Hong Kong - Day 1

It seems unreal that we’re finally here. I’ve been looking forward to this day for so long. Now that we’re here, looking across at the very famous HK skyline and I am inhaling the scent of the harbour, I feel immediately at home. It’s good to feel this connectedness. I have not felt this particular feeling anywhere else we’ve been. I couldn't be happier that I got to share this with Don.

Our travel day here was stressful but remarkably smooth. We got up early, walked 2 minutes (our hotel was attached to the airport), arrived in Shenzhen, got on a coach bus that took us through customs and drove us into Kowloon. The only big hitch was that we thought that we would be able to exchange some $ at the airport but we couldn’t so when we landed in Kowloon, we were worried we couldn’t get to our hostel. Fortunately, I was finally able to communicate in Cantonese and found our where we could take a taxi and asked the driver if she took RMB for payment.

Our hostel was another lesson. Appearances are deceptive. This hostel was smack in the middle of everything on Nathan Road, one of the main streets in Kowloon, but was located in a very ugly building that we could easily call a tenement. Our room was very small but typical of HK. It was very reasonable for HK prices. Still, it looked bigger and better on the Internet. The hostel was really a bunch of rooms on different floors in this building. Amongst your neighbours, there are families, small businesses / aka sweatshops and other hostels. There was laundry drying on poles above our heads in the hallways or extended into the open space in the middle of the building. The literature in our room says this gives visitors a real HK experience since we get an idea of what it might feel like actually living here. It certainly was a different style of accommodation and not suitable for everyone. We found it perfect since it give us a clean comfortable place to sleep and we were steps away from everything.

The first meal we had was dim sum. In the northern part of China where we are, the food is very different from what we’ve been used to. So our plan here in HK was to eat as much as we could. We got a recommendation from the hostel and found our way to the restaurant easily and ordered easily, something we can’t do easily where we’ve been so far in China. Ahhhhh, food for our souls!

We couldn’t wait to start exploring. With our map in hand, we walked a short distance to the harbour, checked out the Avenue of the Stars and got oriented.