Day 108: Zagreb to Hong Kong
I keep saying that public transportation with our bikes is a nightmare; however, it seems to be ok lately. We hired a van taxi to get us to the airport with our two huge bike boxes. I have a pet peeve about being late, but the taxi driver showed up a few minutes early, helped load our bikes, and got us to the airport in no time. The Zagreb airport is tiny. It reminded me of little Fresno’s airport. The Qatar checker-in-er dude behind the counter was the first to have ever welcomed our bikes. He didn’t freak out at the largeness or have to check with his superiors about having to check-in bikes. We could tell he, too, was a cyclist, which was probably why he didn’t care if the boxes and our luggage were a tiny bit overweight. He even asked us to check in more bags since our layover in Doha was so short. The best part was… all the boxes and luggage were checked in for free. What a relief!
We flew from Zagreb to Doha. Even in economy class, we were greeted with lemon scented wipes to start the flight nice and clean. The meal was awesome AND it had REAL cutlery. I love good service. As we landed out first flight, our next flight was already boarding. Fortunately, there was a dude with a golf cart ready to take us to the connecting flights area. Not sure how he knew we were in a hurry. Maybe it was my nervous face (see punctuality comment above). After going through security again, we actually had to run to catch our flight. Total Home Alone scene right there. We made it. Barely. Our second flight had socks, an eye mask and ear plugs waiting on the seat for us. So perfect for a red eye flight. Both flights were about 13 hours total. We arrived in Hong Kong super excited and super tired. I can’t believe we’re here!
Our bikes arrived from the plane with only minimal damage to the boxes. The real struggle was trying to get to the hotel (on a different island). The ticket agents for the MTR said bikes aren’t allowed on the train, so we had to keep them in the boxes. The problem was they’re so heavy. I can only carry a box a few steps. So I carried the panniers and super, strong Sean dealt with the bikes. The Kowloon MTR station wasn’t crowded at all, so we found an empty corner to rip open the boxes and assemble the bikes. It was quite a process, but we managed. We decided to walk our bikes instead of ride them to the hotel. Between being jet-lagged, cars driving on the other side of the road and it was dark outside, we thought it would be safer for now.
The “hotel” is pretty shady. The room is about the size of our bathroom back at home. The beds are smaller than a twin. The bathroom is tiny and the shower is just a shower head that’s over the toilet. Lucky us, we can poop and take a shower at the same time. (We must sit diagonal though because there’s no room for even my short legs to sit normally.) My sheets have a stain on them. There’s a line of ants on the wall that circumvents the room. The red neon lights outside shine so brightly that we can see everything in the room without the lights on. I’ve already seen a few cockroaches. Luckily there’s dirty, used house slippers provided so we don’t get the floor dirty with our gross street shoes. We’re here for six nights. I feel so welcomed. 😉
Hong Kong hotel room.
Beyond exhausted, we walked a few blocks in search of dinner. Dim sum and noodles hit the spot. You know it’s good when there’s no foreigners inside; only locals. With full noodle bellies, we went to bed early. The hum of the neon lights outside helped drown out the traffic and honking horns below. I really AM excited to be here.
Day 109: Hong Kong
I was up in the middle of the night for many, many hours. Dang internal clock is on European time even though I’m so tired. I finally fell back asleep after many rounds of my sleepy time yoga routine and Norah Jones on my iPod.
First thing this morning, we sought out a photo booth in the MTR station to get passport photos. Then we trekked a while to the visa agency we read about online. We decided to go with an agency for many reasons: 1) the China visa office requires an itinerary of your stay in China, complete with hotel bookings. We don’t’ have that. 2) You need to show proof that you’re leaving the country. We don’t have that either. 3) We could book both of those requirements and then cancel them after we get the visa, but it’s a hassle and we’d still be charged for taxes and fees for the canceled flight. According to the online visa info, we could apply for a 30-day visa or a 90-day visa. We thought to get the longer one, since bike riding through countries is so unpredictable. Well, when we arrived at the agency, they gave us two options: 30 days or 10 YEARS! I didn’t even know that was a thing. The fees for their services were a couple hundred more dollars than planned; however, we didn’t have to show an itinerary or proof out of the country. We opted for the 10 year visa. It was a total of $465. To get our monies worth, we’ll be coming back to China in the next decade. I hope his company is legit. We’ll see on Thursday when we pick up our passports.
The application paperwork and getting the passport photos took all morning. Back at the closet/hotel room, we closed our eyes for just a tiny second and woke up 3 hours later. I think that was the opposite thing to do when trying to get over jet-lag.
For the next few hours, we walked around town. I’m elated to be back in Asia. I didn’t expect that I would. This city has brought back so many great moments I spent in Shanghai 5-6 years ago. We ate lunch at a tiny hole in the wall restaurant. We walked through Kowloon Park, which has fountains, bird exhibits, and gardens throughout. The harbor area had a free concert that we attended: Music Without Borders. It featured an Italian folk band. They were totally amazing! The harbor views were in typical Asian style – so smoggy that the other side seemed faded. The people, the smells, the lights…so extreme, so in-your-face. I love it!
