Hong Kong - Day 1

It's always an interesting day, the first day of a long haul holiday, generally it feels like the longest day ever as you don't know when the day starts or ends. Yesterday fell under this category, but not in a bad way, indeed in the end we did an incredible amount.

We dropped the car back off at the holiday inn at Heathrow airport no problems and a short taxi journey got us to terminal 3 ready to board our flight to Hong Kong. Sadly, Cathay Pacific don't do upgrades so it was cattle class for us, but after a quick stop in the lounge, we enjoyed our flight to Hong Kong, enjoying Anchorman 2, the second Hunger Games and Frozen.

We landed a wee bit late at Hong Kong and cleared immigration before boarding the train to Hong Kong Island and free bus to the Park Lane hotel. Sadly, the hotel room wasn't ready so we took a quick walk around Victoria Park and Causeway Bay discovering an IKEA of all things.

We got back to the hotel at noon and the room was ready so we took a three hour sleep to rejuvenate and then took a metro to Central Hong Kong. Here we discovered the Star ferry and also that it was free today. As such, we took a ride over to Kowloon where we got to see the impressive panorama of Hong Kong Island. We also scoped out the Peninsula Hotel and planned our day tomorrow.

We took the Star Ferry back to Hong Kong Island then we boarded the second of the free items for the day, namely the Trams and we pooled back down to Causeway Bay on this the oldest of transport methods in Hong Kong. Now I have to say, this was an experience although not that comfortable or cooling, certainly built when people were smaller and air conditioning was only in the mind of a scientist with a very forward thinking mind!

Back in Causeway Bay and we ate at a local restaurant, Ho Hung Kee, a local Michelin Starred restaurant, although found in a shopping mall! We tucked into the specialist Wan-tan Noodles and Dim Sum and then decided to head to View 62, a bar/restaurant that revolved on Hong Kong Island. Some lovely bellinis and a wonderful view on the way up to the top were not matched by the views in the restaurant sadly, as the ac had resulted in condensation forming and giving a very blurred view of the Hong Kong skyline.