Hong Kong on our own15 Mar 2019
|
|
Boardwalk in front of the hotel
Winter pansies in the median
More Hong Kong skyline in the mist
Our last full day in Hong Kong turned out to be a busy affair. After being on so many bus tours, we were eager to walk the city. We headed for the boardwalk with the idea of eventually ending up a the History museum, which turned out to be amazing. We then meandered, passing by the Peninsula Hotel, wandering the streets and landing on the Avenue of Stars that is similar to the walk of Stars in Hollywood, except with handprints on the guard rail of the seawall. After our city meandering we stopped at a jazz bar for snacks and a glass of wine. We then headed to our hotel to get ready for our last dinner out, which was booked at Jimmy's Kitchen, an established icon operating in Hong Kong since 1928 that serves traditional British food. Since the weather was iffy and we were a bit tired from our day's adventure, Brian suggested we take a cab instead of public transit. We headed to taxi stand in front of the hotel, in what we thought was plenty of time to get to our 7:30 reservation. The first cabbies refused us, saying that they didn't want to brave the traffic for the trip from Kowloon to Hong Kong. One said that he didn't even know Hong Kong that well! We finally found a cab and 65 minutes later, the cabbie points down the street and points at the meter. He's kicking us out so he doesn't have to go all the way to the door. Mind you, we are now on a street that is full of bars where the folks are spilling out into the streets. We finally get to the restaurant, late for our reservation, only to find out that they actually don't have our reservation. We fortunately get in anyways and enjoy a nice meal. We decide that it might be easier to take the train back to the hotel, so armed with instructions from the maitre d' to find the train station and our tourist map of the underground map we head off. A swift 20 min later, we alight onto the Kowloon streets, a mere 100 meters from our hotel, and head to the lounge for a nightcap. Lessons learned. All that's left is the packing, another early call for our ride to the airport tomorrow, a 13 hour plane ride and an hour cab ride then we're back home, at approximately the same time we left Hong Kong.
