We have just got back from a spectacular four days in Hong Kong – all part of my extended birthday celebrations and we are now ready to drop. I can barely speak after a full on four days and nights with two girlfriends where we have been living like a local in Hong Kong. We literally didn’t stop until we got back on that plane. It’s been amazing to be back again after all these years and whilst I was concerned about the protests and whether it was appropriate to go, I’m very pleased we did – we even spent quite a lot of time talking to “the children of the revolution”, but I’ll do a separate post about that. For now….
Day One
Touched down after a 13 hour direct flight around 5pm. The airport is staggeringly large compared to the last one and very easy to negotiate. We were picked up by a driver, but I would recommend using the Airport Express MTR which is unbelievably easy and gets you in to the central area within half an hour. Driving anywhere seems to take ages at the moment – with very bad traffic causing delays all round which is mainly owing to “Occupy”, as the locals seem to refer to it.
We would never have found the flat – having decided to save money by renting an apartment, instead of going for a hotel it was slightly off the beaten track. On arrival, I have to say, we were fairly dubious about whether this was the right choice – having only seen photos of the inside of the flat we hadn’t taken the external conditions into consideration – just the location – but what a location it was…
The flat was on the third floor of a rather grotty block of flats – lots of residents who were all very friendly and it didn’t take us long to negotiate ourselves around.
The outside:-
However, once we had got over the initial shock, we began to appreciate the location and enjoyed living amongst the locals and feeling way more intrepid than if we had just stayed at a hotel. The flat was tiny but perfect for the three of us as we each had our own bedroom and a shared sitting room:-
Our very funky sitting room:-
Our kitchen:-
My bedroom:-
Storage space was minimal consequently – no wardrobes – I was a little worried about the overall colour of my capsule wardrobe having hung it all up:-
Our side street:-
The view from our sitting room:-
and yet across the street were some of the smartest shops in HK:-
With the first Agnes B cafe on the corner and some very smart shops – all just a very short walk away from Sogo and The Excelsior and a very popular shopping district:-
Here you can get the perspective – as both the flats and the shops are in the photo:-
Instead of taking it easy we went straight out to Central and had a cocktail at The Captain’s Bar at the Mandarin Oriental in Central – an old favourite haunt of mine:-
Followed by the roof top bar at Prince’s Building called Sevva which had amazing views all around and a brilliant space to sit outside and feel the vibrancy of Hong Kong:-
A great start!!
