We had an early start and arrived at the visa place for 8.30 to join the queue of sad looking foreigners trying to get in to china. Every place in hong kong is inside and air conditioned away from the humidy and the heat, everywhere except of course the chinese visa queue! This was outside in the scorching heat, enough to make you sweat standing still, lovely!
It opened at 9 and we went through an xray, had any food or water confiscated and then went up to the visa office, once there we filled out the 6 page form, asking for various addresses, phone numbers, insurance, previous trips etcetcetc, we followed the china rule of fill everything in, even if its not entirely accurate, leaving the address as 'ningbo university ningbo china' and putting my mobile into any unfilled phone number boxes seems to work, they dont really need the information but dont want any blank spaces!
After you fill out the visa you go to get a ticket and sit down to wait, luckily it only took 10 minutes or so for my number to call and i handed over all the documents and she checked them, accepted them, and that was it, come back tomorrow, cool. Chris also got his stuff in ok and then we had the rest of the day to kill.
First we went back to the hotel, dropped off all the documents and things we had brought but they didnt actually want, and then we had a day in hongkong!
First we went and had some breakfast, sweet bean juice (much tastier than it sounds) and some fried youtiao, also very nice, we surprised the waiter by ordering in chinese. After breakfast we went down and got the ferry over to kowloon on the other side from hongkong island, we had a look through chongqing mansions, a lot of middle eastern food and culture (and shady watches bags etc) and found online a computer shop.
The computer shop was up a tiny escalator from the street (one way, one person wide) and had no visible way down! we went in and up and found it like the crazy chinese markets but due to hongkongs lack of space, compressed down in size, cool! We looked around and visted all the floors, picking up a kindle case at last and a little travel router, very cute!
After the computer shop we walked down to the longest escaltor in the world! A free series of escaltors right up the side of the mountain on hongkong, we rode it for a bit before getting distracted by a place to buy beer! We stopped for a cold corona and watched the people walk past in the sun.
After the beer we investigated the antiques street and chris was very tempted by a sextant (???why??) but luckily didnt meet the 300gbp asking price!
On the escaltor we had seen a music shop offering lessons so chris went in now and asked about some lessons for the guzheng, an instrument he had for a long time, a traditional chinese instrument (played almost universally by women) that he wanted to learn.
He managed to get an hour today and an hour tomorrow for 40gbp so took it, and while he had his lesson i walked down to the docks to take some pictures as the sunset of the water and the famous star ferry line.
We met up again afterwards and i had found a surprise gift for chris, i had found a bottle of his favorite wine in the world (yellow tail) and had bought one (for more than 10gbp!) as a late birthday gift. We had heard that the roof of the ifc mall here had free seats and since it was now dark went and sat on the roof of the mall and chatted and drank our bottle of wine looking at the buildings and the lights on hongkong, very relaxing.
After a couple of hours (and no mosquito bites!!) we walked back to the hotel, stopping off (at 10.30pm by this time) to get some noodles from a backstreet noodle shop which was ok.
Another good day and if we can pickup the visa ok tomorrow a very successful day too!
Pictures are the tiny escalator to the computer market, and the present for chris!
It opened at 9 and we went through an xray, had any food or water confiscated and then went up to the visa office, once there we filled out the 6 page form, asking for various addresses, phone numbers, insurance, previous trips etcetcetc, we followed the china rule of fill everything in, even if its not entirely accurate, leaving the address as 'ningbo university ningbo china' and putting my mobile into any unfilled phone number boxes seems to work, they dont really need the information but dont want any blank spaces!
After you fill out the visa you go to get a ticket and sit down to wait, luckily it only took 10 minutes or so for my number to call and i handed over all the documents and she checked them, accepted them, and that was it, come back tomorrow, cool. Chris also got his stuff in ok and then we had the rest of the day to kill.
First we went back to the hotel, dropped off all the documents and things we had brought but they didnt actually want, and then we had a day in hongkong!
First we went and had some breakfast, sweet bean juice (much tastier than it sounds) and some fried youtiao, also very nice, we surprised the waiter by ordering in chinese. After breakfast we went down and got the ferry over to kowloon on the other side from hongkong island, we had a look through chongqing mansions, a lot of middle eastern food and culture (and shady watches bags etc) and found online a computer shop.
The computer shop was up a tiny escalator from the street (one way, one person wide) and had no visible way down! we went in and up and found it like the crazy chinese markets but due to hongkongs lack of space, compressed down in size, cool! We looked around and visted all the floors, picking up a kindle case at last and a little travel router, very cute!
After the computer shop we walked down to the longest escaltor in the world! A free series of escaltors right up the side of the mountain on hongkong, we rode it for a bit before getting distracted by a place to buy beer! We stopped for a cold corona and watched the people walk past in the sun.
After the beer we investigated the antiques street and chris was very tempted by a sextant (???why??) but luckily didnt meet the 300gbp asking price!
On the escaltor we had seen a music shop offering lessons so chris went in now and asked about some lessons for the guzheng, an instrument he had for a long time, a traditional chinese instrument (played almost universally by women) that he wanted to learn.
He managed to get an hour today and an hour tomorrow for 40gbp so took it, and while he had his lesson i walked down to the docks to take some pictures as the sunset of the water and the famous star ferry line.
We met up again afterwards and i had found a surprise gift for chris, i had found a bottle of his favorite wine in the world (yellow tail) and had bought one (for more than 10gbp!) as a late birthday gift. We had heard that the roof of the ifc mall here had free seats and since it was now dark went and sat on the roof of the mall and chatted and drank our bottle of wine looking at the buildings and the lights on hongkong, very relaxing.
After a couple of hours (and no mosquito bites!!) we walked back to the hotel, stopping off (at 10.30pm by this time) to get some noodles from a backstreet noodle shop which was ok.
Another good day and if we can pickup the visa ok tomorrow a very successful day too!
Pictures are the tiny escalator to the computer market, and the present for chris!
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