Here we are – in Hong Kong – now for 2 days! There is a large storm in the China Sea, so he captain has decided to stay in Hong Kong for 2 days and eliminate Kota Kinabalu, our only Malaysian port. He says it will still be a bumpy ride down to Manila, even after a day delay, but that we will be more comfortable this way. Ok. We trust ya Captain!
We have a HoHo tour booked through the ship (it was cheaper through the ship than if we did it ourselves directly), so we have 1 day all planned. We’ll see about day two. The excursions manager says we can upgrade our HoHo tickets for only $7 US and use them on the 2nd day. That’s a possibility, we’ll see how much we get done today.
The storm that brought the rough seas has also brought unusually cold temperatures to Hong Kong. It’s like 40 degrees out there! We are not really equipped for this – but fortunately Ed has brought a couple of sweaters along – so he wears one and I wear one! It’s cold! And of course the buses are all double deckers – with open upstairs. So our strategy is to get out to the buses first and get a seat downstairs in what we hope will be a heated coach cabin, but at least not open air!
We’ve learned our lesson with sitting in the Theater waiting for our numbers to be called – and we are in prime position to go when they call us. There are a lot of us doing the HoHo, and as an additional bonus of booking through the ship – we have a shuttle to and from the starting point. Since we are way out in Kowloon, that means a 25 to 30 minute bus ride into Hong Kong island. Sweet!
We march out to the shuttle, hop on (ha ha) and try to leave, but there are two guys aboard holding seats. They tell the driver to wait – they are waiting for their wives and mother who don’t walk that fast. Well, this starts an uproar – we all want to go – and finally they get word to the stragglers to meet them in town. Which is probably a good idea since there were at least 100 people back in the line. Honestly!
So, off we go, into the cold morning to get the first bus tour. We decide to do the Red tour around town, then transfer to the Green to go out to Stanley – where we’ve never been. We’ve heard it is a nice little town on the sea, and there is a great market there.
We score seats downstairs on the bus and ride through the CBD relatively comfortably (no heat, but no wind either!). The couple in front of us is freezing without so much as a jacket – they end up getting off at one of the first stops (the shopping stop) so they can buy a coat. Really? For one day? Whatever – we’ll suck it up. We’re not too bad yet.
The tour narration is pretty interesting. We learn about the “upside down Gin bottle” building, which houses the Chinese Headquarters now that Hong Kong is back in mainland Chinese hands. The soldiers stationed there are not allowed to leave – ever. They have their barracks on the compound and work in the building, and even in their free time, they must remain within the HQ confines. Weird.
Net we pass the Golden Bauhinia statue – it is the flower of Hong Kong and is memorialized by a huge gold statue. On through the skyscrapers we go..
…eventually passing the curse lady corner. Here you can hire one of the ladies to place a curse on anyone you would like. They hold paper figurines signifying the person you are cursing and beat it with a shoe. Stories have it that it works….hmmmm…..if we would have a short list of people we might like to try this out on….we may be returning here!
After passing the computer and pawn center, we turn uphill and go to the Peak Tram station – which is our “break point” (it is what they say on the narration) for the green line which will take us to Stanley. Another bonus of these HoHo tickets is that we get free admission to the Peak tram and terrace, a Sampan ride, round trip ferry tix to get to Kowloon and entry into the Maritime museum. They’re a bargain!
We plan to do the tram later this afternoon, as we want to go to Stanley now, before it is too crowded, have some lunch then circle back and end up with the Blue line in Kowloon. So we transfer to the green line, get yelled at by the mean bus driver (he tells us we can’t stand, we have to sit – which we understand, we get it – but he yells it at us as I hand him our tickets – geez – get ahold of yourself man!) and head out of town.
The ride to Stanley is gorgeous, first you go through one of the longest tunnels in Asia, then you drive all along the coast and the Chung Hom Wan bay. There are sandy beaches and inviting shorelines – unfortunately the temperature out there is 8C or 46F. Brrrr….no beaches for us today.
The road is narrow and windy, sort of like the Amalfi Coast road, and it does get backed up like the Almafi too! After about 1/2 an hour we are deposited at the bus stop and make our way into Stanley market. But it is so cold, we decide we’re stopping for a coffee before we wander. We see a sign for McDonald’s (yeah, well, coffee, cheap, weather, cold – we don’t care at this point), but then get waylaid at this cute little place called the Stanley Cave. It’s an underground little cafe that fits the bill: cappuccino, wifi, inside! Although it’s pricey – it’s somewhere to sit and warm up – so we dawdle over our coffees and get caught up on the world.
Once my fingers return to normal, we brave the cold again and wander into the market area. I think we are jaded. Coming from Cambodia and Hanoi, this place just can’t compare. Not on prices or goods. There is nothing much of interest – we spy some cool chopsticks, but they aren’t very cheap, and we have tons at home (and I’ve been snatching them every chance I get so we can have our own and carry them around for street food – not that we’ll get much chance for that as we go forward – but heck – we’re prepared!). It is getting on toward lunch time and we decide to try the Pickled Pelican because A) we love the name, and B) we have a $50 HKD discount.
