila, we were saved. :)

Next day – Monday morning, Veronika and I embarked on our first adventure in Hong Kong alone, without Maggie or Jean. We decided to go to the amusement park called Ocean Park. Well it’s not exactly amusement park (alone) it’s a mixture of rides and a zoo. The idea is that they attract people with attractions and with the money they can take better care of the animals there.

After a bit of searching we took a bus to the park. The park is enormous it’s almost like 2 parks combined into one, and the location is quite good. Half of the park is situated near a sea level the other half is on a hill and you can take a lift or an underground tunnel ride to get to the top.

Well what is the first animal you think of when you say China? Panda!! Yea the first animal we saw were pandas. It looked almost unreal, they look so cuddly and nice. I later learned I had an honour of seeing the oldest panda in the world – around 43 years old.







Alongside “normal” pandas they also had red panda, which looks even cuter. I can definitely see myself having one as a pet. Would look so cool walking it around like a dog here in Slovenia :D.





The park was really nicely decorated and landscaped, sometimes you even got a feeling you are in the middle of the jungle. After pandas we went to see a sea lion show. After it we took underground ride to get to the upper plateau, where more of the amusement rides were located.







When you think of Hong Kong, you think of hot tropical weather, so what we saw next was a really surprise to us - Penguins. We entered one of the largest aquariums in the world, spanning multiple storeys, containing hundreds of aquariums with thousands of fishes – from sharks to small tropical fishes and of course some big sea mammals like seals, sea cows etc. It was also quite cold at least in the area of the penguins where they actually had snow / ice on the ground. You could actually borrow a jacket, but we as true Europeans used to cold didn’t bother. 







It was fun watching penguins as they were playing around jumping on the ice and swimming in water. The floor were made from glass so you could see them swimming beneath. We soon left the penguins to see some artic foxes and then shivering with cold left the building.

After that we went to see a show with dolphins in an arena nearby. As Europeans we really stood out in the crowd in the city and especially here. We quickly got used to people looking at us but here it actually paid off to be different. They chose us to be part of the show with the seals, we got a special seats in the front row and then when seals came we “made” them do some tricks and took photos with them. After the seals they did some tricks with dolphins. I think this was the first time I saw dolphins, they were quite big and jumped what must have been 3-4m high out of the water.





Later in the afternoon we spent more time on the rides, it was quite fun a lot of rides and because they were high on the plateau, they used the height to enhance the rides, which then took you few hundred meters above sea and over the cliffs.





All in all the park was really great and worth the time and money. We returned home to the island late in the evening where we had lunch in a local restaurant on the island and where I yet again ordered something extremely spicy that I couldn’t eat at all.