A day in Hong Kong

I love the Hong Kong metro system, I really do. Ok so Hong Kong is small, but it has the following. Clean, tidy and air conditioned platforms and trains. Platforms where you can see the entire network on a touch screen that only requires a single click to select the destination you want and then insert the note or coins required. All the maps, routes and information announcements are made in both Chinese and English. The trains are all air conditioned, with a complete network map in each carriage with red lights flashing lights showing the route it is taking, green arrows to show which direction it is going and which is the next stop and an amber light to say which side of the carriage the doors will open. It is always on time, it has frequent trains running in both directions and it is cheap.

I have been on plenty of metro systems on my travels and while many are close I feel that none beat the Hong Kong system, it just has everything you could want and more.

Anyhoo, ( please forgive the blatant advert but it really is a great system ) after finding my hostels station I picked up a few tourist guides at the metro station, changed all my remaining Thai, Cambodian and Vietnamese notes into Hong Kong Dollars and then went to find my hotel.

Despite not having any sleep last night, or so little as to be almost none, I still wanted to see a bit of the city tonight so as to not waste a day here, especially as I only had a couple of days here before returning to China.

I tried to find out which pier the Twilight Dragon Cruise left from, but it was no longer a main feature of the tour brochures and everything on the internet was out of date. I tried to find out about the Chinese State Circus with their Shaolin Wushu martial arts display only to find out that right now they are in the UK on a world tour of their own, so perhaps I can visit them when I get back as they will still be showing in London for a week after I am due to arrive.

What I did decide to do was visit the Nan Lian Gardens, a place of created natural beauty that had with a wooden pagoda in the calssic style along with a pair of twin red bridges overcrossing a beautiful lake with plenty of trees and stone outcroppings. Best of all, was that though selective hidden speakers throughout the park you could always hear feint yet audible the tones of their guqin, a kind of flat guitar played while seated, as the melodies drifted by and in the middle of the garden with nothing but the music and nature it is easy to get lost in thought and forget where you are for a time.

I stayed there until around closing time, and then headed on over to the shopping mall where I spotted a few tour / travel agencies who I thought would be able to tell me what is going on in Hong Kong at nighttimes. Sadly I was dissapointed as they were only interested in selling me complete day tours, which finish around 6pm, book me a hotel or arrange a flight, none of them had any idea of what a tourist could do to amuse themselves during the dark hours.

Giving up on the third attempt, I went to watch a movie, a thing you can almost always do at night, and it was the new super hero flick 'Watchmen', which I give a hearty 8 our of 10 for, a little overdone in places but still good fun and everyone does exactly what you hope they will, or at least in my mind they did.

After the film I was very glad that I had not booked anything longer, as my energy levels were rapidly flaging and I barely had enough energy to grab a McDonalds and scoff it on the way back to my hotel and was asleep even before my head hit the pillow.