Okay, before I forget, I’d better write a review of the Excelsior Hotel in Hong Kong where we stayed the last week and a bit.

Great location, central to all the shopping and restaurants in Causeway Bay, and just around the corner from the MTR station. It’s next to the water too, so most rooms have at least a bit of a view over the harbour towards Kowloon.

The service was excellent – I have never been to a hotel which asks so many questions or goes so far out of its way to make sure you are getting what you want. From the profile document (3 pages !) they faxed me after we booked (and rang to remind me to fill it in and send it back too), to the conastant notes under the door or left in the room to let us know about stuff happening in the hotel or to ask for our opinions on things. It almost came across as nagging – but they were discreet enough about it (despite the frequency) – so I interpreted it as a desire to serve and please.

The complementary fruit platter, fresh squeezed juice, bottle of wine and pot of chinese tea on arrival was a nice touch – although not unexpected since they had already asked my preference on the booking profile form.

However, the room was a bit of a letdown. The bed was hard. Very hard. The pillows were those feather type which fill with air and then collapse into nothing when you rest on them. It took us a couple of nights to find a combination of pillows which was actually comfortable – and that included getting some solid foam pillows as well (which was easy to do since they have a survey form which asked if we wanted some).

There was not a desk as such, only a narrow (60cm) bit of bench that you couldn’t really get your legs under properly because it was too shallow. The only lounge chair was a built-in window seat with loose arms (not fixed to anything, so they kept slipping out of place, with really hard cushions that were really not comfortable at all.

The room overall was small and pokey – functional, but cramped.

The one saving grace was the broadband internet access in the rooms (which is one of the reasons I chose this hotel in the first place). HKD$35 per hour (approx AUD$7), or HKD$135 for 24 hours is not exactly cheap, but it’s on par (or slightly cheaper) with the prices I’ve paid in Australia – and given the increase in productivity over a dialin line, I consider it worth the cost. Paying for an hour at a time when I knew I was not going to use more than 2 hours in any 24 hour period proved the best course of action rather than paying for 24 hours I didn’t use.

How do I rate it ?

Room: 5/10 – functional, clean, minimalist, but crowded and with totally inadequate desk space and horrible lounge chair.

Bed: 3/10 – waking up with a sore back or sore neck does not serve you well for the coming day. Rock hard matress and impossible to use pillows just do not work (although I suspect it would suit many asians). Considering how well some other hotels do with good beds (Grand Hyatt in Melbourne for example), I would hope the Excelsior could serve an international clientele more appropriately. I was going to give it 4/10, but Leanne said 2/10, so I’ll compromise on 3/10.

TV: 4/10 – around 60 channels, 75% of which were in Chinese, 10% dedicated to news services, 5% in French, German or other European language, and 5% dedicated to sports, meant that there wasn’t much else to watch. Star Movies, Star World, National Geographic channel, BBC World, ABC Asia Pacific (totally lame aunty !!) – and of course these channels have the annoying habit of showing the same adverts for their next big television event over and over and over again. Aarrgghh ! Fortunately we were generally too tired to sit up watching TV.

Connectivity: 8/10 – One phone by the bed with separate data connection, dialup speeds over 50kbps. Ethernet port for broadband access on desk. Only real fault is the poor desk (and free broadband would be nice too). Naturally, choosing a hotel in Hong Kong in the middle of summer based on it’s connectivity and forgetting to check whether it also had a swimming pool (which the Excelsior doesn’t) was a bit of a mistake. Still, what would you rather do after a long hot day of sightseeing – jump in the pool and become a prune, or sit in your airconditioned room with an ultra-high speed internet link ? ;-)

Breakfast: 5/10 – Nobody in Hong Kong seems to understand how to cook bacon. The hotel burned it to a crisp; Oliver’s Supers Sandwiches undercooked theirs. I seem to remember staying in the Conrad International around this time last year and they had a similar problem in undercooking their bacon. The buffet breakfast was pretty reasonable – if a little expensive. Good selection of fruits and pastries, and traditional chinese breakfast food, but the cereal selection was a bit poor. I know it’s rough to expect them to have Weetbix outside Australia – but there were no wheat based cereals that I could see anyway. Overall was good – but the fact that we only ate there once and went for the ultra-cheap Olivers the rest of the week was not purely about budget.

