(Excuse the rhyme?)
Jonathan still reminds me how wide open my mouth was that night we drove from the airport to our hotel in Hong Kong. The silhuette made of blinking lights, the high buildings that seem to never stop, the silent lake to frame it all... I don't think I've ever seen such amazing sight.
... and of course this is the best picture we could get from the cab...
We had planned four nights there, which resulated in three days, whereof two of them weren't really Hong Kong as much as it was... Disneyland. That was our first mistake.
1. WAY TOO SHORT VISIT (!!)
Hong Kong has a lot to offer. If you don't count shopping - which takes about a day if you want to scratch the surface of it, as you kinda have to have time to stroll around, especially in the higher areas with a lot of bars and restuarants and stores - there is the whole harbour area too beautiful not to take a closer look at.
And Victoria Peak? Did not even knew about. We are great fans of walking to get to know a city, and I could have easily walked around all day, for days, just taking pictures and enjoying the specacular view.
2. WE TOOK TAXI
I'm still having trouble letting Jonathan forget how he insisted on taking a cab even though I - after a few drinks, I admit - was quite convinced public transport would be quicker - and cheaper.
Hong Kong has great public transport. There are buses to and from the inner city, to the piers, up in the buisness district going freqently. Even though the city in general is in the same price class as Gothenburg (= expensiveexpensiveeverythingisexpensive), the public transport were not. A tourist day pass for unlimited traveling is 55 HKD, which is about $7.
Like for instance, this was a great way to get to Disneyland...
This particular night I mentioned before, I think we waited twenty minutes in the inner city to get a car to take us back to our hotel. And it wasn't like it was hard to find cabs, only cabs that were willing to drive you....
3. WE DIDN'T TAKE ENOUGH PICTURES
Even though we had this short amount of time, we could still have taken a lot more pictures. I'm still sad we didn't because for me, Hong Kong, as I experienced it, is a dream. It's so far from Gothenburg a place that felt that much like home can be. I should have documented everything, should have tried to capture the city's atmosphere.
I blame the time shortage. Which I again blame on my self.
And the few pics we took was sometimes this blurry
4. WE, I, DID NOT CHECK THE CAB BEFORE GETTING OUT OF IT
That is advice for life in general.
Since Jonathan did it in Barcelona, and thought he did it in Birmingham, we should be used to it by now, but it still stings to say
R.I.P phone and all the pix from Thailand and Singapore...
5. WE DIDN'T CHECK OUT ANY SIGHTS
We did not even check them up. Never in our wildest imagination had we guessed we would like a city so much, we would have wanted to see EVERYTHING in it. Or you know, anything other than Disneyland...
Even now, almost a year later when I write this list, I havn't made myself check up what we could have done with more time. It just makes my heart ache.
6. WE WERE TIME OPTIMISTS...
So at the end of our visit, we've learned to take the tram. What we were YET to be educated in was the accient art of reading a time table...
We went up the day for our flight home, HAD NOT YET PACKED, because, you know, how long time do you need? We only had seven weeks of traveling to take with us...
That resulted in us leaving for the airport a tad later than we thought we would, but we were still confident. The train would only take like, what, 15 minutes?
Right. Plus about an hour.
And the tickets were really pricey. We had planned to save some of the Hong Kong dollars for home as they were really really beautiful - we could just forget that. It was a small miracle we even had enough for the tickets.
As the train drove on and on and on without ever stopping, Jonathan started to realize we were short of time. VERY short of time. Finally at the airport, we powerwalked to our check-in desk and we were asked to hurry - the boarding was almost at its end. We could still make it, we were positive - until we saw the line for ID-control. My heart stoped. The line was long when we started to que for security; it was infinite when we were through. With 7 minutes left until the plane would depart, I did the only thing I could do. I tried and trusted in the goodness of mankind.
"Excuse me" I asked the couple before us, explaining the hyperspeed version on why we really really could use skipping the line. The couple stepped aside.
"But you will never make it in time. There's too many before us."
I sighed, knowing they were probably right, but kept on doing the procedure for the next person, and the next person, and the next... before we had gotten through the middle of the line, the whole que had moved to the left, everybody making gestures with their hands that we should go on before them.
If I ever doubted before, that moment was the moment I truly started to belive in humans as good.
That moment passed quick enough and we had our last obsticle left. The gate was threehundred THOUSAND KILOMETERS AWAY, it seemed.
Runner as he is, Jonathan started to pick up the pace.
"I'll stall them!" Jonathan yelled to me as he took my bag as well and started running.
I started to run too, even though my highest speed is other people's walking-pace, and arrived at our gate what could have been half a minute later, seing Jonathan in the end of the boarding line,
knowing we had made it.
This is one of our biggest traveling fail and win simultainiously, we said to ourselves as we caught our breath safe in our seats.
This felt like it could have been a good practice in solving unexpected problems while traveling, but on the other hand we were more than happy we've made it.
470$ is not something you want to pay for a plane ticket if you're not planning on using it....
Hong Kong, we are soo sorry for the way we mistreated you. We still love you, and promise to make it up to you some day, when our wallets are thicker and our heads older and wiser and our plans more organized.
Have you been to Hong Kong?
Did we miss anything else?
Tell us in the comments!
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