Hong Kong!
After a three course meal, a full English breakfast, complete with a cup of tea in a real china cup! and slowly drinking the free bar dry! I can safely say the 12 hour flight to Hong Kong was a great success! Sadly arriving in Hong Kong we quickly realised, there's not that much to do there! When we were searching for accommodation in Hong Kong it became clear that space meant a hefty price tag and as we has such a long travelling trip ahead, we decided to make Hong Kong our budgeting city. My wide search of several hotel sights and a good few hours on TripAdvisor lead me to believe the accommodation I settled on with it's "8.9" review score would be more than adequate. Oh how I could not have been more wrong! For anyone who has budgeted in Hong Kong, I'm pretty sure you will be familiar with the venue "Chungking Mansions"? No? What I can only describe as a large apartment building, split in to several blocks of budget accommodation, all owned by different landlords, all who were a nightmare to contact. With rooms so small you could reach from one side to the other with a mild stretch of your arms. A wet room complete with a shower and a sink that you could comfortably use whilst sitting on the toilet and in the blistering heat an air conditioning unit which actually turned out to be a fan in the window and a square cut out of the curtain to help it's ventilation! If the room couldn't get any worse what was underneath it definitely sealed the deal. The bustling 24 hour market housed an array of Indian restaurants, tailors, fake watch stalls and electronic device hagglers. The place was just an absolute dive! On the plus side it was right in the heart of Tsim sha tsui and just a short walk to the Hong Kong skyline, which was illuminated beautifully every evening.
Hong Kong as a city, sadly is not how I expected it to be, It's over crowded, dirty and not the friendliest of places. It's also super expensive. We did have a great day at Lantau Island which is Hong Kongs main tourist pull. After a couple of hours wait, you travel by cable car up into the mountains to a beautiful island that is home to a working monetarist and the ginormous Tian Tan Buddah. This place is what I imagined authentic Hong Kong to be like and we really had a wonderful time there.
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Over all I'm glad we have seen Hong Kong but I doubt i will be in a hurry to return. There's not a lot here for tourists and it doesn't take too long to see everything there is to see.
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