After taking a little too much time over breakfast, we finally headed to the ferry to cut across to Hong Kong island. If you aren't familiar with Hong Kong, break out the maps. Its largely composed of Kowloon Peninsula, which connects to mainland China, Hong Kong island due south, Lantau Island due west and a bunch of much smaller islands scattered around. Our hotel was on the south side of Lantau Island so the ferry was the quickest way to cross over to Central - on the north side of Hong Kong Island.
Once we got to the ferry station in Central, we realized we had no idea how to get to our hostel. It was already 11:30 and I was sure Lis would be wondering where we were. We knew the name and address of our destination, but that hadn't been a ton of help the day before. Hoping the more urban setting was more likely to yield an English speaking taxi driver, we decided a taxi was our best best for a speedy arrival. Luckily, our driver spoke (and sang!) English. Unluckily, he did not know the address. He called it in to a central operator who gave him directions. Off we went.
The driver dropped us off on the side of the street and... we had no idea where to go. We saw a sign for Fortress Hill - and our hostel name included a reference to Fortress Hill - but other than that we were lost. We figure out that we were on the correct street but we had no idea which direction to go or what side of the busy four lane street to be on. Eventually we figured out the building numbering system and made our way to the correct building. Once inside we even saw a sign with the hostel name on it. We hunted around and found an elevator, but when we took it to the floor we wanted, we saw no hostel. No sign either.
We went back down and talked with the security guy. He didn't speak English, but he was enthusiastic to help. Before he would help us, though, he pulled out a well worn notebook and flipped to a detailed, hand drawn and carefully shaded world map on a back page and indicated Europe. We said no, we were from America. He was very happy. He then flipped to the front of his book with an equally elaborate map of the first floor of the building. It turned out we needed the elevator for the front of the block, not the back. He had little feet showing the path from his elevator to the front elevator. We thanked him and made our way to the unmarked metal door that led to the front elevators.
We got to the hostel around 12:00 and... no Lis. We checked in, dropped off bags and began to loiter. As far as I knew she had crossed the border into Hong Kong around 8am - and Hong Kong is not a big place once you get inside. I was getting worried. We decided to go wait on the street in case she was having as much trouble as we had had finding the place. We waited about two minutes and here she came.
She has an equally harrowing tail of crossing the border with a sea of mainland Chinese visitors followed by many train transfers, but she tells that story better than I can.
Once reunited, we dropped off bags and went to get lunch.
Lunch!
After wandering a few blocks, we found a noodle shop that seemed busy (a good sign, right?) so we wandered in. They seated us at a big round table with a family of three and a single woman. They brought over an English menu and we looked it over. For about US$4 we could get the noodle soup with the works (around 15 ingredients - possibly more), or for about $US2.50 we could select one topping and then add additional toppings for a fee. Lis, being the clever traveler, opted for the basic soup with two toppings. Russell and I went for the full shebang. It was more food than I have eaten in a very long time. It was absolutely delicious, but my tummy hurt a good long time after. I had no interest in dinner and very little interest in breakfast the next morning.
After lunch we went back to the hostel and lounged until we felt able to waddle once more. We used the time to read through our travel guides and make some plans for things to do (we had never gotten around to research). We decided to spend the evening on the south end of Kowloon (a major shopping / tourism district) and take the Star Ferry tour around the bay after dark. We headed out around 4:00 and spent the evening doing just that. We wandered around seeing the city and browsing through outdoor markets before heading to the waterfront for our ferry ride. The ride was beautiful and the weather was perfect. Cool and breezy but not humid or chilly.
My first impression of Hong Kong? To be honest, at this point, I felt like it was pretty much just a city. I'm not into shopping and not really impressed by city night views (thought this one is impressive as night views go). The public transportation (we had figured out the Metro at this point) was absolutely awesome - even better/easier to use/faster than trains in Japan, but I wasn't overly charmed yet.
Thankfully that changed on Sunday.
Apologies for the lack of pictures. I didn't have my camera on me until Sunday. I promise there are pictures to come. The photo at the top is the view from our hostel room.
