Hong Kong

Saturday, June 26, 2010—Beijing to Hong Kong   I left the hotel at 9:00 and took the metro and the light rail to the airport.  It is a convenient, fast way to get there at a very reasonable price.  It took one hour.  Then it took only 30 minutes to check in, go through immigration and security, and get to the gate.  That was the only part of the day that went smoothly, though.   I had some leftover Chinese currency.  Since it is no good outside of China and cannot be converted outside the country, I paid to just accept the high price of getting rid of it.  There was a $7 transaction fee plus a bad exchange rate.  I converted it to Hong Kong dollars which may be enough to last me through my whole visit there.   In advance of my trips, I make currency exchange charts that will let me glance to see the equivalent value in dollars when I am spending money in another country.  I just keep one of these charts paper-clipped to my money.  While waiting at my gate, I put away my Beijing travel guide information and pulled out my Hong Kong travel guide.  Only then did I realize that I had failed to make a currency guide for the Hong Kong dollar.  I had the Hong Kong chapter inside a freezer baggie with all the sections for China.  And when I made my currency guides, I had made them to fit each country (as designated by a baggie with its name on the outside).  I just didn't think at the time about Hong Kong having its own currency.  Anyway, I used my waiting time to figure and convert the China guide to one for Hong Kong.  It worked well, since there isn't a big difference in the value of each currency in relation to the U.S. dollar.   Thirty minutes before my flight as I sat at the gate with a small group of other people wondering if we were traveling on a small plane, they announced a gate change.  We had to rush through the terminal where we found a wide-body jet already full of people.  Apparently they changed the gate after we checked in and no one thought about us until they realized they were missing about 25 people.    The airport was so busy that it took us almost an hour in line on the plane before we were able to take off.  The flight is only a 3-hour flight, so that added 1/3 more time to our trip.  Then when we got to Hong Kong, we had to circle before we were allowed to land.    As I had expected it was raining in Hong Kong.  I had researched ways for getting from the airport to town.  Everyone recommends a train, then a transfer to the metro system.  But there is a special bus which goes by many hotels and stops just 1 block from mine.  I decided to take it thinking it would be less hassle with the luggage due to not having to make the transfer to another mode of transport along the way.  Well, we got caught in a massive traffic jam in the center of Hong Kong.  It took us 1 hour to go just 4 blocks!  When I arrived at the hotel, I had been traveling for 2 hours on that bus!!  Normally, a trip would take about 45 minutes, but someone at the hotel told me that anytime it rains there a major traffic jams like that; otherwise, it would have been fine.   Putting everything together, I spent 11 hours today getting from my hotel in Beijing to my hotel in Hong Kong.  Such a long time to travel such a short distance!!  How I would hate to fly on a plane often.  And what a good advertisement it is for high-speed rail service.   The Empire Hotel Hong Kong Causeway Bay is a very nice hotel.  It is modern and stylish.  And the bed is soft!  In China, all beds are hard.  There, it is like sleeping on a piece of plywood that has only a quilt on top to provide softness.  Here, the mattress is thick and luxurious.    This is the first time I have been in Hong Kong for 35 years!  I am hoping the weather will cooperate some so I can see the changes.  The sun will be out Tuesday.  If I am lucky, Monday will also be a decent day.  But it is raining today and looks like it will be raining tomorrow, too.   Spending Update:  During 52 days in China, I have spent $1472.84 for an average of $28.32 per day.   Sunday, June 27, 2010—Hong Kong   The rain is still falling today, so I will stay in the area of the hotel and explore rather than go further out.  I hope it doesn't spoil all my days here.   The desk in the hotel has a plug for a broadband connection, but there is no wire.  And I do not have a wire myself.  Therefore, I went downstairs to ask if they had one I could borrow.  They actually had one they give as a gift to guests—a portable one that coils into a small plastic case.  And along with it came a small multi-card reader with USB hub for downloading photos from camera cards.  What a nice gift!   But then I came upstairs and tried to get on the Internet.  It is not free here!  In fact, they charge over $5 US per hour to be on the Internet.  That's a ridiculous price considering how little broadband coverage costs these days.  It just confirmed something I have always observed—the more expensive and fancy a hotel is, the more they tend to charge for every extra service.  It's strange how a $35 a night motel will let you make free local phone calls and have free wi-fi, and a $300 a night hotel will charge you for them!   I pulled out my guidebook and started reading.  Also as I have observed before, it said that Hong Kong, being a prosperous city where everyone has their own computer and broadband connection at home, has few cyber cafes.  However, it did list several places that have free wi-fi including the library which is just a few blocks from here.  Tomorrow, I will go to the library and use their free wi-fi service rather than pay the high prices here at the hotel.   My neighborhood is an interesting one with narrow streets and small blocks that are lined with small shops and restaurants.  There is also a nice market.  I passed a bakery with nice looking pastries and bought myself two for breakfast—one with pressed ham and an egg cooked inside it and another that had coconut and pineapple inside and a crumbly sugar mixture on the surface.  Both were good and in a dough that was a bit sweet.   It rained more in the afternoon, so I took a nap, read from my current book, watched TV, etc.  Then I went back out at 17:00 to explore some more.  There are many meet markets nearby with cooked meat—pork, duck, chicken, etc.  I bought some pork and a box of rice to go with it and brought it back to the room for dinner.  Then I stayed inside doing more of what I had done in the afternoon.  By 22:00 I was tired and went to sleep.