Friggin' Hong Kong, baby!

Monday morning at the same time as the Korea-France football game ended, a group of tired but eager travellers dragged themselves into a bus to the airport. Destination? Hong Kong, China. This week was my only vacation week, so I decided to join a group of friends who were going to the free trade haven. Our group consisted of Lauri, myself and an entourage of six Japanese girls from Lauri’s Korean class. We must have looked like having a harem of midgets. I love those girls! It’s a pleasure to just to observe how they are so full of enthusiasm and excitement about life.

Our local tour guide Karman, a friend of the girls and Lauri, had reserved a hotel for us at an island called Cheung Chan just outside of Hong Kong Island. It was an half an hour ferry ride away, which sometimes felt a bit overwhelming, but was ok in the end. The island had beautiful beaches, cheap prices and rumouredly some historically important ancient cave carvings, which we missed even though we walked the market spot on several occasions.

I can’t rave enough about this, but Hong Kong is amazing! I totally fell in love with the zest of the city. Alive, vibrant, modern, clean, humid, exciting. I think the Hong Kong skyline viewed from the Kowloon side is one of the most impressive pieces of man-made scenery I’ve ever seen. Breathtaking. In addition to walking around, we went to see Victoria Peak mountain, took the special tram and saw the Avenue of Stars. It was truly a great city. Maybe someday I’ll get the chance to work there...

If you look at travel guide books about Hong Kong they all say that the main attraction of the city is … SHOPPING! I was pretty suspicious about it beforehand. What sort of city has nothing else to offer than shops? Apparently Hong Kong is such as place, just because nothing else is needed. There are so many stores for every single taste and style everywhere. Whether you are looking for 5000 dollar Gucci or 5 dollar Cucci, HK is the place for you. Thankfully we didn’t have that much time, so my credit limit was left un-exceeded for the time being.

According to those same travel guides Hong Kong is also internationally renowned for its cuisine. The city more than lived up to its expectations as plate after plate of more and more delicious dishes appeared at out table. At one restaurant we had Beijing duck, where they brought the whole duck to the table and then the chef cut it to pieces in front of us. Pretty awesome. On Cheung Chau we indulged with various fresh seafood plates. There was octopus, shrimp, mussels, crab and a helluvalot of other fruits de mer. It was excellent! And the whole thing was under 3 euros per person.

Oh, and some of my articles have been tagged by other news sources! Like my article about the closure of a website was distributed by Asiamedia. Though we’re still talking small scale here, it’s pretty exciting :).