Concert on the water.
Kyran (son of our Rotterdam hosts) and Nayaab picked us up in the evening. They took us to the American, a fantastic Hong Kong, family-style establishment. We feasted on Peking duck, fried walnut seaweed, fried beef pockets, rice, and sizzling prawns. Everything was amazing. Afterwards, we walked around SoHo. To end the night, we had drinks on Kyran’s rooftop terrace. He has a great view of the city and probably the best flat in the area. A few months back, his newly remodeled place was featured in the newspaper and a magazine. It’s the ultimate bachelor pad.
It was such a great first day in this city. It’s so full of life.
Carving the Peking duck.
Kyran and Nayaab treating us to a meal at The American.
Day 110: HK
Crowded market.
Even though we didn’t go to bed until 3:00 (ish) am, I was completely surprised we slept in until 1:00 pm. I guess we were tired. Breakfast included a milk tea and a few Oreos. Delish! We spent hours and hours and hours walking around town. There’s so many people here! We watched performers on every corner; singers had blaring mics; people were selling all sorts of products and advertising them in your face. Some streets were only for pedestrians and sometimes you dodged cars trying to cross the traffic laden roads. The safest bet was to go when the crowd went, despite what the crosswalk signs blinked. We walked through the ladies’ market, flower market, and goldfish market. All useless junk to me, but probably a gold mine for those wanting cheap souvenirs. We walked until our feet and legs ached. We came back to our closet to rest a bit before going out again in search of noodles. Food has been so good here. I’m impressed. Another great day in the books!
Day 111: HK
Today was all about the food. We had ramen for lunch at Ajisen, a chain restaurant I ate at in Shanghai. It’s in the States, too. After lunch we headed to the Wong Tai Sin temple. Most Asian temples look the same, but since we’ve never been to a HK temple, we thought we’d check it out. This one had a waterfall and a pretty garden with high rise apartments with laundry hanging out of every window to complete the backdrop.
We walked for a few hours back towards our neighborhood. It was nice to see different parts of HK that wasn’t as crowded as Kowloon. We walked through the rich private school area. So many Teslas and Bentleys and expensive cars adorned the streets. It’s funny to see the blonde hair kindergartners being picked up by their Chinese nannies. It seemed like the norm at some of the schools. We also walked through the Bird Market. It’s sad to see all these beautiful birds caged up or out on perches with chains attached to their legs. Birds are meant to fly!
Bird market.
We met Angela’s (my work BFF) brother, Jon, at One Dim Sum for dinner. It’s so fun to meet up with people we know. Well, we’ve never met Jon before, but he’s from the Bay Area and a family member of a great friend, so it’s kind of like we already know him. We ate amazing food. My favorite was the mango mocha and egg custard buns. Per Angela’s request, Jon also took us to eat eggettes, an egg waffle thing. Also amazing! We walked to the harbor; the skyline at night is beautiful. I’ve never seen so many high-rise buildings. They went on and on forever!
Day 112: HK
We headed over to Victory Park in search of something park-like and less cement. Not much luck. There were plenty of trees but all the fields and courts were all cement and just pained green. We only got to quickly walk through the park before it started raining. Luckily in HK, there’s plenty of malls to hide from the rain. We walked through Ikea, where tons of people we’re hanging out on the couches and many were taking naps in the chairs. HK Time Square and the surrounding stores are quite the contrast between the adjacent meat, fish, veggie and medicinal shops. I love seeing the juxtaposition and that’s what makes this city so amazing.
We dined at The Fat Pig, a great gourmet, Asian twist on classic Western food. We paid a lot of money, but the food was on-point. I highly recommend it if any of you readers visit Hong Kong.
The Peak Tram is a tourist attraction that takes you in a cable car up to the atop of the peak. The tram is over 120 years old and rides up a 48% incline. The buildings that we passed appeared to be leaning immensely. It was like a slow roller coaster. At the top, we climbed more stairs to an outside balcony. The view of the city was gorgeous. HK is truly a neat place.
Hong Kong by night.
Day 113: HK
We didn’t do much today. Because we have no reason to get up early, we don’t. We should be over jet-lag, but we’re not. Tomorrow is always a better day to get up early. Always tomorrow.
We went back to One Dim Sum for lunch. We ordered all our faves from the other day. Wednesday is free admission to the Science Museum so we took advantage of that. It was an ok museum; definitely worth it for being free. We stayed there until dark. We were planning on going to the horse races at Happy Valley, but Sean was feeling under the weather. We figured since we were about to ride soon, staying out while not feeling well wasn’t worth it.
We hit the grocery store before heading back to our closet. We got cup noodles for dinner; however, the kettle back at the hotel was full of nasty moldy growth, so we didn’t have any way to heat up water. Back outside, we went. We found a decent restaurant with awesome food. I’m thankful Chinese menus have pictures for most of the items.
Hong Kong science museum.