Holidays are the best

So for our National Day holiday (which was 6 days long), Tom and I decided to go to Hong Kong and Shenzhen for a few days. We left our planning very last minute which meant we ended up staying in a very nice hotel in Hong Kong (but it sadly wasn't very teaching salary friendly) instead of the usual standard of hostel.

Our little holiday started with a nice scenic bus trip to Hong Kong with a chaotic detour past border control -I honestly hadn't realised we had to do that - its not quite the same as crossing the border between Scotland and England.

Since our trip was so last minute (not advised when the whole of China is on holiday at the same time) we hadn't made any plans for things to do - but we definitely managed to fill the days.

On Wednesday (day one), we arrived about 12pm and spent the afternoon exploring our surroundings. After walking around Hong Kong island a little bit we came across some marching bands who were joining in the protest that was happening in the Central part of the city. I counted nearly 200 musicians and their timing was impeccable. 

We decided to follow the protest...

The musicians (I can count, the other half are round the corner)

After that we went down to the waterside to take the obligatory photos, before taking the Star ferry across Victoria Bay -  a lovely little trip and just being in a boat made me happy. I also cleared the tourist office out of leaflets, so for any information on Hong Kong I am your girl!

Victoria Bay with one of the other Star ferrys 

The return trip as the sun was beginning to go down.

For dinner we met one of Tom's uni friends, Tanya, who afterwards showed us the Occupy Central protests

I was a bit nervous at the prospect of seeing the protests because my only sheltered experience of protests is the resulting riots that commonly ensue, which the whole world sees on the news. The Occupy Central protest was nothing like this. Everybody was very relaxed and purely sitting with their friends - simply put they were 'occupying' the space. The atmosphere was very calm but you could tell people felt quite strongly about the cause. When we walked through the crowds along the main road of Hong Kong - walking along a 4 carriage road full of people is a strange experience - we were offered yellow ribbons (yellow is the colour to show protest support), food and water. There were people with spray bottles to provide some cooling spray in the very humid air as well as people walking around with bin bags to collect all the rubbish. When people come to leave the protest site there will be no trace of them - all the rubbish is being collected and there is no damage. Protesters had set up volunteer first aid posts and lots of people were working very hard to make sure everybody was keeping healthy and we'll hydrated. The friendly, welcoming, but determined atmosphere was something I hadn't expected.

After our enlightening trip to the protests we headed for some free champagne at one of the pubs (they clearly know how to party in Hong Kong) - it was ladies night after all (and a national holiday) - before heading back to our very modern hotel ready for the next day of adventures.

Thursday started off with a trip to the History museum of Hong Kong. I liked this museum because it covered everything from the volcanic eruptions which formed Hong Kong right up to the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China by Britain - no wonder it was 4 floors. It was definitely interesting to read more about the politics surrounding 1997 given the protests that we had seen the night before. The older history was good as well because naturally some it is relevant to the traditions and customs of mainland China.

After this we visited the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery, but somehow ended up in Ikea for lunch beforehand (as you do). All the Buddhas are different, which is no mean feat given the sheer number of them - it does mean that they definitely don't resemble your stereotypical Buddha statue though. Sadly the views from the top weren't very inspiring but it was nice to see none the less. Something else to tick off on the tourist trail.

This one i've nicknamed 'sexy Buddha'

Some of the more unorthodox Buddhas - I'm not sure why they won't flip round to be the right way up but I just wanted to include them anyway.

I've decided to name him 'squat toilet face Buddha'

After our quick trek up and back down again we got straight back on the tube to central Hong Kong to take the tram up to the top of the Peak. The Peak is one of the many mountains surrounding Central Hong Kong which has an old tram up to the top - definitely a good tourist destination. We did forget that the entire world was still on holiday that day, even more so than usual due to the protesting, so the place was heaving to say the least. Sadly it wasn't a very clear day but the views were still pretty. We also got one of those audio tour things when we were up there so spent the rest of the day trading facts about Hong Kong with each other (i've completely forgotten them now). 

The Hong Kong skyline (on a foggy/smoggy/haary day - i'm not sure which it was)

Our final day was spent going to the very picturesque (and busy) Lantau island. This island is very popular with tourists due to the big Buddha on the top. It was also pretty popular with me - I really liked it. If I every find myself in Hong Kong for an extended period of time it would be great to spend a few days just walking around the island - all the hills and scenery would definitely keep you busy! To get to the Buddha on top of the hill the most popular mode of transport is by gondola - definitely something to recommend. There is a footpath that would take you to the top but it would take a long time - something we just didn't have. Once at the top we spent quite a lot of time just chilling out by the big Buddha, getting in the way of other tourist's pictures and putting the world to rights - despite there being lots of tourists it's a lovely environment. There was also some monastery buildings to wander round and a shop purely dedicated to selling chopsticks - turns out Tom and I have very different tastes in regards to our perfect chopsticks! Mine would be flowery and made of porcelain (could be hard to hold onto food) and his would be black wood with silver ends. I never knew there was so much choice.

The gondolas and Hong Kong airport in the background (i really need to see if I can sort out this picture orientation thing - they usually come out the right way).

The big Buddha up close

The big buddha from below

On our way back down we crashed into some of the other ELAs, Roberta (Bert) and Elisa who we didn't even know were in Hong Kong - so that was a nice surprise.  That made for a very happy and chatty reunion all the way back down on the gondola and back into central Hong Kong (via metro).

We finished off our day in Hong Kong by heading back to the border and negotiating border control - joys. 

I enjoyed our little tourist trip to Hong Kong - but it's very expensive on a Chinese teaching salary - from a UK point of view the cost is more or less the same as stuff at home I think. I think I got culture shock being in Hong Kong though - the difference of going from mainland China to Hong Kong messed with my head slightly I think.  Seeing all these other westerners and Chinese people speaking English pretty much flipped everything i've got used to in the last few weeks.

There were a few things we didn't get to see because of the protests. There were supposed to be fireworks on the 1st October to celebrate but they were cancelled (for obvious reasons). There was also supposed to have been a free concert on the Thursday night but that was also cancelled. One general tourist thing to forgot to go and see was the symphony of lights - it's a nightly light show on Victoria harbour - if we hadn't been in a queue to get back down we probably would have seen it from the Peak on the Thursday.

After our days in Hong Kong we decided to finish off our little trip in Shenzhen, the Chinese city which sits on the border with Hong Kong. Everyone seems to rave about Shenzhen, it was nice but I almost feel like we were in the wrong part or not doing the right things because to me it was just another city - it did have a lot of hotels and spas though!

After a slight mishap with our accommodation (the hostel didn't exist), we ended up staying in an alright hotel (which just so happened to be where the hostel was supposed to be - all very confusing).

After a lazy Saturday morning start - we needed it after our busy days, we did a little bit of exploring our surroundings. We found a lovely park in the middle of the city - definitely more natural than the one in Foshan. The culture trip continued with an afternoon in 2 museums - one was lots of modern art installations -  they had an art exhibition by artists from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and mainland China which was interesting. The second museum was a design museum on which had lots of costumes designers had made - definitely more my kind of art!

All the pretty lanterns left from national day

Boat on the top of a hotel - I really wanted to go and play pirates!

our street in Shenzhen was a looked a little bit like a Chinese Vegas!

On the final day of our holidays we treated ourselves to a Chinese massage - that woman had thumbs like rods of steel! I thought it was only going to last 45 mins, not 2 hours! I was genuinely lying there thinking 'i'm glad my 40 minute classes don't feel this long'.

G x