HK Day 1: The Path to Enlightenment

HK Day 1: The Path to Enlightenment (December 30, 2009)

My travel-craving feet finally touched Hong Kong soil on a semi-last-minute family vacation, which turned out to be the perfect way to cap an already amazing year and say hello to a new one. The road to Hong Kong was not easy. All attempts of finding my passport, including my asthmatic sister turning my room in Manila upside down, were futile. We booked the tickets only a month or so before the actual travel date, so I had very little time left to apply for a new one. But God must have really wanted me to go, because my brand new machine-readable passport was available just in time for our December 29 flight. 

T H E   A W E S O M E   A I R P O R T

Lantau Island, Hong Kong

First one in, last one out

My flight was delayed for an hour, so I arrived at around 10:20 PM. Because I was very early (for a change), my bag was the last one out. All these delays prevented me from saying hi (and bye) to my two cousins who were leaving just then (Debra for Paris and John for Sydney). The younger ones, Ace and Alicia, as well as Tito Arthur and Tita Dig-Dig were all there with Daddy, Bea, and Joe to meet me.

The Hong Kong airport

The Hong Kong airport was huge. I mean HUGE. It's easy to get lost in, and it's a perfect welcome to cosmopolitan heaven. We waited for an hour or two for my mom's flight to arrive, after which we took a cab to Kowloon. We arrived at the Ellis residence (The Harbourside) at around 2 in the morning.

T H E  H A R B O U R S I D E

Kowloon, Hong Kong

The Harbourside

The next day after breakfast, my cousin Alicia took us to The Harbourside's clubhouse, which was so amazing I felt like I was living in a five-star hotel. They had a billiard room, a golf simulator room (sounds pretty neat), a piano room, a karaoke room, a computer room, a gym, a pool, a banquet hall, and all these other facilities that residents get to enjoy for free. But the best part of it all is the Ladies' comfort room. It's literally a COMFORT room. After the toilet and shower area you have your steam room, jacuzzi, and my favorite, the massage room. They had three massage chairs with all kinds of massages (15 minutes each). I tried the full body massage and the acupressure massage. As I sat back and this chair massaged my very tired muscles, I can't help but think, THIS IS THE LIFE. :)

M T R  R I D E  T O  T U N G  C H U N G

Kowloon station

Mass Transit Railway - Tung Chung Line

We finally headed to the MTR station at around 1:30 PM. It was a 5-minute walk from the Harbourside, smack in the middle of Elements mall, which was really convenient for all of us.

Scenery on the way to Tung Chung

Hong Kong's Mass Rail Transit has around 10 lines, including the Airport Express line and the Disneyland line. Tung Chung is the last stop in the line we took (Hong Kong - Kowloon - Olympic - Nam Cheong - Lai King - Tsing Yi - Sunny Bay - Tung Chung). After 25 minutes of scenery varying from tall buildings to container vans to the harbour to the mountains to a few patches of green, we were finally in Tung Chung. 

N G O N G  P I N G  3 6 0

Lantau Island, Hong Kong

A foggy cable car ride

It was drizzling and a tad foggy in Tung Chung, but we braved the fog and walked for another 5 minutes up the cable car terminal. The cable cars are used to connect Tung Chung (on the north coast of Hong Kong island) with the hills of Ngong Ping Island. The ride is 5.7km long and lasts for about 25 minutes. On a normal sunny day, the view would've been of the North Lantau Country Park, the South China Sea, the HK International Airport, the Tung Chung Valley, the Ngong Ping Plateau, as well as surrounding terrain and waterways. It would've been a blue and green nature-filled feast for the eyes. All we saw was fog and a few glimpses of the view below. The next time I come visit, hopefully when it's sunnier, I will definitely ride this again.

T H E  B I G  B U D D H A

Ngong Ping, Hong Kong

Tian Tan Buddha

Once in Ngong Ping, we already had access to the Po Lin Monastery and the Tian Tan Buddha. But it was already around 4PM, so we paused for a while to eat a very late lunch (and drink Dark Cherry Mocha because it was COLD). We trekked our way to the Big Buddha (110 ft, 250 metric tons), one of the five large Buddha statues in China. 268 steps up and you can see the bronze statue sitting on a lotus throne on top of a three-platform altar.

One of the six Devas

There were also six relatively smaller bronze statues known as "The Offering of the Six Devas," offering all sorts of things to the Buddha. The Buddha faces north, which is unique among the great Buddha statues, as all others face south.

The cable cars and the fog

As soon as we reached the top, the skies started to clear and the sun actually came out. We took advantage of this slight change in weather and snapped as many pictures as we could. A rainbow even appeared and the view was spectacular. We were hoping that the weather would stay sunny, but by the time we went down, the fog started attacking us again.

T E M P L E  S T R E E T  N I G H T  M A R K E T 

Temple Street, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a walking city

We took the train back to Kowloon and walked our way to Temple Street, for a better glimpse of Hong Kong life. I've always thought that walking is the most fun way to "travel," because it's slower and you get to appreciate the quirks and the tiny treasures you see along the way. Walking past the streets of Hong Kong was no exception.

A street in Hong Kong

We were no longer surrounded by the tall, intimidating buildings of the posh financial district and were now in the nooks and crannies of a quieter, less oppressive downtown. I felt like I was stuck somewhere in Old Manila, only, everything is in Chinese. The streets were smaller, the shops busier than ever, and after a few turns here and there we finally made it to Tong Tai Seafood Restaurant. The restaurant was smack right in the middle of Temple Street, a few steps away from the bustling night market.

Dinner was Chinese cuisine, made even more authentic by the fact that we were eating it under a makeshift tent with cars zooming (or rather, inching) past you. A few locals but mostly foreigners are all huddled in tiny tables, and the noise resulting from that mix of people is a blend of syllables and accents that don't make sense but reek of mirth and excitement. We had tiny plastic bowls with green plastic chopsticks to match, and we got a taste of beer from Hong Kong. This was at 9 in the evening.

An authentic Hong Kong dining experience

Chinese minority dolls

A few steps from where we ate was the famous night market, running between Kansu Street and Jordan Road, Temple Street and the adjacent streets to either side. Late in the afternoon, the long stretch of road is closed to traffic and the street vendors assemble their stalls rapidly, offering all sorts of merchandise from designer watches to dolls to bags to funny signages to ceramics.

"Don't treat me like potato."

We didn't stay long and bought only a few items, because we saved our shopping (and bargaining) prowess for our last day. Nevertheless, I was able to purchase a few things, a pretty crystal-studded watch among them. We were too tired to walk home, so we hailed a cab and officially called it a night.

It was a really good way to kickstart our Hong Kong vacation, and sleep quickly crept in as I closed my eyes, the lights of the famous Victoria harbour glowing beautifully outside my bedroom window.