We made it to Hong Kong
Yesterday Sunday March 17, we travelled from Busuanga Philippines to Hong Kong via Manila. The picture above was taken North of the island of Busuanga Philippines shortly after leaving the Busuanga airport. It was a long day despite the flights all coordinating quite well. Our main comment is how uncomfortable the Cebu Pacific Airline seats are. There is absolutely no padding for the bum!
We arrived in Hong Kong just after 6 pm and caught a taxi to our hotel, Ramada Harbour View. We got checked in and then headed out about 8 pm to find something to eat. We ended up on High Street which is aptly named as you take escalators or stairs to get up the street. The Cali-Mex restaurant seemed like the best choice and we shared a skillet of nachos and had a beer each which was almost $50. Food is not cheap here! On the way back to the hotel we picked up a flat of strawberries, each individually set in a paper and then in a foam tray with a cut out for each strawberry! They are delicious!
Today, Monday, March 18 we had the buffet breakfast at the hotel. It was convenient and had a decent selection of food. We got organized and headed out for the day. We walked from our hotel to the Central – Mid Levels Escalators. The complete system of escalators runs for 800m and climbs a total of 135 meters with some of the ascents being very steep. The escalators are used to move thousands of people each day between their residences and workplaces. Depending on the time of day the escalators switch direction, running either uphill or downhill to move people to or from work. We finally had our fill of escalators and then had to start hiking back down. At least going down the stairs was easier than going up! We looked online for nearby restaurants and settled on The Globe. We finally located it – we’d walked by the entrance multiple times! It was actually below street level so think that’s partly why we kept missing it. We tried some IPA beer and had some hand cut fries. They had some really cool pepper and salt mills that we asked about. The guy said, yes, we sell them now as so many people were ripping them off! Then it was back to descending the stairs to Central Station where we purchased our MTR cards. The MTR here is amazing and really moves a ton of people quickly and efficiently around the city. It’s much faster than the trains we took in either Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur and much more user friendly.
We went to the Golden Computer Centre which is as it sounds a computer store but it is huge and covers multiple levels. It is a mass of small shops throughout the building with narrow aisles to work your way through. Other years we had found some great deals here but prices have increased and we can find most things cheaper online. There were a few things that were less than what we could buy them for at home but we didn’t bother purchasing anything. We took the MTR to the Tin Hau Temple on Temple Street. We wandered around for a bit and then decided we’d had enough for the day. We caught the MTR back to our hotel. One of the main MTR segments between Central and Admiralty is closed, luckily there is another train line running adjacent to this section which can be used instead. See more on the MTR closure below. We stopped on the way back at a 7-11 and picked up a couple of cold beer to have in our room. We rested our weary feet for a bit and then walked back up High Street and the Cali-Mex Restaurant. The waiter remembered we’d been there last night and even what we had ordered! He is from the Philippines and his wife is currently working in LA. He is working on immigrating and hopes to be there by December. We had a great conversation with him. After supper we headed back to the hotel and had a bunch more of the strawberries we’d bought last night! Not sure what we’ll do tomorrow!
The MTR closure of the Tsuen Wan line between Central and Admiralty occurred today Monday March 18 at 2:57 am when 2 trains that were testing the signalling system (before the MTR opened) crashed. The pictures we saw showed severe damage to the cars and both drivers were hospitalized. They are doing tests because of a malfunction in the switching system 5 months ago when the system failed during the day causing a complete shut subway down stranding passengers for 6 hours.
