It's been a while since I last wrote and there are two reasons for that. The first is that Hong Kong was so uninspiring, I couldn't be bothered to write about it. And the second reason is that Japan is so awesome that we've been tiring ourselves out all day and haven't had the energy to write about it!! But now we've left Tokyo and arrived in Fuji and we're having a chill out night in the DVD room of the hostel, so I've plenty of time to bring you guys up to scratch on our latest adventures.
So, Hong Kong. I wasn't looking forward Hong Kong, the most densely populated place on earth, so I'm told. But Kev was looking forward to it, so I tried to go in with a positive attitude! We arrived off our flight and easily found the shuttle bus to Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island, the place that would be our home for the next three days. One thing I will say about Hong Kong is that the public transport system is incredibly easy to use. Savour that moment, because I doubt there'll be much more positive things on the way about Hong Kong!!
We got off the bus and easily found our hostel, or what we thought was our hostel. I'd been warned that hostels in Hong Kong are invariably set in huge high rise towers and the rooms are often tiny and windowless. I wasn't looking forward to seeing our new home, but when we arrived at this place -The Yes Inn Hostel, we were happy to see that it was on the 5th floor (not too bad). However, we soon realised this was just the reception and our room was in fact in a grotty high rise about 5 minutes down the road, and yes, unsurprisingly it was on the 16th floor! The hostel lady opened the door and then squeezed herself into our bathroom, for if she hadn't, there would be no way all three of us could have fitted into the shoe box! We squeezed in and placed our bags on the bed while standing in the single square foot that would be our floor space for the next three days.
I've just realised that I'd written about this in the last blog, so apologies for boring you with it again. So where I should have started is the first day of exploration in Hong Kong. So we got up and walked down to the nearest Macy D's for a healthy start to our day! I tell you, it's been a while, but that sausage and egg Mc Muffin tasted soooo good! We tried to walk right the way down to the other end of Hong Kong island, where the Peak Tram line starts, but the nutritional value of that Macy D's breakfast was not enough to sustain a long walk, so we had to stop for a star bucks! We then decided to get the regular tram along to the Peak Tram, which was easy enough to work out.
The Peak Tram is a funny little thing, a kind of old fashioned tram that literally goes up a mountain face!! Well, slight exaggeration perhaps, but you'll be used to my exaggerations by now! There were a couple of moments where I thought the tram was surely going to start rolling backwards down the cliff, but somehow it made it to the top. At the top there is this king of shopping mall and we went right up to the top, up about 10 escalators, to the open air roof. Now you can imagine what the weather was like on a day when the whole place was under a tropical cyclone warning – it wasn't a pretty day! So the view wasn't amazing and it was absolutely blowing a gale out there. I left Kev to take photos as I was slightly concerned that my frail little structure would be picked up and swept off that roof and carried off in the cyclonic wind (I probably needn't have worried as despite everyone telling me I'd lose weight while travelling, that 'frail' structure of mine is not getting any frailer and indeed is gaining pound by pound every day!).
We hopped back on the tram and back down the hill. There we hopped on another bus and down towards the pier where we would get the ferry across to the mainland. As we were working out how to buy our ferry tickets from the machine, so a bloke named Clive (unsurprisingly he was Australian) came over to show us how it worked. He was in Hong Kong for two weeks with his elderly father. Anyway, we got on the ferry, chatting away to Clive and when it was time to get off, he asked us if we wanted to go for a beer somewhere while his father had a nap. So we walked off with him towards a little pub and restaurant he said he knew about it. As it turned out, this little pub and restaurant was nothing more than a tin roof with some tarpaulin sheets for walls and plastic tables and chairs – 'this is where the locals eat and drink and so you get great food for a great price' explained Clive. 'Great' I thought, 'just when I thought I couldn't hate Hong Kong any more, I'm being expected to sit on a grubby chair in a tent that puts my accommodation at festivals to shame! We ordered a beer (and indeed it was very cheap) and I asked the lady where the toilet was. But silly me, what was I thinking, a toilet in a pub that has no walls, I should be so lucky! Probably, just as well I suppose because if there had been a toilet there, I think it would have been a health hazard! Anyway, so the woman handed me an umbrella, drew a big M on her hand and pointed around the corner. I pretended to understand what she meant and went to look around the corner. There I saw a big Macdonalds sign and I realised what the M on her hand was a sign for! Good old Mady D's!
We were starving by this time but while Clive insisted the food at this place was great, neither me of Kev fancied taking our chances! I know that when you're travelling you're meant to relish these moments when you're getting down with the locals and doing what they do and all that jazz, but no – I wasn't feeling it! We had a couple of beers and listened to Clive give us his worldy advice about how he'd made his millions and blah blah blah – no, he was a really nice guy, if a little sexist (I think he thought all women were good for was spending money, although, I must admit, on this trip I am upholding that stereotype pretty well!). Clive paid for our drinks, which felt a bit weird, but after all, he was in the top 5% of the richest people in Australia so he could afford it!! (not sure how much of that we believe, but hey ho). So Clive headed off and we headed straight to Macy D's to get a much needed burger!
