My favourite 7 things about Hong Kong

The transportation system

I find it weird that I'm putting this as the first thing, let alone my favourite thing. I feel like one of the St. Olave's boys  who have a fascination with trains and get 100% on the London Tube Station Sporcle quiz (you know who you are). However, there's a pretty good I reason I think very highly of their transportation system. Travelling to Hong Kong was the first time I was travelling alone. Before then, it's always been a family vacation or a school trip. The problem was I never took interest in taking charge or planning the trip, I was always the thoughtless follower. So actually organising my own trip, where to go and finding out how to get to places (safely) was a big deal. Luckily, Hong Kong had their signs in English, as well as Cantonese, and modern transportation. Their MTR is really easily to follow, they used the Octopus card that is similar to the Oyster card, and they had plenty of bus links. Hong Kong is also a very clean city: high fines for eating on the train and antibacterials on the handrails several times of day. It made the whole experience of travelling alone easier, I had no problem getting to my hostel or in fact on any other day when I was travelling. It's hard to get lost!

The food

I kept all the fasts I could during Ramadan. I found it quite easy to do it, despite my mom saying that I could make it up later, as teaching kept my mind distracted. I didn't let it limit my experience trying different food. We tried michellin recommended dumpling restaurants,  I had Indian, Thai, Chinese and Western food. The pancakes weren't bad either, I do recommend the peanut butter and sugar pancake on the stalls selling Eggettes ('Daan Jai'), which are also YUM.

The best part are the fruits! I got to enjoy buying and eating fresh lychees, mangoes, mangosteens, watermelons, grapefruit. It was weird to see they at low cost but apples and grapes at higher prices. Tropical fruits are much better! Oh gosh... my mouth is just watering thinking back on it.

I think the main thing I want to point out with food is that I'm a cautious eater. Quite picky and afraid to try unfamiliar things. I will try Nepalese food because it's comparable to what I have before but the idea of Icelandic food...? Yuck. It a very bad characteristic to have with travelling. Hong Kong had its fair share of things I wasn't filling to try openly but fortunate for me, I can easily ask for what the food has. Communicating in English is fine most of the time. I did try the odd squidballs unknowingly but I was lucky to have friends point out if something had Pork (it's used as an additive sometimes and not point out in menus, be aware).

EDIT: Bakeries! Millions and millions of bakeries! My aim was to try every single one I encountered (while I was conscious of this aim). I recommend the egg tart!!!

The kids

The main reason I went to Hong Kong was to work in a summer camp. I love kids, I love travelling and this was the best combination of both. I did enjoy working with the kids so much that I wanted to spend another summer teaching (hence teaching in Nepal).

I'm lucky that my students still want to keep in contact with me. The other day when I got a new phone, the first thing I did was download whatsapp. I had a group going with one of my class and since it's been almost a year since I talked on it, it said I was removed from the group so I decided to delete it. It didn't take long before they were wondering what happened and why I left the group, my friend (who worked with me in the class too) immediately asked what happened and added me back. Just talking to them again made me smile for the rest of the day. Yes, I'm jealous of Kat who is going to see them this week but I'll be back in Hong Kong and the first thing I'll do is have another reunion.

The Shopping 

You can see... there's a lot of cross over with my Thailand post.

Along with Thailand, Hong Kong is the place for fashionistas. There are a variety of unique market places (gold fish marketplace, the jade market). The most popular is Lady Market Place in Mongkok. Endless market spanning the road, going off into side streets, with restaurants behind them. This is where you get the haggling skills going and you have to remember to be persistent! They have haggled with people from all corners of the world, day and night. They know how to deal with every type of people. I would suggest Lady's market for people looking mainly for souvenirs and accessories.

My favourite place to shop was near Ladies Marketplace, Arygle Centre. It's like a marketplace inside a building. Lots of cheap, open ended stores which sells clothes, shoes, stationary and accessories. The prices where already pretty cheap/reasonable so I never thought about haggling at first but... if you can, always haggle! Any free evenings I had, or if I was feeling down, I would go down to Mongkok and almost certainly visit this centre. However, my favourite shopping moments were with Elyse. She and I make an amazing shopping duo. On the last day, she had a tactic rolled up her sleeve and the fact she is form Hong Kong helped a lot. With only hours before my flight, she managed to haggle down the price of two bags for the price of one. When I'm back in HK, every mall and marketplace has to watch out for us (;

Everything at your doorstep 

I forgot how big every other country is compared to England. It can take us half a day to get to the other side of the country whereas in Thailand, you need an overnight train to travel travel a quarter of the country. One of my heartaches about leaving Thailand was that I only had a taste of what the country was like. Our life is only so short and there is so much to see, you don't want to leave a country thinking you hardly got to know it. I only really had the weekends to explore Hong Kong, and even though I didn't get to see everything I wanted to, I left content that I got to explore most of HK.