Room Service: 7/10 – US Double Beef Burger was nice, despite the badly burned bits of bacon. They serve Haagen Daaz Icecream (doesn’t everyone in Hong Kong serve that though ?), which is always a good thing. The steak was nothing to write home about, but the fish and chips were quite good (what’s with the horrible tartare sauce everyone insists on serving these days – has the recipe changed recently or something ?). Leanne tells me the Excelsior Fried Rice and the Tandoori Salmon are both very good, and the American Hotdog was nice too apparently, but only once she scraped off the ultra-hot mustard they put on it. Pretty good, well, good enough for those nights we really had no energy to go out for dinner. Pity they can’t seem to get the drinks right – they insist on serving lemon in everything, which ends up making things quite bitter and not at all refreshing.

Location: 9/10 – can’t really fault the location, as described above. Leanne’s comments were that she would give it a 10/10 if it were right on top of an MTR station rather than around the corner. In any other city, it might be a bit more of a hassle being a little removed from the centre of town, but it is so incredibly easy to get around in Hong Kong that this doesn’t matter at all. If I were to go back to Hong Kong and work was paying the hotel bill, I would probably stay somewhere like the Conrad in Admiralty, but given it was more than twice the price of the Excelsior, it loses out on the value for money side.

Total: 41/70 = 59%

Our last day in Hong Kong today – we’ve had a wonderful time all week.

It actually rained here last night – a big thunderstorm came through after dark. We have been very fortunate with the weather all week – bright and clear sunny days, which has made the views look great, at the price of a searing heat though. Today was overcast, a little cooler, but still just as sticky – up to 90% humidity this last week.

We slept in a little before getting up to finish our packing and heading over to our regular haunt for breakfast – Oliver’s Super Sandwiches… the girls know us well now and know what how we like our cornflakes and toast !

After finishing packing back in our room, we found the underground walkway across the road from the hotel to the famous Noonday Gun, a daily ceremony dating back to 1901. They fire a gun (originally a 6″ cannon, but more recently a 3″ cannon after complaints about the noise were received) – every day on the dot of noon. This tradition was even recorded in Noel Coward’s 1924 song “Mad Dogs and Englishmen”:

“In Hong Kong they strike a gong, and fire off a noonday gun, to reprimand each inmate, who’s in late.”

It’s a small affair, but carried out with strict discipline, and actually startingly loud when you’re standing only 5m away and expecting a bit of a pop. So after that we headed back to the hotel to check out, with ringing still in our ears.

Noonday Gun - Hong Kong

We decided to catch one of Hong Kong’s famous double decker trams all the way from Causeway Bay down to Sheung Wan – which was a great ride, although scary when you consider how high the centre of gravity on these things would be, and how tight those corners are they take at considerable speed.

Double-decker Tram - Hong Kong

Double-decker Trams - Hong Kong

We walked across to the Western Markets – which was a bit of a disappointment, just an old building with some shops inside, however they did have a shop which was completely dedicated to model buses ! If you are a model bus collector (particularly of Hong Kong buses), you really need to check this place out. There was an exhibition on showing some of the history of Hong Kong’s buses as well which was kind of cute too.

Model Bus Shop - Hong Kong

We got back on the MTR to Admiralty and walked over to Pacific Place shopping centre, where we window shopped amongst all the exclusive label shops before sharing a plate of Singapore Noodles for lunch. Back on the MTR to Causeway Bay, and wandering around some of the shopping areas.

Curved Escalators!!

Finally, we killed some time with a lovely walk through Victoria Park – a quiet oasis in the middle of all the hustle and bustle. The foot massage tracks – smooth round stones set in concrete in a 100m or so long circuit for you to carefully walk on – were popular with the locals – although I think it would take a bit of getting used to for the rest of us.

Foot Massage Track - Hong Kong

Got back to the hotel in time to catch the Airport Express Hotel bus to Hong Kong station and then onto the Airport Express to the airport. So here we are now waiting for our plane back home.

