Hong Kong, Macau, Philippines - Sept 2005 (finally review!!)
I am a tad late with this, but i try to remember what i did!
Well the flight took 12 hours from Zürich to Hong Kong. Flight was ok, got a pretty good place. On the A340 plane everyone has their own entertainment system, but unfortunately this time there were not so many good films, and the ones that were decent (like kung fu hustle) I had already seen in Zürich... So i tried to sleep, but i never have much luck with that on planes. Anyway I arrived in Hong Kong on the Friday evening. I got a bus from direct outside the airport to Euans place which took about 80 minutes. He met me there and went to his flat. For anyone who does not know Hong kong, everyone lives in huge concrete jungle tower blocks, and Euans place was no different. But inside was nice enough. So i dumped my stuff and had a tea, then we went out and had some indian food and a few beers. So Saturday was my first full day there. We went around kowloon bay, took some photos and had a general look around. But we quickly felt the need for a refreshment so proceeded to a small bar near central and had a couple of cold ales. Then we went to another restaurant in wang chai, had some food and more beers, and were joined from one of Euan's colleagues from his office in Shenzen (just over the border in China). After even more drinks we met some more people and then went to one of those bars frequented by a lot of filipinas. I think i dont need to say any more about that!! Sunday was a bit of a wash out after getting home late in the morning, spent the time drinking tea and playing Euan's new PSP (what a nice little machine!).
The rest of the 1st week was a bit of a blur. Euan has to work most of the time in the shenzen office, so at night when he arrived home we just got some food in and relaxed. During the day i occupied myself with some sightseeing and shopping. I went to the "peak" of hong kong. A funiculor railway runs from central up the the top past some of the amazing skyscrapers. It is a truly spectacular view from the top! Otherwise i bought some nice clothes in granville road in kowloon, visitied a couple of very nice museams (history and science), took a few ferry rides and generally arsed around and was quite lazy.
I had already arranged a side trip to philippines and Friday morning was the time to leave! So i flew with Philippine airlines from HK to Manila, got car service to hotel (5 star intercontinental in manila business district!!). In The evening i met a very good friend of mine who i have known for several years. We just had some dinner on Friday and lots of tea! On Saturday we had a look round some nice sights of manila, including some old fortress and army barracks dating back to the time when Philippines was occupied by the spanish. We also gatecrashed a nice church and seen two weddings! Quite spectaculur!! But Sunday was the best day. We got a ride to a place called tagatay. We took a boat across to the island and then a horse trek to the top of the ridge of an active volcano!! A very nice day and a great experience! Monday mornign was a bit of shopping and sending a few postcards, before i went to the airport and got the plane back to HK.
The 2nd week in HK was quite non distinct. Basically more of the same - sight seeing, shopping, laziness!! So not much to say really (apart from the fact that HK is a crazy place!!). Saturday was my last full day, and we took the opportunity to visit Macau (a set of 3 islands about 1 hour from HK by boat). There are many different ferry companies, but i bought tickets for one that operated a catamran service. It was really cool and a bit bouncy. Unfortunately Euan was feeling quite sick with all the movement :-D Anyway we arrived in Macau and had a good look around. It is a very interesting place, because till now it is run by portugal! Interesting portugese and european architecture. We visited some sights then we were hungry. Euan had a hot tip from someone in work about a good restaurant, so we hunted the place down. It turned out to be a little place, but it seemed like we were transported back to Lisbon!! We both had a very very nice meal in nice surroundings! Afterwards we thought we would try out one of the many casinos (Gambling is banned in hong kong, so everyone comes here to spend their money. - there is nothing more that the chinese like to do than gamble!). So we went to the hotel Lisbon, which is a totally crazy place. 5 or 6 floors full of everything casino like and throbbing with people. All i spent was a few dollars in a fruit machine. The rest was far too intimidating, but certainly very interesting to observe! Afterwards we tried for ages to find a drinking den - with very little success!! Finally 2 hours before the return boat journey we went into a quite posh hotel and found a cavern bar and managed to get a couple of pints while watching the live english premiership on the tv!!! So we made a quick getaway and returned to catch the boat back.. Little did we know that the weather was "typhoon level 3", which didnt mean much to us, apart from the fact that it was rather choppy and the catamaran was jumping out of the water a lot!! A lot of fun, but euan did not see the fun side and spent the whole journey in the toilet!!
My flight back to Zürich was Sunday evening, so in the afternoon we visited a mega shopping mall at sha-tin. Euan desperately needed some navy slacks for work, so we went to the marks and spencers there and he got everything he needed!!! But also they have a small food department so we loaded up with a huge bag full of biscuits, chocolate and toffee :-) We also went to the ikea there and got a lot of stuff for his flat! We took all the bags home, had a spot of food then i left to the airport..... Journey home was uneventful. Popped a sleeping pill and think i managed to catch a few zeds!! I got home at 6.30 on Monday morning. Took my stuff home, then went to work around 10AM !!