It’s a nice pub right on the waterfront, and we go upstairs in search of warmth. We find it by way of a heater trained on our table – and we also ask the waitress if we can shut the windows. Brrr….
The view is great, and the food it too – but oh wow! It is by far the most expensive lunch we’ve ever had. Even with the $50 off! Crazy! We share an appetizer sampler of chicken satay, pork belly, wings, cheddar jalapeno poppers and brie with sardines (sardines get ditched) as well as a huge fish and chips plate. Great – but filling!
Back outside, we take a few pix of the water – pretty…
..then hoof it back up to the bus stop – where there is a bus waiting. Oh crap – run! I take off, intending to hold the bus for Ed, but he’s right behind me and we make it on the thing just as it is pulling away, but there aren’t any seats downstairs, and there is NO WAY we are going upstairs. Remembering our mean bus driver, we aren’t going to stand, but I spy what I think is an open area in the back – turns out to be the exit door, but there is a little bench type thing we can crouch upon and hold onto the seats as we sway and rock and wind our way back out of Stanley Bay. Unfortunately it is a long ride to our next stop, Aberdeen, where we will do the Sampan ride, but we survive. Barely!
We crawl out of our little cramped seats and onto the pier where a lady is waiting for us for the boat ride. There are 8 of us who huddle together on this little open air sampan guiding us around the Aberdeen harbor. It’s interesting, looking at all the old boats juxtaposed against the new skyscrapers, sailign the past the jumbo floating restaurant and looking at all the other boats in the harbor.
A nice little 20 minute diversion. We all tumble off the boat to find a mass of people waiting for the bus. Huh. This isn’t looking good for getting a seat downstairs. Crud. We wait. And wait. And wait. One of the guys calls the bus operator and they say they are checking. And we wait. And wait. We talk to a couple who say they’ve been waiting over an hour. Huh. 4 people break away and grab a cab back to the ship (oh that will cost a pretty penny!), then the couple we talk to says lets get a cab back to the bus terminal. Ok – we’ll share – we want out of the cold – oh and now the rain that is sprinkling down. But we can’t find a cab to take us, so we resign ourselves to wait. The couple ends up finding a cab and shares with someone else. I wait until we’ve been standing there an hour and I call the bus company – roaming charges be damned! The operator is lovely, but she can’t understand what is going on, and she doesn’t see any buses near us. Um, yeah. That is sort of the problem. Then she says it’s a big traffic jam, then she says she’s texting the dispatcher, then she says there should be a bus coming – and voila – after 90 minutes for us – the bus arrives. And it is packed to the gills. No chance of a “no standing” rule on this thing. No way. We stand downstairs and sway our way through 20 minutes of driving back to the main bus terminal.
That stunk! It totally ruined our plans to do all 3 tour lines – now we can only do the Peak Tram because we need to get the last shuttle to the ship by 5:30. Poop. We stay on our green bus – this time with seats – and they drop us off at the tram station – which is a zoo review. It is totally packed a mass of people! But we get our tickets, and I know that they had put the bus people in a special line before, so we just walked up through the pre-purchase line and scooched our way as far forward as we could. Took 2 trams before we got on – and even then with a fight since these people just go – they don’t care about queues or politeness or common decency – they want on – they push and go. But don’t you do it – because they give you dirty looks! Too bad people – we are on this tram! Ugly.
But we make it – and we make it up to the top viewing deck where I really want to take a replacement pictures with Sunny. We have a great picture of Pietro up here – but it wasn’t 40 degrees with a wind chill factor of something like 20! Brutally cold and windy. We take the free audio guide, but I don’t even turn it on. No way I’m staying up here – it is too darn cold. A bunch of quick pictures and we’re gone!
We retrace out steps, down the 20 different escalators, through the endless shopping opportunities, into the handicapped bathroom (because I’m not standing in a line 10 deep for one regular bathroom and there is no handicapped person in sight) and finally back out into the elements to stand in line for the tram down the hill. This time we know the drill of boarding the tram and position ourselves strategically to get the best seats – meaning the ones closest to the door to get out!
We man-handle our way on the red bus (continuing bad people day), manage to score seats, and ride back to the bus terminal to catch the shuttle. There, we talk to a couple who’ve been waiting for a while. They did the Hong Kong city and Kowloon route and went to the museum and thought it was great. They are coming back tomorrow to finish the rest of the route. As we talk, more ship folks arrive, and true to form they ignore that we are in line and start moving closer to where they think we will board a bus. I’ve got my eye out, and follow the bus coordinator guy as he “confirms” this is our bus. Thus – we are first on – not playing this game anymore – I’m frozen, we want to get back to the ship, warm up and hit the lounge to relax before dinner. And we know how these people are when they get off the bus – we need to be out in front!
We are successful and end up spending a lovely WARM evening aboard the ship watching the night scene from the upper decks, the Cosmos lounge, and later, our balcony.
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