Actually it’s just been called, so I have to go now – bye for now !

You can see some photos from day 9 in my photo gallery

This morning, we caught the MTR to Tsuen Wan and walked to the Sam Tung Uk museum, a restored village over 200 years old comprising 12 houses set within defensive walls – once a prosperous Hakka farmer’s family compound – and now a folk museum. Quite an interesting view on early life in the New Territories, and how changes in the region affected the lives of these simple farmers.

We then headed back to Kowloon Tong on the MTR before jumping on the KCR (Kowloon-Canton Railway) up to Newtown Plaza at Sha Tin where we visited Snoopy World. Basically this was just a kids playground with large snoopy characters everywhere – very well done for what it was, but we were hoping for something a little more like the Snoopy shop in Singapore with a shop and restaurant – but alas it was just the play area. So we had lunch and then headed off again.

Snoopy's World - Newtown Plaza, Hong Kong

Simon gets some advice at Snoopy's World

Leanne tries to be cool at Snoopy's World - Hong Kong

This time, back on the KCR and then MRT back to Central, where we walked a few blocks until we got to the Central to Mid-Levels escalator – a rather impressive people moving device – labelled the “world’s longest covered outdoor people mover” – basically a series of escalators and travelators which in the morning moves from the Mid-Levels region down about 800m in height to the Central region where the main business district is. Then in the afternoon it reverses direction and takes people back up the hills from Central to the Mid-Levels. The terrain is quite steep here, and if you had to walk it you would probably collapse from exhaustion all that way – so it is quite ingenious to have a long series of escalators specifically for moving people up or down the hills.

Central to Mid-Levels escalator, Hong Kong

Before we got there I had been already thinking to myself about how much time we had spent on escalators already in Hong Kong with all of our travel on the MTR, and inside buildings – I think we almost spent more time on escalators than we did on open ground ! Then we got to the Central-Mid-Levels escalator and it just kind of summed up Hong Kong. It might seem like a cushy easy-ride, but given the hilly nature of Hong Kong and the fact that you are constantly moving up or down a hill, or an MTR station, or a building, then escalators are really the only efficient means of moving such large volumes of people efficiently. Having 3 or 4 escalators all moving the same direction next to each other out of an MTR station is not uncommon. That being said, my stair-climbing muscles have developed quite nicely during this trip as well !

Central to Mid-Levels escalator, Hong Kong

We worked our way to Hollywood road which is where all the antique and handicraft dealers seem to congregrate and then down to Man Mo Temple, an incense choked tribute to two local gods. Finally, we headed back down to Sheung Wan and onto the MTR back to the hotel for a sleep and a relaxing evening. We were going to head up to Victoria Peak again to take in the night time views, but it looked a little cloudy, and indeed as we were debating about how we were going to get there it started raining, and a thunderstorm started pretty much putting an end to that idea. That’s something we’ll have to do next time we’re in Hong Kong.

You can see some photos from day 8 in my photo gallery

We headed out to Lantau island yesterday (Sunday) – caught the MTR to Central, then walked down to the outlying islands ferry terminal to catch a ferry to Mui Wo. We missed one ferry by about 10 mins, and had to wait another 50 mins for the next one, but we eventually got underway on what we ended up calling the “slow boat to China” – since every other ferry heading out of Hong Kong passed us like we were standing still. Yet, it was a very pleasant trip – despite the raucous behaviour from a group of young locals sitting behind us playing cards all the way there.

Ferry to Lantau Island - Hong Kong

Once on Lantau Island, we caught a bus to the Po Lin Monastary and Tiantan Buddha Statue, a 22m tall cast-bronze statue and shrine. It sits on a hill top above the monastary, and is so large that it is clearly seen from kilometres away as the bus winds its way past the Shek Pik reservoir. Quite an impressive site really.

Tiantan Buddha Statue - Lantau Island, Hong Kong

We caught a bus back to Tung Chung near Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok Airport and jumped on the MTR back to Hong Kong station. The bus trip was an interesting one with a mostly single laned road through very steep and winding roads across the top of Lantau island – and quite a busy road with buses in both directions ferrying people between the various villages – but we got to our destination in one piece.

