Hello, AGAIN! (This is becoming a bit of a habitual opening - I must think of something more inventive!)
Prepare yourself, sit down, take a deep breath, maybe make yourself a cuppa, this post is a long'un!
I'm still on the plane to Jakarta at the time of typing, so this is working out to be the perfect time to catch up on my blogging! I was so busy cramming in everything I wanted to do in Hong Kong but I'll hopefully have more time to update ze blog whilst in Indonesia!
On the subject of Indonesia, the air hostess has just brought me a cup of tea and when I asked for milk she gave me a huge cup - who needs that much milk?! I'm probably finding this way funnier than the average sane human being...
Anyhoo, back to the good stuff...(at least I hope it's the good stuff?!)
Jack and Venetia woke up with some wonderful hangovers on Saturday morning, whilst I, now branded Danii the Duracell bunny because of my excessive energy levels, enjoyed chatting to them about the antics from the night before.
Once everyone was feeling a bit more human, we headed to Hong Kong Country Club to have Dim Sum in the Island Room, darlingggg. This is so not backpacking, I confess! It was however, super tasty! Check out the fancy prawn toast (excuse the poor photography here - it was purely a picture to show off the fancy prawn toast to my boyfriend - guilty!).
After Dim Sum we went to check out the view from the Country Club's lawns - not bad!!
We then headed off to the ferry port to meet the rest of our twelve strong group and cross the sea to Lamma Island for a beautifully picturesque (and sweaty!!) hike over the hills before an amazing seafood dinner by the sea!
We caught the ferry back just as the sun was going down so we had a pretty amazing view of Hong Kong over the sea!
When we'd arrived back on Hong Kong Island we headed straight for a foot massage parlour called 10 feet tall in Central. Just what I needed after that long walk!
I also experienced my first Japanese toilet whilst I was there...please tell me it's not weird I took a picture of it?! Mind = blown....
DAY 6! Sunday 13th July 2014
Clearly one day of exercise was not enough for us go-getting travellers! On Sunday we headed to Tai Wai and cycled to Tai Po which was about 25km. Pretty lovely considering how hot it was - obviously my super cycling skills allowed me to build up enough speed to experience the wind rushing through my hair...
We had lunch at a lovely Italian restaurant called Luca's before catching a bus back to Causeway Bay - transport in Hong Kong is so simple and quick by the way a can't fault it!
After we'd recovered, Jack and I headed out to Temple Street night market in search of cheap t-shirts because Jack packed like a boy and didn't bring enough clothes...obviously! ;) We stepped out of the MTR station at Jordan and must have looked like seriously lost tourists. Luckily a lovely Australian chap came over to rescue us and sent us on our way towards the market!
We successfully purchased several tonnes of touristy I heart HK t-shirts and some presents for people back home and headed back to the apartment to get a much needed good night's sleep! But not before a stereotypical MTR selfie...
Day 7! Monday 14th July 2014
We headed out early on Monday morning in the hope that we'd miss some of the long queues at Ocean Park - a theme park/aquarium/zoo - what a great combo?!
We first went into the aquarium in an attempt to avoid some of the heat from the direct sunlight and then headed in to see the pandas. I so loved them. I don't think I'd ever seen a panda in real life before. So naturally there had to be a selfie or two!
We then went up to the roller coasters at the top of the park in a cable car!
We went on the Hair Raiser, the best ride in the park and then onto the bumper cars, which was excellent fun until I realised I'd lost my watch to the grip of the floor....good one Danii!
It had obviously flown off mid ride and bonded itself to the the bronze strips that power the bumper cars and had burnt a hole through the battery. Jack literally had to prize it off of the floor...bugger.
So obviously I needed something to cheer me up. This came in the form of the penguins!! I was totally not taking pictures with the penguins whilst wearing my penguin t-shirt. I'm far cooler than that...okay no I'm not...
But Jack was impersonating the penguins so I don't know who wins the cool competition here...
We also saw this amazing leafy sea dragon before heading back to the apartment to get ready for dinner!
We went for dinner at a place called the American Peking where I had the BEST sweet and sour chicken I've ever tasted - no joke!
The we went to Holly Brown in Hysan Place for some yummy ice cream!
Day 8! Tuesday 15th July 2014
On Tuesday we got the MTR across Hong Kong to Tung Chung to do a bit of shopping at the outlet centre and catch the Ngong Ping cable car up Lantau to see the Giant Buddah statue!
I bought some lovely Kate Spade bangles at a very discounted price - so chuffed! Also quite pleased I'm looking rather tanned here...
The cable car was awesome - such a great view and good entertainment value too! We shared a car with a Philippino family who we're having great fun with their selfie stick...need I say more?!
The giant Buddha statue was very impressive, I enjoyed looking at it even though I had to pant my way up hundreds of steps to actually reach the darn statue!
Here's Jack doing his impersonation trick again...
When we'd finished admiring the Buddha we got the cable car back down to the station. This time we were accompanied by two very sweet little Chinese girls who couldn't speak a word of English but sang twinkle twinkle little star to us - so cute!
