Dennis and Lucy go round the world: Big Buddha Final Day in Hong Kong

07:30hrs and some Chinese woman is talking yada yada yada (or whatever the Chinese equivalent is). Lucy is shouting “shut up” in her sleep. I can sleep anywhere so I just turned over. It suddenly dawned on me after half an hour, that this woman was actually rather close to us, and then her fella decided to join in. The only words I made out were “World Series”. That’s when I decided this was the last time I use a radio alarm clock on this holiday to wake us up. Typical Lucy. Sets an alarm and just sleeps through it leaving me to make the morning coffee. This should not happen on holiday.

After a breakfast in the hotel buffet of chicken’s head or feet (wasn’t sure which it was) and coffee we got a bus to Kowloon train station where we were able to check in our luggage at the Qantas desk.

Everything else we needed for the flight was put in a holdall and left in left luggage (Remember the last sentence for later).

Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! The sun came out.

How much more lovely this place looks when it’s sunny and hot. We got a ferry over to Lantau Island and a bus to see the Big Buddha. Chinese bus drivers are ace. How come there are not more of them on the F1 circuit I don’t know, unless, as I suspect, they all die (with their passengers) before reaching F1 status.

When we got to our destination it quickly became pretty obvious that the Chinese are following the American theme park business model. They have a shop area that resembles “Main Street USA” in Disneyworld. There was one shop that dealt only with everything to do with Chopsticks. Guess what gift I got for both my daughters? J.

Buddha sitting on a hill near Main St USA

I had a bit of fallout with Lucy while climbing the 400 steps up to the Buddha statue. I found a flaw with my camera. If I turned the camera to take a portrait picture instead of landscape, the image went black in my display screen. I was gutted and showed Lucy. She could not really see what the problem was. I had a go at her for being stupid and blind, and buggered off on my own.

We met up later and I asked her to look again. She insisted that the image remained the same. Yes, well it would to her wouldn’t it? It wouldn’t to me though as I was wearing polaroid glasses which affected how I saw the image. Sorry was not good enough; she took the piss out of me for a good hour afterwards.

F**king Hell......

We decided to get the cable car back to the airport. It took about 30 minutes and the scenery was breathtaking at times. Attached are a couple of pictures so you can see how high it is. It was at this point that we had to get an underground train from the airport under the sea back to Kowloon station to pick up my hand luggage holdall and then get another 30 minute train back to the airport. Work that one out! (Lucy : In my defence the guide book I was using did say that the cable car ride had stopped in 2006 after an accident….)

Flight at 11:45pm is another long one to Brisbane and then onto Cairns. Not sure we’ll manage tomorrow’s blog after all that.

PS Have you ever arrived at Hong Kong airport and suddenly realised that you forgot to buy a new Versace dress, a pair or two of Jimmy Choos or a Cartier watch? Never fear. There will be at least three branches of each on every shopping floor after you have passed through Security. Want to buy some deodorant or some toothpaste as well? No f**king chance!

Who left the zoom on ?

PPS. In summary I have to say that HK as a first stop on a round the world trip was an excellent choice. Lucy and I have been on many city breaks over the years but this has to be the best for many reasons. It is very clean, the people are very friendly and eager to help and the public transport is reliable, efficient and cheap to boot. Most importantly you always feel safe, even when walking down dark alleys in the evening.

On the downside, well there is only one. Lucy and I pride ourselves on the fact that we always try the local food when we go abroad. Here we cheated and stuck to Starbucks, Subway and an American Diner.