Tiantan Buddha Statue - Lantau Island, Hong Kong

After a rest back at the hotel, we decided to go over to Aberdeen and visit the floating restaurants for dinner. The Jumbo restaurant is a brightly lit and ornately decorated cross between Beijing’s Imperial Palace and a Las Vegas casino (as the Lonely Planet guide quite aptly puts it). Catching the ferry boat from the Aberdeen Promenade past a marina full of multi-million dollar boats, it really is an impressive site.

Floating Restaurants - Aberdeen, Hong Kong

Jumbo Restaurant - Aberdeen, Hong Kong

The interior of the restaurant was very elaborately decorated, with the main dining area on the top floor and obviously a very popular family dining place. We were warned that the food seems to be less important than the spectacle, but we were pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed the food. It was quite an enjoyable evening.

Jumbo Restaurant - Aberdeen, Hong Kong

Jumbo Restaurant - Aberdeen, Hong Kong

You can see some photos from day 7 in my photo gallery

Saturday – Leanne had decided that we were going to this place called Ocean Park which sounded like some kind of lame aquarium type thing – it didn’t even rate a mention in the Lonely Planet guide (condensed).

How wrong I was.

We caught the MTR down to Central, walked over to the Star Ferry pier and caught the special 629 bus to Aberdeen and Ocean Park.

Buildings in Hong Kong

Traffic in Hong Kong

Even from the outside it looked impressive – and clean, and well set up.

Hong Kong Ocean Park

I hadn’t really paid attention to how Leanne described it until we got there – kind of a marine park, with a bit of an amusement park as well. The first part was quite impressive, nice exhibits: Japanese goldfish, pandas, dinosaurs (models of them actually), butterfly house, a bird show, a seal show – plus lots of other activities for kids.

Talking Tree - Hong Kong Ocean Park

Japanese Goldfish - Hong Kong Ocean Park

Giant Panda - Hong Kong Ocean Park

Simon about to be eaten by a Tyrannosaurus - Hong Kong Ocean Park

Flamingos - Hong Kong Ocean Park

But it was the second part – or more importantly the cable car trip across the mountains to get there that surprised me – A long ride suspended high above the rugged terrain to the water front and the amusement park part. Here they had a Japanese garden, shark aquarium, reef aquarium, seal lion natural habitat, walk in bird aviary, ocean theatre dolphin and sea lion show, plus all the amusement rides.

Cable Car - Hong Kong Ocean Park

Leanne at Hong Kong Ocean Park

The good bits were the bird show (although the bird shows Jurong Bird Park in Singapore are better), the dolphin and sea lion show (although we couldn’t get a seat – and it was a huge auditorium – and I think the dolphin show at Sea World on the Gold Coast in Australia is better), and the coral reef aquarium – which I think we both agreed was the best aquarium display we’ve seen.

Seal and Dolphin Show - Hong Kong Ocean Park

At the coral reef aquarium you enter above the water line looking down at a circular pool some 20-30 metres across and you can see some of the fish and other sea creatures swimming around the surface. Next, you descend to just below the waterline where you can see the fish through glass windows. There are two further levels below this, and each time you walk around the pool seeing the various fish who like to be at the different levels. It’s quite huge and very well set up.

The amusement park includes a rollercoaster (two actually), ferris wheel, pirate ship and other such rides – they all seemed very popular with the younger people (we’re not really into that kind of stuff – so we didn’t try them out). All very well set up on the side of a hill overlooking the water in very nice garden like surrounds. They have some impressively long escalators on one part of the park where the hills are particularly steep and they need to move people from essentially sea level up to the hilltop several hundred metres up.

Roller coaster at Hong Kong Ocean Park

Escalators at Hong Kong Ocean Park

Good points: very well set up and very well maintained gardens and walkways, very clean and easy to get around. Attol Reef aquarium was very impressive as well, but I’d almost pay the HKD$180 just to go on the cable car ride alone !

