Greetings!
Justin and I went to Hong Kong last week, when I was off for
Qing Ming (Tomb Sweeping Day). We had to go for a day to renew our visas. We
were fortunate enough that our parents were able to loan us the money to go,
because I would not receive a payment until the following week.
We heard a lot of great things about Hong Kong. However,
most of those were about shopping and eating. We had a pretty limited budget
for the trip, so we decided to find some places close to our hotel to walk
around in the short time we were there. We flew in on Thursday evening and came
back on Friday night.
This was a huge adventure for us because we were going
somewhere we had never been, by ourselves, with a lot of travel involved. We
began at about 2:30 on Thursday. We caught the bus out our back gate to get to
the subway, and road it to the terminal station, which took about 30 minutes.
We were then in for an hour ride on Line 2, one of the longest and most popular subway
lines in Shanghai. We passed most of the major tourist attractions in voyage to
the airport. After reaching Guaglan Road, we had to cross the platform and get
on a second metro (still Line 2), and travel for an additional 30 minutes to
the Pudong Airport.
Once we arrived at the airport, we had to check in and go
through security. We had dinner in the airport and headed to our gate. We were
supposed to take off at 7 pm, but we were delayed 30 min. When we went to
board, we were loaded on a bus and driven out to the tarmac, where we boarded a
plane on stairs. I have done this before in Honduras, but this was Justin’s
first experience doing this.
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| Waiting for our flight at Pudong Airport |
We had a 2 and a half hour flight, which was rather
interesting. We traveled on a smaller and lower budget airline, which generally
leads to questioning how the flight might be. In addition, I was out of motion
sickness medicine, which had me concerned, since we were on a smaller plane. I
did not get sick at all, thankfully. We had fun watching all the other people
on the plane, crocheting, etc. We even enjoyed an end of flight exercise
session led by the flight attendants. It was a rather pleasant flight.
Once we made it to the airport, we cruised through
immigrations and happily walked away with just our bookbags. We were able to
exchange American currency that we had with us from January and then got
Airport Express passes that would take us to and from the airport. We took the
Airport Express to Hong Kong Island, a 30 min trip, and got a shuttle from the
Express to our hotel.
We slept for the night and planned out our couple of hours
out the next day prior to our departure. We checked out early, retrieved our
deposit, and headed in search of the nearest Starbucks (a real treat for
ourselves!). We both enjoyed an Asian Dulce Latte, which you can only get on
this side of the planet! We walked around and got to see what Hong Kong was
like and saw quite a few familiar stores, including 7-Eleven and Circle K.
We then made our way to Times Square to see what that was about. There was a rather large mall, and it was made to look a bit like NYC. We found a Forever 21 that carried our sizes, and each opted to buy one pair of shorts (since we have none with us) instead of having a more pricey lunch.
Soon after, we headed back to the airport, where we ate
lunch. We checked in and waited for our plane. Unfortunately, after boarding,
our plane was delayed for an hour due to weather. This would not be a big deal,
except for the fact that we were trying to catch the metro in Shanghai before
it closed for the night. We landed in Hong Kong at 8:50 pm and had to be on the
first part of the metro by 9:30pm in order to cross the platform by 10pm. We
literally ran to immigration and had the officers chuckling at us being in such
a rush. We got on the train right at 9:30!
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| On the Airport Shuttle |
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| Kinda cool city view |
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| Finally on the Metro again! |
We took the train for 90min and then decided to go to a
different stop, where it would be easier to get a cab. We accidently got off at
another airport and after seeing a line of 50 people waiting for cabs, decided
to go to the last stop. At about 11:30 pm, we got in a cab that was just
waiting there. We paid very little to get home and were so glad to finally get
there.
Just another adventure to put in our book!
Until next time…
Blythe
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