East meets West

Yes, yes, remember I said that cheesy cliches are sometimes the best at describing? British colonial influences on Chinese culture is very evident here in Hong Kong. I guess this is the reason behind why I think Hong Kong is easy for first time travellers. You have your Buddhist temples, fishing villages and extraordinary chinese market places juxtaposed with skyscrapers, theme parks and shopping malls. If you're not sure what you're looking for when you travel, come to Hong Kong and you'll naturally be pulled. I loved the architecture, travelling to the highest skybar in the world and zigzagging through the clothes rack but I found that I naturally loved trekking, trying different food stalls and venturing off to different islands. I like being surprised, I like seeing something new.

The Skyline

Can anyone write a post about Hong Kong without mentioning its skyline, the beautifully modern architecture that scraped the surface of heaven? Hong Kong obviously takes advantage of its limitless buildings in terms of tourism. You'll enjoy taking the ferry across Kowloon and Hong Kong Island just for the view, especially in the night. If you want a bit of class and excitement, why not take the pirate ship for a tour? Everyday at 8pm, there's a "light show" with all the prominent buildings, best seen from Hong Kong Island harbour. The light show lasts no more than 20 minute and includes a cheesy music and narration.

A better option would be to travel up to the Peak. The Peak (tower) is located on top of Victoria Peak and it's a big tourist attraction for being a observatory platform, giving a spectacular view of the city-state and a big pull for photographers. There's also a shopping mall with a market place and many restaurant inside, so your trip never feels empty. Most people take the peak tram up to the top and it's a nice little experience but I would say that if you are strict on money, you won't feel bad for giving it a go. You can take the bus, car/taxi and the eager athlete can even walk up there. I would give a warning that you should check the prices for taxis beforehand and compare, my hostel friend was too eager to get to the top that we were clearly ripped off.

Why just enjoy the the skyline from outside when you can enjoy the view form above inside one of the skyscrapers? I had the chance to go to the world's highest Sky Bar in Asia, the Ritz Carlton. The bar itself is located on the 118th floor and while it takes quite a few elevators to get there but the view is amazing (both coming to the hotel from a taxi and from the bar itself). The price of the food and drink reflect that you're in a 5 star hotel but they taste good and it's worth buying one at least.

My favourite 7 things of Thailand

Shopping
I love shopping. It's an interest that my mom loves to encourage and when she found out I was going to Thailand, it didn't take her long to contact my cousin to find out where the best malls where (believe me, I didn't need my cousins help). Bangkok is the place to shop, in my opinion and I have seriously considered taking a train from Malaysia to Bangkok for a day just for it.
For some, shopping is just restricted to the huge shopping malls. I prefer to shop in the market place. In Siam Square, independent designers sell their work in market stalls that span across the roads. The prices are reasonable already but if you're brave, you can haggle down. The clothes look amazing, but there's jewellery, bags and shoes too. The designs are usually unique or ahead of their time. I remember seeing the metal tipped collars being sold for less than £5 before being it being sold in Topshop for £18 (same design!) later that year.

However, the most exciting shopping experience is the Chatuchak market. It's probably the biggest market place in the world and only opens on weekends. Unfortunately, I visited it once and on the last day of fasting as well, so you can imagine how torturous it was. The intense heat, the long day mixed with getting lost and being surrounded by people having ice lollies and BBQ. I could just about manage to stay a few hours before I felt like I had to escape before I collapsed from exhaustion. The cool MTR came to the rescue. I had plans to go back there again but with such tight schedule... ):

Chatty taxi drivers & tour guides
What struck me was, after visiting a fast paced business centre Hong Kong where people kept to themselves, how friendly and open Thai are. We obviously looked like tourists (who spoke English) and when we looked slightly confused about where we were going, people would come up to us wiling to help or other times people would thank us for visiting their country. I have to admit, I was little surprised how open people were (the fact they came to us randomly) and I didn't know how to respond. I know that's a weird thing to say but everyone that knows me knows I am very shy especially at the first meeting. I don't have the talent to speak (charismatically) to strangers and as someone who grew up being told to be wary about everyone, you can kind of see why I had a problem. Luckily, some people were social enough to see through that and when James was there, he was much easier to speak to.I feel like I should mention a few of my favourite encounters.

My favourite person was a taxi driver who was driving us back to the main station. He thought James and I were 17 and 16 respectively (bless) and that since James is a boy, he must like football and/or boxing. He was in denial of he fact that James does not, in fact, watch football and told us that we both must watch the match on that Saturday (as much as we wanted to, we were flying out that day). He spent at least half an hour talking about football and then shook James' hand before telling him to watch out for the mafia at the station. There was also our loveable and funny tour guide 'Ducky' and the really friendly staff at our Krabi hostel who told us not to book hostels during low season (we could have saved 200 baht!!). I'm sure there's more people I feel like I should mention but in the end, it's the people who came to us and gave their time to chat that did Thailand that extra quirk.

