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Hong Kong

February 21, 2008 | Author: Urbanski | Filed under: Travel

On Sunday the 17th of February Me and Carl arrived in Shenzhen in the morning. The weather was exceptionally warm and even though it was Winter and snow up in Beijing it felt like spring has arrived in here in Guangdong. From the bus station in Shenzhen its a short walk to the checkpoint which is above the train station. There we had expected that there would be a long queue on the lanes for checking passports but to our relief there was almost no queue.

The passport control went quickly and smoothly and soon we were in a new country HongKong. Even though Hong Kong is officially part of China you still need to bring your passport because the region is considered a special administrative region and it is more or less independent from China.

As I mentionned earlier the checkpoint lies besides the Shenzhen central station and on the other side of the border lies the Lo Wu train station which is the terminus for the KCR local trains in Hongkong.

Before we hopped on the train to Kowloon or Tsim Sha Tsui one needs a special octupus card which you use to pay for bus, train, metro and tramway fares. It is a card that is loaded with a certain amount of cash and a fare is deducted each time one travels.

The train from Lo Wu to Tsim Sha Tsui was extremely clean and it had Air Condition in all carriages. The people on the train were sitting doing their business, and there were TV screens in all carriages so that the passangers would not be bored to death.

As the train passed by you could see from the window the projects of the New Territories. Tall concrete apartment could be seen everywhere.

The ride took about 30 minutes and we arrived in Tsim Sha tsui which is the central station in Kowloon.

Hong Kong’s commuter system is much more developed than the one in my home country Sweden. It is very easy to understand as compared to the complicated Swedish one which is both expensive and not clean.

Tsim Sha Tsui is situated next to Nathan Road which is the main street in Kowloon.  On that street all the famous haute couture boutiques by famous designers like Armani, Luis Vuitton and Gucci are situated as well as Rolex and Breitling.

What is very distracting on that famous road is that everywhere you see Indian people which follow tourists and chinese and offer them “Original Copy Watches” or “Nice suits”.

These “dealers” should be avoided at all costs and if you want a fake Rolex watch you better cross the border to Shenzhen.

Anyway I have heard rumors saying that if you are interested in buying electronics like cameras, mp3 and computers you should avoid Nathan Road. Most shops are illegitimate and they will rip you off.  When buying something you get no warranty and there is always a part missing. So even though you buy a cheap camera it wont work, and you will be forced to buy the missing parts at a higher price…

However if you are interested in buying cosmetics Kowloon is the place.  At the end of the road there is a big department store called Star Ferry which is situated by the sea. There you can buy cheap original cosmetics from Armani, Gucci or Ralph Lauren. The prices are much lower than in the west and even in mainland China. The personal can speak English so there is no language problem really.

After we made some shopping and walked in the town we could not miss the light show at 8PM every day. The light show takes place at HK island and can be seen from the Kowloon side. It gathers a lot of tourists and its very fascinating seeing the skyscrapers emitting light and laser beams. All this happens when techno music is played so that the light “follows” the rythm.

Because HongKong is a multicultural city you can find any food here apart from the Cantonese Dim Sum. Indian food as well as other are present.

We decided however to go to McDonald and I had a Big Mac Set for 25 HK dollars (2.50 Euro).

On our way home to Zhuhai we noticed that there are no trains going to Shenzhen and the last boat to Zhuhai port had already sailed away. So we had to take a boat to Macau and then from Macau take the bus to Zhuhai border and from there taxi Home.

I will sure visit HongKong some other day and visit the Island and Victoria Peak.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 and is filed under Travel. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

xygoxen

2 people have left comments

KCR trains only run to Shenzhen until midnight, but Huanggang is open 24 hours and buses run every 20 minutes from Wanchai, near the Convention Center.

b. cheng wrote on February 22, 2008 - 6:58 am | Visit Link

Thank you for the notification. We could have taken the train but the problem is that there is no bus from Shenzhen back to Zhuhai at that time. And we did not want to take the train because it was expensive taking the train and bus. Boats from Zhuhai go every hour but the last boat goes at 8 pm.

i cant wait until the railway is built to ZHUHAI :-)

Urbanski wrote on February 22, 2008 - 8:11 am | Visit Link

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