Saturday 23 July 2011

Hong Kong - Monday 18th July

Now time seemed to be running out very quickly, with only a couple of days left until our flight back to the UK.

After a relaxed, late start we enjoyed an extensive breakfast buffet in the hotel and worked out a plan for the day. The new Harry Potter film, Deathly Hallows part 2, had been a topic of conversation for the past few days and after a quick search on the internet we found a cinema nearby in Times Square where we could see it in 3D and in English. That was a sufficient plan to get us started and we were in our seats in less than 45 minutes. Yes, we saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 in Hong Kong. It was a great film.










The Times Square shopping mall even had an impressive lifesize mock up of Diagon Alley and Dominic couldn't turn down the chance of a picture with Dobby.

Had a late lunch in the Derby Pub near the hotel and then caught the MTR to Central. I'd suggested riding the Mid-Levels Escalator. Not exactly a single escalator more a series of escalators linked by covered walkways that climb up the steep streets of Central. A distance of over 2,500 feet rising hundreds of feet in height. Everywhere the sky is difficult to spot because of the sheer density of high-rise buildings.


Caught a taxi at the top of the escalator(s) to get to the Peak Tram station so that we could travel up to the Peak and look down on Hong Kong. We joined the long queue for a ride to the top on the historic funicular railway.



The ride was very steep in places and the buildings kept rising as we went up, but in a few minutes we had made it to the cloud shrouded Peak.




The low cloud did nothing for the view of Hong Kong and we had an ealry dinner while waiting for it to get dark and hoped that the cloud would rise.


Brass footprints at the top provided us with the information that we were 1967 km from Beijing and 9641 km from London - too far to walk either way!


Thankfully the cloud lifted just enough to be able to get fantastic views of the bright lights of Hong Kongs unique cityscape. I hope the pictures do it justice because being there and seeing it first hand was a truly wonderful experience.



Dominic looked at the length of the snaking queue to ride the tram back down the hill and suggested that a taxi would be quicker. The one we got was most definitely quicker! We flew down the steep, tight twists and turns of the hill roads and through the twisted tangle of concrete roads in downtown Hong Kong back to the hotel. Most of the ride was done using up at least 2 lanes of the road and all of it at very high speed. That was in a taxi where the driver had offered, haggled over and agreed the fare after we got in, didn't start his meter and had no ID card on display! Oh well, it was very fast, cheap and we lived to tell the tale.

Packing our bags would have seemd like ending the holiday early so we didn't, there would be plenty of time in the morning.

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