All in all a really nice holiday. I hope to go back to Hong kong in March for the rugby sevens!!!
Well the flight took 12 hours from Zürich to Hong Kong. Flight was ok, got a pretty good place. On the A340 plane everyone has their own entertainment system, but unfortunately this time there were not so many good films, and the ones that were decent (like kung fu hustle) I had already seen in Zürich... So i tried to sleep, but i never have much luck with that on planes. Anyway I arrived in Hong Kong on the Friday evening. I got a bus from direct outside the airport to Euans place which took about 80 minutes. He met me there and went to his flat. For anyone who does not know Hong kong, everyone lives in huge concrete jungle tower blocks, and Euans place was no different. But inside was nice enough. So i dumped my stuff and had a tea, then we went out and had some indian food and a few beers. So Saturday was my first full day there. We went around kowloon bay, took some photos and had a general look around. But we quickly felt the need for a refreshment so proceeded to a small bar near central and had a couple of cold ales. Then we went to another restaurant in wang chai, had some food and more beers, and were joined from one of Euan's colleagues from his office in Shenzen (just over the border in China). After even more drinks we met some more people and then went to one of those bars frequented by a lot of filipinas. I think i dont need to say any more about that!! Sunday was a bit of a wash out after getting home late in the morning, spent the time drinking tea and playing Euan's new PSP (what a nice little machine!).
The rest of the 1st week was a bit of a blur. Euan has to work most of the time in the shenzen office, so at night when he arrived home we just got some food in and relaxed. During the day i occupied myself with some sightseeing and shopping. I went to the "peak" of hong kong. A funiculor railway runs from central up the the top past some of the amazing skyscrapers. It is a truly spectacular view from the top! Otherwise i bought some nice clothes in granville road in kowloon, visitied a couple of very nice museams (history and science), took a few ferry rides and generally arsed around and was quite lazy.
I had already arranged a side trip to philippines and Friday morning was the time to leave! So i flew with Philippine airlines from HK to Manila, got car service to hotel (5 star intercontinental in manila business district!!). In The evening i met a very good friend of mine who i have known for several years. We just had some dinner on Friday and lots of tea! On Saturday we had a look round some nice sights of manila, including some old fortress and army barracks dating back to the time when Philippines was occupied by the spanish. We also gatecrashed a nice church and seen two weddings! Quite spectaculur!! But Sunday was the best day. We got a ride to a place called tagatay. We took a boat across to the island and then a horse trek to the top of the ridge of an active volcano!! A very nice day and a great experience! Monday mornign was a bit of shopping and sending a few postcards, before i went to the airport and got the plane back to HK.
The 2nd week in HK was quite non distinct. Basically more of the same - sight seeing, shopping, laziness!! So not much to say really (apart from the fact that HK is a crazy place!!). Saturday was my last full day, and we took the opportunity to visit Macau (a set of 3 islands about 1 hour from HK by boat). There are many different ferry companies, but i bought tickets for one that operated a catamran service. It was really cool and a bit bouncy. Unfortunately Euan was feeling quite sick with all the movement :-D Anyway we arrived in Macau and had a good look around. It is a very interesting place, because till now it is run by portugal! Interesting portugese and european architecture. We visited some sights then we were hungry. Euan had a hot tip from someone in work about a good restaurant, so we hunted the place down. It turned out to be a little place, but it seemed like we were transported back to Lisbon!! We both had a very very nice meal in nice surroundings! Afterwards we thought we would try out one of the many casinos (Gambling is banned in hong kong, so everyone comes here to spend their money. - there is nothing more that the chinese like to do than gamble!). So we went to the hotel Lisbon, which is a totally crazy place. 5 or 6 floors full of everything casino like and throbbing with people. All i spent was a few dollars in a fruit machine. The rest was far too intimidating, but certainly very interesting to observe! Afterwards we tried for ages to find a drinking den - with very little success!! Finally 2 hours before the return boat journey we went into a quite posh hotel and found a cavern bar and managed to get a couple of pints while watching the live english premiership on the tv!!! So we made a quick getaway and returned to catch the boat back.. Little did we know that the weather was "typhoon level 3", which didnt mean much to us, apart from the fact that it was rather choppy and the catamaran was jumping out of the water a lot!! A lot of fun, but euan did not see the fun side and spent the whole journey in the toilet!!
My flight back to Zürich was Sunday evening, so in the afternoon we visited a mega shopping mall at sha-tin. Euan desperately needed some navy slacks for work, so we went to the marks and spencers there and he got everything he needed!!! But also they have a small food department so we loaded up with a huge bag full of biscuits, chocolate and toffee :-) We also went to the ikea there and got a lot of stuff for his flat! We took all the bags home, had a spot of food then i left to the airport..... Journey home was uneventful. Popped a sleeping pill and think i managed to catch a few zeds!! I got home at 6.30 on Monday morning. Took my stuff home, then went to work around 10AM !!
All in all a really nice holiday. I hope to go back to Hong kong in March for the rugby sevens!!!