DAY 51

Week 8

KOWLOON (Hong Kong, CHN)

Saturday August 26th, 2017

TODAYS MILEAGE – 11 miles or 18 kilometres
TRIP MILEAGE – 36,979 miles or 59,512 kilometres


I was up before dawn to sample some local breakfast and came to find out that another typhoon was headed Hong Kong's way. The news report, on the TV in the street cafe, said a typhoon had come through 3 days prior, but it inflicted severe damage primarily in Macau, including 11 deaths - 4 of them drownings in casino car parks. I'll just have to play it by ear, as I'm headed to Macau in a couple of days.

I returned to the "West Hotel" to check out as I was off to "The Kowloon Hotel" for a couple of nights. The staff were so helpful at the West Hotel, that when I enquired about calling a cab for me - "go wait on the street" was thier answer before they walked off, leaving me standing in the lobby with my travel bag, camera gear and backpack. Can't for the life of me understand why a fair amount of online reviews state "Great location, dated decor and shit service".

Rob and I met up back at the West Hotel after I got squared away at my new digs, and while navigating our way through the "Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway" (MTR) over to the adjacent 30.34 square mile (78.59 km²) "Hong Kong Island", we spoke about how ordinary the German girls behaviour and attitude was during the trip, culiminating in fobbing off Lee last night.

Imagine our surprise, while waiting to catch the tram at the Peak Tram Lower Terminus, both "farqing Fräuleins" step off the tram we were about to board. So much for having to catch "the early morning flight home". Whilst they were a gushing with their greetings, I treated it with the contempt it deserved by simply turning my back on them and refusing to even acknowledge their existence - let alone presence.

With this being my third trip up to the peak, it was by no means any less of experience especially when seeing how the city of nearly 8 million reveals itself, when you step out on to the observation decks, on a day of brilliant sunshine with nary a cloud in the sky.

After a spot of lunch at "Bubba Gumps" and another lap of the observation decks, we headed back over to Kowloon for an afternoon siesta and freshen up before heading over to explore the "Temple Street Night Markets" for several hours.

With Rob flying out at 6AM in the morning, our night ended with a few ice cold farewell beers, in a back ally bar full of locals, adjacent to the Night Markets. And as the only Europeans in the place, we were somewhat of a sideshow, but that didn't seem to concern the owner, as he knew how to keep the beers coming as we sat on plastic stools at plastic covered tables taking it all in. It was a good fun night out actually.

Not sure about heading to Macau on Monday though - 10 people dead, power & service outages with widespread flooding due to Typhoon Hato two days ago ..... and Tropical Cyclone Pakhar heading in tomorrow.



• KOWLOON ~ The Kowloon Hotel (Hong Kong, CHN)
• HONG KONG ISLAND ~ Peak Tram (Hong Kong, CHN)
• HONG KONG ISLAND ~ Victoria Peak (Hong Kong, CHN)
• KOWLOON ~ Exploring The City (Hong Kong, CHN)
• KOWLOON ~ Temple Street Night Market (Hong Kong, CHN)