Day 2 Hong Kong
Nov. 17th, 2013 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanithryudoStarted the trip on Friday morning. Got to the BART station and realized I forgot my passport (I know, shp). Dad had a doctor's appointment after dropping us off at the station, so no help could be expected there (both he and mom are horrible about having their cellphones with them and turned on. Thus, I had to spend $15 for a taxi to pop back home. Bleh. Silver lining - at least I didn't find out about it after we arrived at the airport; that would've probably caused a missed flight.
Long boring flight; the most surprising thing was that they gave us ice cream for one of the snack breaks, which was cool. This was an older model plane, so no personal TV screen. I didn't bother and just read on my nook. Finished Blindsight and a few other short stories I'd downloaded before the trip.
Got to HK at night. When we arrived at the hotel, it turned out there was an issue where the tour group had not cleared out when they should have, leaving no rooms in that building. We got shuffled off to the last remaining room in another building off in some dark iffy-looking alley. The room was a dinky thing that was maybe the size of the walk in closet in my parents' bedroom, with only 1 bed. Ugh. Not much we could do but make do.
At least to make up for it, this morning, they moved us to a much nicer 3 person (2 bed) room in the main building. No extra charge, which is better.
The downside of having gotten up so early this morning (whether due to jetlag or due to the accommodations), though, seems to be the problem that Hong Kong is not a morning place. Almost *nothing* was open before like 10/11 AM - museums, restaurants (I saw no breakfast places anywhere, seriously WTH), special bus routes to tour areas, etc. So we took a slow walk to the Star Ferry pier near the Cultural Center, then another meandering walk from Pier 7 to the Peak Tram.
We took some pics of some skyscrapers and interesting looking buildings, as well as several gardens/parks. And I noticed something else - everything is really really small here. Their parks for the most part are smaller than my high school PE grounds. The tram only had one car and one track. Even the sky terrace building seems smaller than the 101 building in Taiwan. We ended up leaving a lot earlier instead of waiting for the night view simply cuz there was nothing there to do for who knows how many hours.
So here we are taking a rest back at the hotel, in the nice new room. We'll probably hit the shopping districts tonight and if those turn out to be better than the tourist spots. I want to buy some lighter clothing, cuz I brought clothes expecting cold weather (for Nanjing) but HK is like 10 degrees hotter than back home in CA so I've been sweltering. Bleh.
Tomorrow we will know better and stay in until like 10. :p
EDIT: This evening we had a simple dinner and then took a brief stroll through Temple St. It was... typical of Chinese street markets, I thought. I didn't end up buying anything except another USB adapter for my Zen Mosaic, which for some reason refused to charge.
(Thought, turns out the new adapter didn't make any difference. When I connect it to my laptop, the charge light/icon don't come up on the Zen (actually it flashes once and then goes dark again), and my computer does not detect a new device. I tested the adapters on my camera as well since they use the same type of port, and I'm not able to pick up the camera either. I am able to pick up my nook and smart phone which uses a different time of adapter tough, which makes it seem unlikely to be a problem with the computer. I can't tell if there is some issue with both adapters, or with my zen and camera... Ugh.)
At 8 PM we went by the shore again to watch the symphony of lights show. It was pretty nice. I'll bring the camera and record some of it tomorrow.
Long boring flight; the most surprising thing was that they gave us ice cream for one of the snack breaks, which was cool. This was an older model plane, so no personal TV screen. I didn't bother and just read on my nook. Finished Blindsight and a few other short stories I'd downloaded before the trip.
Got to HK at night. When we arrived at the hotel, it turned out there was an issue where the tour group had not cleared out when they should have, leaving no rooms in that building. We got shuffled off to the last remaining room in another building off in some dark iffy-looking alley. The room was a dinky thing that was maybe the size of the walk in closet in my parents' bedroom, with only 1 bed. Ugh. Not much we could do but make do.
At least to make up for it, this morning, they moved us to a much nicer 3 person (2 bed) room in the main building. No extra charge, which is better.
The downside of having gotten up so early this morning (whether due to jetlag or due to the accommodations), though, seems to be the problem that Hong Kong is not a morning place. Almost *nothing* was open before like 10/11 AM - museums, restaurants (I saw no breakfast places anywhere, seriously WTH), special bus routes to tour areas, etc. So we took a slow walk to the Star Ferry pier near the Cultural Center, then another meandering walk from Pier 7 to the Peak Tram.
We took some pics of some skyscrapers and interesting looking buildings, as well as several gardens/parks. And I noticed something else - everything is really really small here. Their parks for the most part are smaller than my high school PE grounds. The tram only had one car and one track. Even the sky terrace building seems smaller than the 101 building in Taiwan. We ended up leaving a lot earlier instead of waiting for the night view simply cuz there was nothing there to do for who knows how many hours.
So here we are taking a rest back at the hotel, in the nice new room. We'll probably hit the shopping districts tonight and if those turn out to be better than the tourist spots. I want to buy some lighter clothing, cuz I brought clothes expecting cold weather (for Nanjing) but HK is like 10 degrees hotter than back home in CA so I've been sweltering. Bleh.
Tomorrow we will know better and stay in until like 10. :p
EDIT: This evening we had a simple dinner and then took a brief stroll through Temple St. It was... typical of Chinese street markets, I thought. I didn't end up buying anything except another USB adapter for my Zen Mosaic, which for some reason refused to charge.
(Thought, turns out the new adapter didn't make any difference. When I connect it to my laptop, the charge light/icon don't come up on the Zen (actually it flashes once and then goes dark again), and my computer does not detect a new device. I tested the adapters on my camera as well since they use the same type of port, and I'm not able to pick up the camera either. I am able to pick up my nook and smart phone which uses a different time of adapter tough, which makes it seem unlikely to be a problem with the computer. I can't tell if there is some issue with both adapters, or with my zen and camera... Ugh.)
At 8 PM we went by the shore again to watch the symphony of lights show. It was pretty nice. I'll bring the camera and record some of it tomorrow.
