Trip

8/6/02 Hong Kong Island, Hong

8/6/02 Hong Kong (Phillip)

Wow, so let me tell you about yesterday. We'll skip the preceding days for now. So I arrive in Hong Kong the night before, and manage to get a hold of my aunt Sandra who's coincidently here. She's with British Airways and one of the loveliest people you'll ever meet. It's very lucky that we're here at the same time since she's only here for two days! Anyway, I negotiate the buses from the airport and while waiting for my bus to my hostel I give her hotel a call. Turns out she's not too far, and we decide that I should crash there. First of all, The Excelsior is a fabulous hotel (not just because it's filled with beautiful BA Crew...). I find the hotel and meet with my aunt. It was so lovely to see a familiar face; I haven’t seen my family since New Years! After a late dinner and a drink we wander around the shops until we realize that we're both pretty exhausted.

The following day is when it all gets strange. We get up and set off to do some typical touristy things: The Peak, Harbors and Kowloon. We had a great day with lots of laughs, but I also had to meet a family friend who was working in Hong Kong and China and leaving that evening. We arrange to meet at the Marriott. Oh my gosh! This place is out of this world. Considering that I've been staying in bed-bug-ridden holes-in-the-wall for months, I'm pretty blown away by this place. Gordon takes us up to the Executive Lounge which is filled with lots of businessmen drinking and watching the world cup. Met lots of nice business types as I hob-knobbed around :) Free food and free drinks with a phenomenal view of the bay. Totally cool. Gordon mentions that he might have a place for me to stay if I'd like one, which of course I quickly accept. As he starts filling me in about this place I'm pretty impressed. There were a couple of ground rules, but since it's an amazingly swanky apartment for me to use, how could I resist?

That's not even the end of it. Sandra and I return to her hotel after the game and go to the bar to hang out with some more gorgeous British Airways girls. Could this day get any better? :) So we hung out down there for a few hours before finally crashing to bed, exhausted.

Today we came to the apartment. It's two massive towers of luxury apartments and lots of security. Bit worrying but they let us by without any fuss. Problem is there's a wee code thing and I don't know the code! I have to time it so I follow someone in. Except tonight when I came in with some groceries I mistimed it! Luckily the guards buzzed me in without asking me any questions!

Let me tell you about this apartment though. In the city of tiny cramped spaces, this is the exception. From DVD's to Broadband Internet, this place has it all. I'm on the 45th floor and actually just looked down as a helicopter flew below my eye-line across the bay. The view is killer, you can see all the way across to Kowloon and almost entirely left and right unimpeded. Wow....

Tell you what, I'm not leading the backpacker life right now. I actually only brought a tiny backpack from Bangkok and left my big one in Left Luggage at BK airport. I have a five-hour layover there on the way back. Did I mention my flight routing, Bangkok->HK->Bangkok->HK->London. How backwards is that?

Yesterday I did get my one errand done which was to turn in my passport to get a Chinese visa. I'll get it back on Monday and will probably grab the 30 hour train (bloody expensive) to Beijing either Monday or Tuesday night. Should be there 4 or 5 days then back here. Thinking I'll pop over to Macau since I'm so close anyway. Then a long two days of traveling to get back to London. When I was booking my flights I looked up which movies I could watch on the plane. Looks like I'll be able to see the Brittany Spears movie after all! :) I mean that's not the ONLY reason I took that flight, well, perhaps it was! :)

Back to luxury....

Posted by Admin at June 8, 2002 01:58 AM