Travel diary: Hong Kong & Macau – day 1

I’m finally doing a travel diary!

We decided to take a holiday for around a week, since I’ll be starting my job by the end of September. We were a little hesitant to venture into China, since my mom is a vegetarian, so we decided upon Hong Kong and Macau – which would give us a peek into the Chinese culture but at the same time be “international-friendly”.

We took an early morning flight from Kuala Lumpur, and landed four hours later in Hong Kong International Airport. The immigration queue was absolutely ridiculous as there were just a couple of counters for visitors, as we (and almost everyone in the airport) were.

Hong Kong has three different types of taxis – red, green and yellow – each for a different part of the region. Our hotel, Regal Riverside, was in the ShaTin area, and hence we took a red taxi.

The hotel was beautiful, with rooms overlooking the river and the Sha Tin area.

Best of all, they provided shuttles to Sha Tin MTR (metro) station, which allowed us to literally go anywhere we wanted. I must say the Hong Kong metro is absolutely ridiculous – its SO well connected that I’m surprised why we took a taxi earlier that morning. We paid HKD $55 for a 24-hr unlimited MTR pass and set out to explore after a quick nap.

Our first stop was Kowloon, which is the ‘happening’ part of Hong Kong, especially during the evening. The streets were full of people, and at one point you just cant believe how so many people manage to live in one small country (or special administrative region).

But I guess this is how they do it:

I stood in front of this gigantic building and counted 58 floors, with each floor definitely having more than 20 units each. Almost all buildings in Hong Kong are like this. No wonder this place can accommodate so many people.

We checked out the port, where we saw bits and pieces of Hong Kong’s famous skyline.

Our final stop of the evening was at Ladies Market. Ohhhhh boy. This place is a must for any tourist. Not so much for Chinese artifacts, but more or less your everyday clothing/handbags/accessories/food and the like. The streets were full of tiny shops, and although we didn’t buy anything, we spent an easy four hours there.

Not a very happening day in terms of photography, but we were exhausted from the flight. The next day was action-packed, so we decided to call it a night.

Until tomorrow!