Hong Kong Hotels
|
  | |  |
Esprit du Carnival
Entry 12 of 16 | show all | print this entry |
|
Our last day in Honkers was another late start, pushing limits of our 12 noon check-out.
It was then onto the MTR for the trip to Central/Hong Kong Station for us to check our bags into our Brisbane flight at the Airport Express' in town check-in facility.
Because our flight was not departing until 10:45pm we used the day to continue enjoying Hong Kong.
This began with a 1 hour long shop at the Esprit close to our hotel that Belinda had eyed off when we first arrived. I must say that the service at the shop was good; staff took all of Belinda's shortlisted clothes and put them aside for the fitting rooms. This however makes it easy for one to get carried away and forget how many items were already waiting to be tried on.
Despite trying on a mountain of clothes Belinda only walked away with a shirt and socks, claiming that regrettably most of the clothing catered more for the locals who are much shorter.
After such a shopping marathon (at least it was for me) we needed somewhere for a break - the Pacific Coffee Company a few shops down. The visit was used for a little more blog maintenance and email checking as well as the consumption of the customary food and drinks that one expects to obtain from such a facility.
Following our break it was time to bid the Kowloon peninsula and indeed the Chinese mainland adieu as we descended into the MTR for the trip back to Central. From the station we returned to the territory we covered on Sunday, making it to the Central-Mid Levels escalators. This somewhat bizare system took us up the island, through the trendy "Soho" area - just like London except on the side of a hill.
Once at the top we figured the best way was down, making the walk down the road and then descending into the Botanical and Zoological gardens. We zig zagged our way down through the gardens, with Belinda consistently noting the less than ideal animal enclosures.
As we arrived back down into Central we managed to find some Maccas that looked to be suitable places for a snack to keep us going until the flight, the only decision was which one to visit; they were a few hundred metres apart on the same street! You just can't beat the Chinese New Year wedges.... yum.
Across the road we popped into HMV for some quick last minute CD purchasing to bolster Belinda's collection and to browse the DVD and VCD selections.
It was decided that we would take one of the funky trams down to Admiralty, so we caught the next one that came along. We must've forgotten how low the ceiling is on the lower deck because we both hit our heads when moving through to the front to exit - ouch!
Why did we go to Admiralty? To spend our last hours enjoying the AIA Hong Kong World Carnival that was in town for the new year period. It was good value compared to the Royal Show because our roughly $20 wristbands gained us entry, unlimited rides and came with 25 tokens for the sideshow games.
Unfortunately our riding was limited by our lack of time but we did however get to enjoy the spinning Wild Mouse, suspended EuroCoaster, haunted house, G-Force (40m long stick flings you in giant circle - extremely scary!), exterminator and the spider spinner as well as waste all of our tokens playing games.
Highlights were me winning my stuffed Tigger and the extremely sweaty handles on the G-Force; we obviously weren't the only ones freaking out on the ride.
Due to a lack of time resulting from lingering at the carnival we had to take the MTR the 1 stop back to Central as it was the fastest option. We made the connection to the Airport Express station where we caught the train to the airport, noting that the personal TVs had sadly been replaced by large communal LCDs, although this now meant that a new feature, in headrest speakers, had been introduced.
Despite our lack of time we arrived at the airport and were processed through security and passport control quickly, allowing us a precious few moments to visit the Disneyland shop and, in Belinda's case, visit the Swatch shop. The staff at the Disneyland shop were in love with my Tigger (I was forced to carry him loose because we had checked in our bags earlier and my carry on bag wasn't that big), they kept stealing him and pretending to swap him for Disneyland merchandise. I did manage to keep Tigger and some Disneyland merchandise that I just couldn't not have as we became all remeniscient after having not been at the resort for a few days.
The flight left around 20 minutes late after boarding us late and was quite full. Thankfully we were in row 25, only 3 from business class so we were able to disembark quickly and were close to the only video screen in our cabin.
|
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries by v1213, from Hong Kong or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
3 votes 
