Hong Kong and back to Shanghai

Now I'm back in China and I have some more affordable internet access, I can try and get back on track with my postings. The remainder of my stay with Wu was great - the massage was really good and the haircut surprisingly uneventful. I caught the bus to Hong Kong from Huizhou which was pretty easy and Wu had been kind enough to book me a hotel so I was up and running pretty quickly. Hong Kong is a really impressive and likeable city. It's a bizarre fusion of different places, yet still very distinct. A lot of the signage etc. is very English, the sky scrapers are more like New York, the way a lot of Hong Kong island is on a hill is like San Fransico, yet it's all just of China so has a huge Asian influence.

The view from Victoria Peak, Hong Kong

The view across the harbour and from the top of Mount Victoria are completely breathtaking, both at daytime and at night when the buildings are all lit up. In Kowloon there is a staggering array of shopping available, just one mall had 700 outlets, plus there are literally miles of markets, as well as miles of stores. It varies from pricey designer items, to cheap counterfeit ones. To the south of Hong Kong island, it is still relatively undeveloped, with plenty of greenery and some fantastic beaches. There were also a lot of water sports going on, and I was sorely tempted to gho sailing, but I didn't have enough time. Generally I didn't have enough time in Hong Kong as I lost a day due to the plane delay, I think I'd like to go back there, perhaps as a stopover on the way to Oz.

After China, and even Beijing, Hong Kong is really expensive. Day to day things (hotels, cheap food, transport) are at least three times as expensive. There are some really cool bars in the main business district, but they have London prices, restaurants in that district are also more like ten times Chinese prices.

In Hong Kong, everything is incredibly easy after China! People generally speak really good English, everything runs really smoothly, it's just a breeze. Today I flew back to China, and it was a shock returning to the grind of delays, confusion, and poor communication - but man does it feel good! :)

One example of the said confusion, was trying to get a refund for being overcharged for a plane ticket I had bought a few days earlier in Shenzhen. After a confusion of half Mandarin and half English, where I tried to explain that even with a credit charge surcharge I had paid too much for the ticket, the sixth lady I spoke to knew exactly what to do. Thus she took my ticket, carefully rubbed off the price information (I hadn't realised how easy it was to remove ink from airline tickets!) then taped the ticket to a piece of card and fed it through the printer, replacing the low price I paid, with the higher one on my credit card receipt! arghh!!! After another fifteen minutes and the assistance of the tenth person (literally) my message was understood and I got my refund in cash! It's so much more exciting in China, Hong Kong is more like a desirable place to live.

Well I think I'm going to try and get some food and an early night, as I have one day to see all of Shanghai, and do even more shopping (I bought a lot of clothes in Hong Kong, as well as having a suit and shirts tailored!) . Then it's back to the UK on Saturday.


Cheers,



Ali