The turquoise blue sea and dramatic cliffs
There's a reason why I've wanted to go to Thailand. For my mom's family, Thailand is shopping central but what caught me is the scenery. You know those brochures you see of the clean, golden sands and the calm sparkling sea? Well, below, you'll see an UNEDITED photo we took on our way to Railay. The gemstone blue, the clear sunny sky is what we experienced. It was perfect. In fact, two of my favourite beaches are Railay and Nai Hat. Peaceful, scenic and a little isolated. Nature definitely has a stronger presence there.

It doesn't stop there. I know I'm using cliched terms with 'dramatic' cliff tops but that is the best way to describe it. I remember sitting on the beach, looking up at them and thinking 'I can't believe I'm here'. The geology is so unique, so captivating, I kept feeling like I was in a dream. If you go to Thailand, down south, I would recommend island hopping. The limestone cliffs can't help but surrender to the sea and the air. The way they have succumbed and shaped through erosion produces amazing landscape that have sparked locals imagination. I remember when we were canoeing under some of the limestone caves, our guide showed us what he saw hidden in the limestone (he only saved his dirty imagination for James).

The food (& drinks)
Forget about having 3 large meals everyday, the Thais do it better. The streets were always filled with food stalls from savoury thai food to desserts and fruits and the occasional drink stall (for you non alcoholics out there, I recommend the pineapple shakes) when the night was bursting with life. Some stalls, you just grab the food and go while others have plastic tables and chairs (all you need for a romantic dinner out). The portions are small ('Nuz sized') but all that means is you get to try one exciting food with room to try more. Luckily for me, I like thai food. Pad Thai, Thai fried rice, green curry (standard 'Thai food') but I also got to try things I haven't heard of before, and with prices of £1 per portion, why not? Luckily, Ramadan was over and the south of Thailand has a stronger Muslim community. In Krabi, literally all the stalls were halal hence I took joy to having both thai and western food.

OMG - how can I forget the pancakes? The glorious, glorious pancakes we had for breakfast and dinner. Krabi has the best pancakes!

The monkeys!!
Not considering the rabies shot was a mistake. In fact, I don't know why it didn't cross my head to get it. Well, I blame the GP. I had an appointment asking for vaccination advice and they didn't mention it. Or maybe they did and I just didn't take it in? Oh well, I survived without it (but I won't take that for granted). I realised that mistake on my first full day in Phuket. We went up to Khao Rang and as soon as the tuk-tuk parked and we jumped out, we witnessed a jeep being taken hostage by a band of monkeys. Monkeys jumping, swinging and climbing just like the story books you read as kids.

The kids
I didn't really get to interact with the children much in Thailand but there is one memory I have that makes me smile so much. In Phuket, we went on a boat tour that took us to a 'Floating Gypsy/Muslim Village'. These people have built their whole village on stilts in the middle of the sea. It's amazing how they can sustain themselves like that. Although isolated from the world's trouble, they do have their own troubles. The last tsunami took down part of the village... they are vulnerable to the power of the sea, and they are still trying to rebuild from that.

Rae, James and I explored the village to its end and decided to sit for a while when these three kids were running around. They ran towards where we were, ignored us and kept playing as normal. James decided to try out his Thai on them and said 'Swa deet karup' (hello). They all immediately giggled and hid their faces on the bench. Obviously ashamed of such terrible thai being spoken! Rae loves kids. You could tell by the way she was looking at the three children that she liked their presence as much as I did, if not more. She decided to join in with James and 'roared' at the kids, who then ran away giggling.
That was the only time I was so close to the kids of Thailand and they are just as cute as you'd expect!

The night life
Each city/town has it's own type of nightlife, with the exception of Bangkok which has something for everyone! Those that were pulled by Thailand's red light district culture would love Bangla Road. Actually, funny story about Bangla Road. When I was first researching where in Thailand I *had* to visit, Bangla Road was something that popped out. Now as a Bengali, I was intrigued as to why this was a touris attraction. So I entered in google and clicked on 'images' and well... I can definitely see why it's famous. Now some of you may have expected me to be put off it but nopes, it was near the top of my list to visit. In fact, I think I spent every night in Phuket walking down Bangla Road. Now my experience there is definitely worth another post...

So Phuket's night life is more for the loud and the wild whereas Krabi is more serene and laid back. There's not really any clubs but it's a place for bars. We spent every night at a bar that had live reggae/Soul type music that served large pineapple slices and flowers with their drinks. If I wanted to be somewhere more isolated, there was Ao Nang beach at my doorstep and a pancake stall near by. Krabi was definitely my kind of place.

I feel uneasy stopping my favourites of Thailand here but my word count is 1658+ and my eyes are a little droopy. Maybe that's a good place to end (;