Hong Kong

Day 6 - Hong Kong
We arrived in Hong Kong and took the airport express to the centre and caught a free airport shuttle to near our hostel. We dropped our luggage and went exploring because our room wouldn't be ready until later in the day. So we found a shopping centre nearby and ate dumplings for lunch at a non-tourist place.
Then we took the metro to the Hong Kong island side (our hostel was on the mainland side) and walked up the hill a bit to the start of the Peak tram. Unfortunately we waited in line in the sun for a very long time only to find our we didn't need to wait in that particular line as we had bought metro transit cards which we could use to pay for the ride. But eventually we got into the shade and rode the tram up the hill to the Peak of Victoria Hill. It was quite steep at points and it was a nice ride up with good views of the city and good snooping of apartments. I paid extra to go up to the very top, which wasn't really worth it as it was the same views, but hopefully I got some nice photos.
We went down and then walked to the Star Ferry terminal and crossed the water back to our side. When we got off there were thousands of people around the terminal so it was quite busy. We walked back to our hostel, although I took us through a little sketchy area, with lots of Western Union shops and then through some tiny dark alleys, but we made it out alive. We managed to find our hostel only to discover they had moved all of our stuff to another building across the street. We were a bit shocked, but rolled with it and went across the street to find our bags and our room. It was super tiny, maybe 100 SF at most, with two tiny double beds and a bath room like on a boat (short and toilet together). Only one of us could open our luggage at one time:-)  but it was clean and felt safe, although we paid 100 euros a night for the room!
Finally we met my friend from Vancouver, Ian, for dinner. He had been living in Hong Kong for 1.5 years working at HSBC in a great international managers program. He took us to a nice Chinese restaurant, in an area we never would have found. It was great to see him and a familiar face in a new city. He gave us some good travel tips but had to get home early to work the next morning. So we went back to the hostel and crashed, since we had been awake since 4 am.

Day 7 - Hong Kong
We found breakfast at a French style café and then rode the metro out of the city to go to the Big Buddha at Ngong Ping. It took about 45 minutes to get out there and then we had to wait almost 1.5 hours in a line to buy tickets for the cable car. It was a very long wait, but at least we had shade and free wifi to pass the time. We chose to pay extra for three cable car with the glass bottom, so that we good a) get a better view and b) have a shorter queue as most people didn't want to pay extra for it. The ride was amazing as we journeyed 5.7km up and over the hills and sea. It was a fantastic view and I hope my photos turn out well. We got a view of the Big Buddha as we came to the end of the ride and into the town.
The town had a Starbucks, of course, lots of shops and restaurants, all super touristy. We walked through the town and then climbed the 268 stairs to the top. It was a huge Buddha statue made out of bronze (34m high), but it was only built in the 90s. Despite it being new, it was still amazing and offered great views.
Since we had to wait so long in line, we got back to HK later than we had planned. So we went straight on to the next activity, rather than ready at the hostel. So we went to HK island and rode the mid-level escalators all the way to the top. The escalators are the longest outdoor ones in the world, stretching 800 m and rising 135m. We went part way down by foot and walked around the SoHo district of shops and restaurants, mostly for westerners. We had some cocktails, then found dinner in a tiny Cantonese restaurant off the beaten path (Vbest Tea House). They didn't really speak English and it was only Chinese dining in there. We had a set menu with soup, noodles, veggies and coconut jelly dessert. After we went for drinks again just to see the neighborhood more. We took the metro back to the mainland and then walked to the Peninsula Hotel to check out their lobby. They let us in for a few moments but then realized we clearly weren't staying there and stated us down until we left. We collapsed at the hotel completely exhausted.

Day 8 - Hong Kong to Beijing
Today we wanted to fit in a few more things before we left the city behind. So we got up at a reasonable time and went to HK island. There we could check in st the main metro stain and drop our luggage off. This was a super awesome and free service and made it so much easier to see some more of the city.
So we walked out to catch one of the infamous double decker trams. It was amazingly only 2.3 Hong Kong dollars (20 euro cents) for three ride and we took it to the Bank of China building. There, we had Starbucks for breakfast (of course there was one in the building) and went up to the 43rd flour to see the view. It was nice, but we had already seem better views from the Peak.
After that we just headed to the airport on the airport Express and got on our flight. We had to wait on the runway quite a while before take off, but it wasn't too bad. I was sad to leave Hong Kong so soon, but was excited about Beijing and the real China.