Saturday, March 24, 2007

Hong Kong

To see the pics from this trip, click here.

Hey all! I just got back from Hong Kong, what an amazing place! I had to go there for a few days to take a couple of job interviews, so I killed two birds with one stone and did some sightseeing as well. Check out all of my pics and you can really see what I mean.

The flight from Japan to Hong Kong was fairly short, only about 4.5 hours. However, it was delayed getting out of Narita, so as a result I had to scramble once I got to Hong Kong airport so that I didn't miss the connecting trains to the island. Anyway, I made it to my hostel in Causeway Bay on Hong Kong island at about midnight the first night. The hostel was quite hilarious, as it was TINY! The buildings in Hong Kong are all very narrow, and are built straight up, as there is no threat of earthquakes as there is in Tokyo.

The next morning, I headed to Central Station and caught the Peak Tram up to Victoria Peak. This is the spot high in the Hong Kong hills that all the famous night shots og Hong Kong come from. Although I went up in the morning and it was quite hazy, the view was still quite amazing. I got great look down on the city of Hong Kong, and you could see scross to Kowloon. I stayed up there for a couple of hours and then headed off.


Next, I made my way to the harbour and caught the Star Ferry across to Kowloon. Once there, I did a lot of exploring and ate some great food. I tried Dim Sum, Taiwanese noodles, egg tarts, shishkabob, and numerous other great things. After some more exploring, I headed to the Ladies Market. Although the name suggests different, the market has goods for all people. It was a vey busy and crazy area. From there, it was a short trip to other makets, so the majority of that day was spent walking around and checking out the various marketplaces.

Later that evening, I headed back towards the harbour on the Kowloon side and walked doen the Avenue of Stars, which is kind of like Hollywood's Walk of Fame. I stopped to check out Japckie Chan and Bruce Lee's stars, and then went and found a good spot to watch the 8pm Symphony of Lights show. Every night at 8pm, all of the buildings on the Hong Kong side come to life with lights, lasers, and music, and there is a cool light show that you can see. It lasted for about 15 inutes, and was pretty amazing to watch (despite the painfully bad accompanying music). After the show I made my way back to Causeway Bay and crashed out.

The next morning I was up bright and early and made my way over to Wan Chai for my interviews. I had one at 9am, and another at 11am. They were pretty intensive, as each interview consisted of a 20-minute essay, a 30-minute panel interview, and then another 20 minutes of document evaluations. Each interview was done by a group of 3 people, both Chinese and foreign. It was tough to get a feeling of how I did on the interviews, but I will just have to wait and see what happens.

After the interviews, I decided to walk home to Causeway Bay from Wan Chai. The walk was not all that far, but it gave me a great chance to see a lot of local places, markets, side streets, etc. The walk took about 1 hour, and then I quickly got changed at my hostel. After that, I took a long stroll down Lockheart street, whic had dozens of Chinese, Japanese, and American restaurants (as well as the usual 5ooo Starbucks shops...). From there, I caught the Star Ferry back over to Kowloon and did more exploring. This time I walked Nathan Road and saw a lot more of the upscale shopping districts. Although the prices are obviously not as expensive as Tokyo, I was still surprised to see how high they really were.

I spent the rest of that day exploring, eating, taking pictures, and just soaking in the atmosphere. By 9pm I was pretty exhausted, as I had likely walked around 30 km in the last couple of days. Luckily for me, there was an amazing movie theatre right across from my hostel, and that was just a perfect way to relax at the end of the night.

The next morning I was up at 5am, as I had to be at the airport by 7am to board my flight back to Tokyo. Although the time was short in Hong Kong, I really did get the full experience. I will keep you updated on how the job interviews turned out, so keep you fingers crossed for me. More to come...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

you got splendid experience in Hong Kong. very beautiful night view!!! I want to visit Hong Kong sometime, too. Yuko