We walked back down towards the pier where we intended on watching the famous light show, after a quick walk along Hong Kong's avenue of stars, along which Hong Kong's most famous film stars embed their hands in the floor and sign their name under it. Kev did some awesome poses next to a Jackie Chan statue and then we found a seat and waited for the 8 O'Clock light show to begin. Now this is where my imagination is not a good thing. I had heard that this light show was a complete waste of energy and so I was expecting the stunning Hong Kong skyscraper skyline to light up in some outstanding neon light show in time to some staccato style music. Unfortunately, my imagination had made too much of this little affair, which turned out to be more like a cheesy stage show of 'Catchphrase'. We kept expecting Mr Chips to walk across the skyline as the buildings put on their display of lights. It was a big disappointment, but worth watching and it made us laugh.
We walked past all the beautiful hotels, the ones I longed that we were staying in, and hopped on the ferry back to the island. By the time we got back to our tower block it was gone half nine, and that meant the lift was no longer working!! There was not much choice but to tackle the 16 flights of stairs, and it nearly killed me.
The next morning we packed our bags and dropped them at the luggage storage room and went to sample some genuine Hong Kong Dim Sung. Now, Dim Sung is my second favourite type of food, so I was looking forward to this. We went into the restaurant that had been recommended by the hostel and it was the weirdest place. It was only quarter to twelve and yet this huge hall, that reminded us of a bingo hall, was packed out. All the staff had microphones and ear pieces and it just seemed like the most chaotic place ever. There were tanks and tanks of fish that would soon meet their fate and hundred of Hong Kong-ians (or whatever you would call them) sat, tucking into mountains of bamboo baskets of food. So we sat down and ordered a few things to try. They brought our the obligatory green tea, which I enjoyed (Kev on the other hand, had to sneakily take hidden sips of the bottle of water in his bag as though he were some drunk trying to drink a bottle of rum in a cinema!). The food arrived and it was great, but Kev let the side down almost immediately by splashing soy sauce all over the perfectly pristine white table cloth. I couldn't say much though, as very shortly after I attempted to pick up some slippery pancake roll thing and managed to catapult soy sauce across the other side of the room and all over myself – it was one of the funniest things to have happened so far and we both hung our heads low with embarrassment.
We decided to spend our last day in Hong Kong over on the mainland, but it was absolutely pouring with rain, and I mean pouring down, so as soon as we got to the mainland we took shelter in a little English pub!! Once the rain eased off we wandered around a bit, but to be honest we couldn't really see much worth seeing. Hong Kong just seemed to be full of a million little shops, but all selling nothing that you actually want to buy. We were a little bored but it was T minus 2 hours and I still had to buy a ring. Luckily, we stumbled across a cheap shop and I picked one up for a couple of quid, panic over!
We popped into an i-darts bar, which we really wanted to see because apparently they're all the rage here. They're just bars where people go and play darts on a kind of computerised dart board. They can play virtually with people from all over the world and they love it! Each to their own I suppose!
I must admit I was pretty pleased when it was time to pick up our bags and head to the airport, I was so excited to get to Japan. We got the bus to the airport and it was only really on that bus journey that we realised just how many people live in Hong Kong. All the way to the airport there are rows and rows and rows of tower blocks. The high rise flat, like the really horrible ones in Glasgow, just don't stop, it's like a jungle of high rises and you just can't get over how many people live there - it's just nuts. The airport was massive, absolutely massive, but our flight was at one am and so nothing seemed to be open in the airport anyway! The flight to Japan wasn't one of the nicest flights. It was really hot and stuffy and it felt like during the night they switched off the oxygen! We were glad when it came to landing time! Unfortunately, however, by the time we got through the health checks, the immigration, the customs and everything else, we had hit Japan at rush hour and the only way to get to our hostel was by tube. There was no way in a million years i was getting on a tube at rush hour in Japan. I had seen the You Tube clips before we left of people who are employed to push passengers on to the tubes so that they can squeeze as many people as possible in and there was no way I was having any part of that. Tubes at rush hour are the perfect time for perverts and apparently it's really common for girls to get groped while they're squished in like a sardine and unable to do anything about it – gross!! So....we sat for about 2 hours and waited for the end of rush hour before attempting the tube journey to our new home.
The tube system here is nothing like in London. The tubes are big, the tunnels are big, they're air conditioned and they're lovely – nothing to worry about at all. We easily found our way to our hostel and we were so pleased to find nice people and clean living accommodation (even if it does quickly et tiresome taking your shoes off every time you go into a building). Instantly, we loved Japan. It's modern and clean and the people just seem happy here. Everywhere else we've been to people seem to hate their lives and everything seems like a struggle and it's nice to be somewhere where the people actually have a quality of life. The people here are also the coolest people I've ever seen and their dress sense is the best thing ever. All of a sudden, I immediately began to regret the choice of clothing that I had packed, my sensible attire just don't cut the mustard with the folks here – I want to dress like them!!
That first morning then, we went to see the temples that are just around the hostel and we went to get some sushi for brunch. It was a train style sushi place, but it was awesome. I loved the chefs with their headbands on and the way they shout constantly at something (but we couldn't work out what it was they were shouting at). We wandered around a bit and were totally in amazement at how lovely the place is and then we headed back to the hostel for a well earned sleep. We woke up just to pop out and get a bento box for dinner and then back to sleep – a battery recharge was very much called for, it would be a busy couple of days that followed.
Sorry, got distracted chatting to some British people here in the hostel in Fuji – they've been travelling for a year, makes me wonder why I'm constantly homesick after being away for just a month!! Anyway, I've been distracted by chatting a lot this evening, so I've not managed to get through it all and now it's getting late. So I'm going to hold it there for now and fill the rest in tomorrow... xxx
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