Duck on a Frog - Hong Kong Ocean Park

Bad points: don’t go in Summer (July – August), it’s simply too hot, and being on the side of a hill you should expect a lot of steep pathways. Not as many animal exhibits as I thought there could be – and I do wish that they would give you some buttons in the panda exhibit which you could press to wake them up when you want to see them ;-)

Overall, we had a really good (although extremely tiring) day and really enjoyed wandering around both parts of Ocean Park. Well worth the trip if you are in Hong Kong with a spare day.

Macaw - Hong Kong Ocean Park

We didn’t actually do anything Saturday night after being so exhausted from the activity of the day.

You can see some photos from day 6 in my photo gallery

Started the day yesterday with a light breakfast at Olivers, and we spent most of the morning lazing around the hotel room – and I played with the camera to see what it could do.

View from our hotel room - Hong Kong

Met up with some friends of ours for lunch at a nice Thai restaurant in Central, which was very pleasant, before Leanne and I headed back to Causeway Bay and to do a bit of shopping (accessories for the camera !)

Buildings in Hong Kong

After a rest back at the hotel, we headed off after about 5pm to the Prince Edward MTR station, before walking around to the Bird Garden, Flower Markets and Goldfish Markets. The Flower Markets were very impressive – the entire length of one road with nothing but flower shops and flower stalls and a vast array of many different types of flowers.

Flower Markets - Hong Kong

Just beyond this was the Bird Garden, which was more of a bird and bird accessory market, with many stalls selling birds, bird cages, live grasshoppers, and anything else your pet bird might need. It was sad to see the conditions the birds were kept in, with some cages measuring less than one meter square in size holding dozens and dozens of birds. Parrots and Macaws chained to posts on display, and many rather sad looking birds in cages not much bigger than they were.

The Goldfish Markets weren’t any better – shop after shop down the entire length of the road with tanks teeming with fish of all different types, hundreds of them in a tank you would normally expect to find no more than a couple of dozen fish in. Plastic bags hung on poles for some, tanks filled with terrapin, tortises, even baby sting rays at one shop.

Given that most people in Hong Kong live in small apartments and can’t keep pets like dogs, it is understandable that birds and goldfish are extremely popular as pets, however I think these markets are a little too much.

Anyway, we jumped back on the MTR for a couple of stops down and walked around to the Temple Street markets where we spent quite a bit of time walking through and browsing the many stalls filled with tacky trinkets.

Hong Kong at night

Finally, we headed down to Tsim Sha Tsui, strolled along the promenade enjoying the colourful lights from Hong Kong island across the harbour, before jumping on the Star Ferry across to Central to catch the MTR back home. Quite a pleasant trip on the ferry – especially at night.

A slightly less hectic day, but still quite tiring with all the wandering around the markets and such.

Breakfast back at Oliver’s this morning – this time I ordered the basic hot breakfast (Scrambled eggs, bacon and a hashbrown) plus the light breakfast (cornflakes, fruit and toast) – much more filling. Didn’t like their scrambled eggs or bacon though … so I guess I’ll try two bowls of cornflakes tomorrow. *sigh*. If only I could get some Weet-bix !

Anyway, we headed off early in to Central and then walked up to the Peak Tramway, to catch the tram to Victoria Peak. What a tram ride – not only spectacular views, but it’s an incredibly steep track, the floor of the tram is angled so that standing passengers stay upright ! I’d like to see some stats to see if it is steeper than the “Scenic Railway” in Katoomba.

Victoria Peak Tramway - Hong Kong

*Sim’ checks with Google

Ooh – according to most of the websites out there, the Victoria Peak Tramway is only 27 degrees to the horizon – it seems so much steeper than that. The Katoomba Scenic Railway is actually 52 degrees – or 128% gradient … which is (according to the Guinness Book of Records) the steepest railway in the world (although some websites dispute this).

Anyway, it’s a must-do thing if you are in Hong Kong – as is the peak itself, with spectacular views of Hong Kong – really helps you get the city in perspective.

