Some would say that Hong Kong isn’t separate from China. The Chinese government surely would say that. I still feel that it’s different, although the clock is ticking on that. Regardless, we arrived in Hong Kong via the overnight train from Hong Kong.
Right outside the station, there were a bunch of posters describing what the Chinese government had done to the Falun Gong and how they were being persecuted. I was curious, so I read the posters for a bit. Some older guy wearing a billboard on his chest and back approached me and gave me a pamphlet. I was kind of surprised to discover that the pamphlet was the opposite of what the signs said. His version stated that the Falun Gong were basically terrorists, and it explained why the Chinese government had to bring them under control for the security of everyone. I was a little taken aback at how there was basically this information war right in front of the train station. After some cursory reading online, it does seem that the Falun Gong are the victims, so I am left wondering who that guy was? Was he working for the Chinese government to spread their version of the truth?
Anyway, we kept walking onward farther into downtown. We had found a couchsurfing host, but he was at work when we arrived, so we walked around for a bit. But with the heat and humidity, we ultimately decided to just chill at a park while we waited for him to finish work.
He met up with us, and he showed us downtown a bit.
Temple Street Night Market gate
After that, we went to his place.
We didn’t actually end up doing that much in Hong Kong, unfortunately. I wanted to send some stuff back home, so we had to find a post office and get that sorted. There were a couple of other things that we needed to buy as well, so we did do some shopping and errands the first day. Other than the towering skyscrapers and the hundreds of shops and malls, we didn’t find that much to do.
On our 3rd day there, we wanted to hike up a mountain on the north side of downtown called Lion Rock Head. It rained all morning, and once the rain finally let off, we started going to the mountain. But then it started raining again. We waited that out under some shelter and resumed our journey only to have it rain yet again. We gave up.
I was pretty lucky in Africa as I happened to be entering countries right as their raining season had ended, or I left right before the season was starting. It seems, however, that I am heading into SE Asia right as the rainy season starts for most countries. Time would tell how that pans out.
Looking over the water to Hong Kong island
We didn’t see much in Hong Kong. I would have liked to see some of the hills and maybe to have gone camping, but I feel that it would have been more for the novelty factor, as I had several places with amazing nature planned. I also wanted to go to the Hong Kong island and walk around, but when we were thinking of doing it, it was raining.
One of the more interesting street names I’ve found
I really liked this picture. I just feel the buildings created this very foreboding presence, like a bunch of adults staring down at a child.
I thought the street lamps kind of looked like glasses of beer
We then decided to fly to the Philippines. We left early in the morning to get to the airport. We went to the check-in counter, and we were then informed that the airline would not issue us our tickets if we did not have an exit flight booked out of the Philippines since immigration requires that. We had left plenty of time to check in and drop our bags off, but having to book an exit flight was not part of the plan. I pulled out my phone, and thankfully the airport had free Wi-Fi. We hastily booked tickets out of Manila for a few weeks later. Unfortunately, since I booked it through trip.com and not directly with the airline, the booking was not yet confirmed with the airline. Trip would forward the request to the airline, and I would later receive the actual confirmation. The Cebu Pacific attendant was being rather pedantic and snobby, and even though I booked a flight and had paid with my credit card, she would absolutely not give us our tickets until I received the actual confirmation, meaning that trip.com had heard from the airline. Incredibly frustrating, but there wasn’t much we could do other than wait until we got confirmation. I thought it was overkill because a lot of people use Trip without any issues of not actually getting their ticket, but she wouldn’t budge. I sat there frantically refreshing my email, and only about 2 minutes before she had informed us that the check-in counter would close, I got the confirmation. We checked in, and I needed to check in my backpack since it was so big and had some items not permitted as a carry-on. I had to pay 330 HGD to check my bag, which is about 42 USD. Predatory tactics from Cebu Pacific. I also place part of the blame here on trip.com since they never once mentioned while I was booking that there were additional baggage fees from the airline. It was only once I had booked my ticket that I noticed that it said that there was no baggage allowance and that I’d have to pay additional.
These discount airlines really do annoy me because they do BS like this. Additionally, in the future, I think I’ll avoid using trip.com for flights where I will need to check a bag because they don’t seem to display that info while booking. When a flight is 100 USD, it looks cheaper than the alternatives, but maybe the $120 flight will be cheaper than the actual 100+42 flight after the baggage check.
The attendant wouldn’t accept credit card payment, and the nearest atm was the end of the terminal, she informed me. I thankfully had some USD on me, so I jumped over to the nearby currency exchange and got the HKD I needed. I coughed up the dough, and we then rushed through security. By that time, there were only 40 minutes left before the flight left, and we still had to get through immigration and then make it to our gate, which was 210.
I managed to make it through immigration really quick since I just scanned my passport, and it let me through. Puujee’s Mongolian passport doesn’t have that RFID tag in it, and she had to wait in line for a person to actually check her passport. From there, we ran to the subway, which would take us closer to our gate. We managed to get through the door, and they closed up right behind us. Right in the nick of time!
I have heard of some countries “requiring” an exit flight, but this was the first time in my life that I was actively pushed on the matter. We almost missed our flight due to this. I found out that one can book a flight with expedia.com and select one of the options that allow free cancellation within 24 hours. So just book that right before going to the place and cancel as soon as you get through immigration in the other country. That could be tricky for long-distance flights, though. This website has a few other tips on getting around this requirement in countries like The Philippines, Indonesia, the USA, the UK, New Zealand, Peru, and Brazil, among other countries.
Returning the topic to Hong Kong, I liked it. I mean, it’s just a big city with towering skyscrapers, but it did have a neat atmosphere to it. I don’t really think I will go out of my way to visit again, but if I do happen to be passing through, I might try to take another few days to explore some of the surrounding areas outside of downtown that the rain prevented us from seeing this time. I might also try to make it to Macau since we decided we didn’t have enough time to visit there while we were in Hong Kong. I hope Hong Kong retains its independence as long as possible. I fear what it will be like for them when they are fully under Chinese control.