We went straight to the football club (via a street food stall in Times Square to try their finest fish balls in curry sauce (on Rachel's recommendation!)) when we got back to Causeway Bay and had a refreshing swim and a mango smoothie!
When we arrived back at the apartment we freshened up and headed out to Hong Kong Country Club for dinner with Venetia and her friend Robyn which was lovely!
Day 9! Wednesday 16th July 2014
Our last full day in Hong Kong - sad times :( Wednesday was seriously jam packed! We started with breakfast at the football club, bacon baps and banana smoothies! Then headed to Hong Kong Country Club to chill by the pool. Another day another pool eh? This is the life!
We then headed to the 1600 panda exhibition is central which was seriously cute!
Then we (Jack, Henry and I) grabbed a cab up to the top of Victoria Peak to get our compulsory "view over Hong Kong" pictures! We were not disappointed!
We did a 3k walk around the peak so we really did get the 360 degree view and Jack also enjoyed the unexpected monkey bars half way round - such a big kid!
Hundreds of pictures later, we caught the peak tram back down to Central!
We walked past all of the big banking buildings on the way to the MTR...to say I felt like an ant is an understatement!
We then headed back to Causeway Bay where I met my school friends Bella and Andrea! They are from Hong Kong and it was so lovely to see them after nearly two years apart!
So I feel that my last night in Hong Kong was definitely well spent! We had a lovely meal at the football club and a good old catch up!
DAY 10! Thursday 17th July 2014
Last few hours in Hong Kong! Not going to lie, most of that time was spent trying to fit all of my stuff back in my rucksack before the flight...oops!
Faffing with bags aside, we headed to Wan Chai to have lunch with Luca and Venetia at the Opera House, an Italian "ristorante", which definitely set us up for the flight ahead!
We then headed to the airport in true backpacker style - a backpack on the back and the front. I'll get you a picture of how ridiculous this looks in the next post I'm sure.
Don't know how I'm gonna cope with this backpacking thing though. My back already started hurting on the journey from Causeway Bay to the airport...oh dear! Starting to rethink my packing here...
We arrived at the aiport, checked in, made use of the free wifi and changed up the last of our Hong Kong dollars for IDR. It's a seriously odd currency - there's like 20,000 IDR to the pound...not sure how I'm gonna work that one out when I'm in shops! Calculator at the ready!
We joined the queue to board the plan and seriously questioned if there were gonna be enough seats on the plane...we were also the only westerners in sight...this part of the trip might be interesting...
Congratulations to you if you managed to read through all of my Hong Kong posts - you have pretty much lived vicariously through me and no longer need to visit Hong Kong...although I'd totally recommend that you do if you get the chance! It's awesome! I heart HK.
So now for
JAKARTA: first impressions
We arrived at the international airport after a pretty pleasant flight despite the turbulence caused by the oncoming typhoon!
Problem number 1: we hadn't finished our landing cards so stayed onboard to finish filling them out. Big mistake. Little did we realise that every single passenger on the plane had departed the aircraft. Oops! We walked off the plane, only to realise that we'd made a 15 strong cleaning team wait outside whilst we sorted ourselves out. GUILTY! I was so embarrassed. *Note to self: make jack better at filling out forms!*
Problem number 2: once we got into the airport we had to sort out our visas which were supposed to cost $25 USD...what stupid British tourists we are. The man said it cost $35 USD and we didn't think to correct him, bastard!! An Australian lady in the queue confirmed that we'd been ripped off - brilliant start Jakarta, such honest people. NOT!
Problem number 3: getting chatted up by the guy checking my passport and forms at the immigration desk, not ideal. All I wanted was to not be chucked out of the country, leave me alone!
The problems soon stopped, we got ourselves a posh Golden Bird taxi to the hotel we'd booked & got there fine. I'd read that the hotel was on top of a parking lot...
...What I didn't realise was that we'd have to walk through the car park & into a service elevator to get to the 8th floor, walk through that floor of the car park, thinking you're going to be killed, before finally reaching the hotel! It was all very "Judge Dread"esque.
But the hotel is actually rather nice! Brilliant for £8 a night!! The staff are so friendly, joking around but being super helpful. And there's free wifi - winning!
Our room has a magnificent view too - just check this out...
A car park corridor...interesting. We pulled back the curtains to see if we could get a look at Jakarta by night, but this is what we got! Ah well, beggars can't be choosers!
The next delight was our lonely planet guide book. Once we'd settled in to our room we decided to try to work out what we would spend our only day in Jakarta doing and came across this....
If you can't make it out clearly it basically says that you can visit this "Cannon Si Jagur, which tapers at one end into a large clenched fist, a sexual symbol in Indonesia; childless women would offer flowers and sit astride the cannon in the hope of becoming mothers".
Now I don't think it's just Jack and I that were in stitches about this being one of the top attractions in Jakarta, a mega city with over 10,000,000 inhabitants.
We'll see what all the fuss is about when we explore!
Thanks for reading, I hope I haven't waffled on too much! Until next time! :)
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