Hong Kong from the Victoria Peak Tramway

We explored the various shopping centres at the top (only in Hong Kong would there be shopping centres !!), and then embarked on a leisurely hour long stroll around the summit (not up it, around it) following Harlech and Lugard Roads all the way around – with some excellent views of the far side of Hong Kong island. A light lunch followed, as described in my earlier entry Blog from the peak.

Immediately after writing that entry, we stopped at Ice-Queen pancake to sample one of their interesting (and apparently Japanese-style) pancakes, which basically involves a freshly made pancake (thin – almost like a crepe), with half a chopped banana (or your fruit of choice), some icecream (I chose the Cookies and Cream), and a drizzle of chocolate sauce all arranged on one quadrant of the round pancake. At this point it kind of looked like a fajita would before you wrapped it and at it, however, they wrapped the icecream and banana up like a cone (after turning up the end to form a “stopper”), wrapped it in paper, then filled the open bit at the top with the rest of the banana, some more chocolate sauce and a good dash of whipped cream. Quite a show really. And the result ? Divine !! I love pancakes with icecream (don’t get to eat them that often), and this was simply delicious. You start by eating the top of it with the supplied spoon, then as you get lower, eating the pancake to get to the remainder of the icecream, kind of like a cross between a waffle, a fajita and a kebab (yiros) – and you can eat it while walking, since it is well contained in it’s wrapping. They do a few other variants on this theme, which I must try one day.

Hong Kong from Victoria Peak

Anyway, enough about the icecream, after a bit more wondering around the peak and a few more photo opportunities, we headed back down on the tram (going backwards this time !!), and once at the bottom, we walked up to the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens, quite a hike up the road, and quite a few steps, only to find ourselves at the very bottom of the zoo, with yet another walk to get up to where the animals are.

Overall a little disappointing – it’s really a botanical garden with a couple of animals – not really what one would normally consider a zoo. Then again, it is free, and they do actually have quite an impressive bird collection, a couple of primates and a lone Jaguar (whom we didn’t see given it was rather hot and it was obviously afternoon siesta time). It seems most people tend to come here for exercise, we saw quite a few people jogging around the park, some Tai-Chi performers, and given the steepness of the site, everyone else simply got a good cardiovascular workout by just walking around.

The gardens really are very nice, pity about the “keep off the grass” mentality though – the more carefully they tend it, the more inviting it is. Some of the nicest things are tucked away in little “grottos”, where they have quiet spots with stone benches and other little features. The benches all have a little character at either end, cats on one, rabbits on another, pandas, and even Mickey Mouse. We took some photos, and once we have them developed I will post them somewhere, since they really were quite cute. Quite an exhausting time actually with all the walking up and down steep hills, but quite pleasant.

Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens

Since we were even more completely soaked with sweat from the heat, humidity and exertion, we walked back to Central MTR and caught the train back home for a shower and a rest. We decided to head back to Pacific Place shopping centre for dinner, and for me to do some shopping. I bought my Canon S50 digital camera – under HKD$4000 as I was aiming for ! What’s more, I managed to get this price at a reputable (and “certified”) dealer, which gives me a bit more confidence that if I do ever have problems with the camera, I can bring it back in (or have someone I know in HK bring it) to the store and they will still be there. I know I could have got the camera cheaper in some of the other less expensive shopping districts, but I do prefer a bit of security with purchases of this size. Heck, at the current exchange rates, this equates to less than AUS$800, which is about two-thirds of the price I can get in Australia, and that still makes it worth while to me.

My next task is to find some memory for the camera (it only ships with 32MB), and I know I can get it cheaper at a nearby IT mall, so I’ll try and find time tomorrow to pop in and do a bit of hunting around. This means that from tomorrow I will be able to start including photos in my blog entries ! About time to get my personal photo gallery up and running at some stage too I think.

Anyway, it’s way past my bedtime, Leanne has already been asleep for a while, so I’d best leave it there.

We’re planning to meet up with my friend, Andrew, for lunch tomorrow – so I’m sure we’ll have something interesting to say about where he takes us to eat. Night all.

(PS. don’t forget that it’s 2HRs behind Sydney here in HK, so even though it looks like I’m writing this after 2am, it’s only just gone midnight here).

