Our
first order of the day was to head back to the train station and book tickets
on the train from Hong Kong to Shanghai. We certainly didn’t want to have a
repeat of the Nanning-Guangzhou episode! It didn’t take long to book the
tickets so we then made our way down to the harbour again, to have a good look
at the place in the daylight. We walked along the Avenue Of Stars again, but
his time it was much less crowded so we could actually see who the stars were
for. We wanted to find Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee for starters, and any others
would be a bonus. As we trundled along the harbour we noticed people trying to
take our picture without us noticing…but we noticed alright. It got to the
point whereby a couple of old oriental geezers wanted their picture taken with
us, to which we obliged, naturally. Then, as they left, a younger couple of
girls asked for the same thing. We duly posed for the second round of pictures,
no problem. And then a further group
wanted their photo taken with us; it was like we were proper celebrities and I
half expected them to be asking us for autographs next!
 |
| Bruce Leeeeeeeee! |
We
continued our wander and looked out across the water to Hong Kong Island, where
we would be heading shortly. But only after another couple of girls wanted
their picture taken with us. So with that done we bought two tickets for the
ferry across the water to Central on the other side. James had done some
research and found out that there was an escalator that ran from the top of the
residential area up in the hills all the way down to the CBD at the bottom, but
that it only went down until 10:20am and after then it only went up for the
rest of the day. Well, this was looking promising for an interesting little
visit so we managed to find the “start” amongst the concrete playground that
was Hong Kong Island and jumped on. It was exciting! After about 60 seconds the
escalator finished and we had to walk to the next stage of the escalator. And
then again a few metres down the line. So it wasn’t one full escalator after
all, and it was a bit of a disappointment, but still worthwhile as something to
do as we got to see the streets and back streets.
 |
| Going uuuuuuuuup! |
As
we got to the top we realised that we would need to get back to the bottom
again, but there was no escalator heading that way. So we had to march along the
leafy roads to find a path down to the main road. It was nice to get away from
the hustle and bustle and mix up the grey concrete of the city with the green
canopies of the forest in between.
 |
| Hong Kong through the trees |
We
made it down to the road and found the tram station where we would be getting a
tram (obviously) from the west side to the east side of the island as
Wikitravel had said it was a good little journey. It took ages for the right tram to arrive and when it did we sat up top and
watched the world go by from up high. It also took a long time to get from A to
B (about 80 minutes) so by the time we had finished we were ready for dinner.
But we had to get back to Chungking Mansions first.
 |
| Zooming through Hong Kong Island |
We
jumped on the tube and happily it coincided with rush hour, so we were
literally forced into the carriages to go under the water (rather than the
ferry back) for just one stop. After freshening up at the hotel we managed to
find the Taj Mahal Restaurant within Chungking Mansions, something that we
weren’t massively keen on if we were honest, but it was close, it was late, and
Tripadvisor said that it was really good. We also ran into a guy whilst waiting
for the lift who gave us a 10% off card, but only after James had initially
waved him away claiming we weren’t interested. The Taj Mahal was OK, and maybe
a little over-priced for what we actually got, but it had filled a hole and
that was OK by us. The evening was spent watching the movie Chungking Express
(told you we’d end up watching it) and to be fair I don’t recommend you rushing
down to your local Blockbuster to rent a copy for yourself.
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