Yesterday we started the day at Oliver’s Super Sandwiches across the road from the hotel for breakfast. The “light breakfast”: cornflakes, fruit salad, toast, orange juice – all for HKD$25 each … a far cry from the HKD$165 for the buffet breakfast at the hotel.

Unfortunately this was not really enough to feed me for breakfast (I usually have several bowls of Weetbix), so I was a bit hungry all day – perhaps I’ll order two light breakfasts tomorrow.

We did a bit of MTR hopping yesterday and went over to Tsim Sha Tsui East and the Hong Kong Museum of History – admission is free on Wednesdays ! Unfortunately this means crowds, but since we were there fairly early in the morning (around 11am), it was not too bad. Good move we did go earlier – when we came out a couple of hours later, the Museum of Science right next door to the museum of History, had a lineup more than 100m long of people waiting to get in !

Hong Kong Harbour

The Museum of History was pretty well set up. They have obviously gone to a lot of trouble with the displays, and while some of them are a touch tacky, overall it was very impressive. The video presentations in the various theatrettes are shown in several languages at different times (including english) – with clearly marked timers showing when the next session in your language is due to start.

The Museum is divided into sections, following chronologically through the history of Hong Kong. Starting with the ancient ages of the creation of the landscape over millions of years, followed by the pre-historic times with the first primitive inhabitants of the area. Next, they spend some time looking at the influence of the Chinese dynasties on the area, through to the interaction with European traders. Quite a bit of time was spent looking at the developing cultures, the conflicts between the Chinese and the British over trade and opium, then looking at the lease of Hong Kong Island to the British, and the influence on the early development of the nation.

A section on the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during WWII was pretty horrific – the people really suffered during that brutal period in their history – and even after the surrender of the Japanese, they took quite a long time to recover and really start developing as a nation again. The section of the post-war development of Hong Kong was quite impressive – the massive influx of people from China and the struggle to find housing, reliable water, food, dealing with natural disasters and such. Finally, there was a section on the reunification of Hong Kong with China – which is still an interesting story that will take many more years to be told completely.

To become the thriving metropolis it is today in such a short space of time, the land reclamation, infrastructure development, services and culture – all lead to Hong Kong being a remarkable and thoroughly unique city.

Central Hong Kong from the Kowloon District

Probably the highlight of the museum was in the cafeteria afterwards where we decided to have lunch. The dishes came with fruit salad on the side – a nice refreshing addition I thought. Interestingly, they seem to have taken the concept of fruit salad rather literally. It was a salad with fruit in it – lettuce, cucumber, tomato, potato, apple, cherry, rockmellon, honeydew, grape, blueberry, all smothered in mayonnaise !! Either a locally discovered delicacy, or an unintentional mistranslation of the intent of fruit salad. Quite unique.

If you are new to Hong Kong and want to get to understand a little more about the culture and history of the place, then it’s well worth the trip to the Museum of History.

As I mentioned, I would have gone to the Science Museum as well while we were there, except for the huge lineup of people waiting to get in. Since it didn’t open until 1pm getting their early won’t help – I suggest you go on a day it’s not free.

We headed up to Nathan Road, had a bit of a look around, before jumping back on the MTR down to Tsim Sha Tsui for the Hong Kong Space Museum and the Hong Kong Museum of Art.

Given the long lineups for the Space Museum and the shortage of time we had, we decided not to go in. However, while standing outside trying to make up our minds, we were cornered by a group of young school children, obviously on an excursion with instructions to improve their english language and writing skills. They asked us (one at a time) for our names, where we were born, and our favourite food in Hong Kong. Given the difficulties in understanding the difference between the sound of I and A, we both had to exercise patience in spelling Leanne, Simon and Australia – fortunately they seemed to know just how to spell noodles. Good thing I didn’t pick something like “Pan fried eel with sea cucumber dressing” as my favourite dish !

After extracting ourselves from this rewarding effort (with much amused giggling from their teacher), I decided I needed a rest, so I sat and watched the world sail by on Hong Kong harbour in the airconditioned foryer of the Museum of Art while Leanne went in for a look. Following this and a wander around the foreshore to check out the old clock tower, we headed back to the MTR station back over to the island.

On our way back, we decided to get off at Wan Chai and go check out the Expo Promenade outside the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on the waterfront. Unfortunately, by this time is was well and truely peak hour and what’s more there was a book fair on at the convention/exhibition centre and so there were thousands and thousands of other people all moving that way too, making it a sluggish walk. Finally we managed to extricate ourselves from the teeming masses and make our way around to the waterfront.

The main attraction here is the Golden Bauhinia, a 6m tall gold plated sculpture of a flower donated by the Chinese on the occasion of the return of the former British colony of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China. A nice gesture I’m sure, but it looks, umm, how can I say this ? Well, it looks like most things you see which are “made in China”; cheap, tacky plastic (although it is supposedly gold plated). A bit of a disappointment really.

Golden Bauhinia - Hong Kong

We got back to the hotel for a shower and a rest, before heading downstairs to try out one of the hotel restaurants dinner buffet. Quite a nice spread, and Leanne enjoyed the seafood (although they massacred the lobster), but overall a little disappointing. I think we’ll stick to the other resturants in the Causeway Bay area for dinner in future.

A long and very tiring day, and we certainly slept well last night – which was a good thing, because today was an even more tiring day ! I’ll get to that later. I think it’s time to go out for dinner now – and I think Leanne wants to head to Admiralty. If I get a chance I’ll try writing up today’s excursion later tonight. Bye for now.

Lonely Planet’s guide to Hong Kong (condensed) makes the following comments about the “lowlights” of Hong Kong (after discussing the highlights).

Hong Kong is not the easiest place to bumble around. For a start, no one here mooches: they’re all hurrying with intent in their eyes. And it’s an elbows-out, unapologetic kind of hustle. The air is filthy: there’s nothing very charming about hacking up black gunk at the end of a day out and about. And if you want us to get even more petty and picky: the contemporary art galleries at the Hong Kong Museum of Art are a poorly curated joke; we’re sick of air-conditioners dripping on our heads as we walk down the street; and once, just once, it would be nice to get a seat on the MTR.

I’ve experienced the “hurrying with intent”, the “hustle”, the drip of the air-conditioners, and in my time here so far, I am yet to be able to find a seat on the MTR, despite travelling in off-peak times. But all this just adds to the charm of the place :D

Causeway Bay at night - Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s MTR (or Mass Transit Railway, I think) is one impressive piece of infrastructure. We are staying in Causeway Bay, and in the 3 days we have been here so far, have done a dozen or so trips between here and Wan Chai, Admiralty, Central, Tsim Sha Tsui and Jordan … and this is just the “downtown” area really. It’s quick, efficient, and easy to navigate – surprisingly so, as the stations are underground rabbit warrens – but fortunately are well signposted.

The most impressive development seems to be the “Octopus” card, a stored value card which you can charge up with money and which may then be used for MTR trips, buses, ferrys, and I’ve even seen a McDonalds store which let you pay by Octopus !

The best part is that you can get proximity based Octopus cards, you just swipe the card over a reader, and it autodetects and deducts the relevant fees from your card – we learned this by watching the locals first – always a good practice !!. This actually means you do not need to remove the card from your wallet – which is actually a major bonus, no accidently dropping the HKD$10 coins from your wallet as you open it to remove your card while 5,000 locals push and shove you in their rush to get to the train. It’s a very efficient system.

The trains are fast, frequent, airconditioned, smooth, and if you are extremely fortunate you may even get to sit down.

Hong Kong MTR

Naturally comparisons can be made between Singapore’s MRT (Mass Rapid Transit, I think it stands for), and similar systems in Bangkok and elsewhere, all of which are pretty good, I just wish that certain parties from Australia would come over to one of these countries and discover for themselves just how good a transit system could be – dare I say it, a pleasure to use ! *sigh*, I guess we’re stuck with our beloved Millenium trains in Sydney (although we all want to know in which Millenium will we get to actually use them ?) I can’t believe that the politicians in Australia could be so short sighted about our infrastructure.