Thursday, September 20, 2007

Hong Kong (Day 0) - Travelling & Arriving

We didn't leave Okinawa until 7pm on Thursday. It was our first time using Okinawa's international terminal building (a small building right beside the main one). We flew via China Airlines (based in Taiwan) to Taipei (their hub) before continuing on to Hong Kong, arriving not long before midnight (GMT+8, our Okinawan body clocks indicating it was even later).

We cleared customs, exchanged currency (learning the hard way that you don't get a good rate in the Hong Kong airport), bought MTR (the very convenient subway train line system) passes, & called the guest house to announce our arrival & proximity. The efficient train system delivered at the Causeway Bay Station, only about 2 blocks from Alisan Guest House in the still-quite-alive-for-that-time-of-night district of Causeway Bay on Hong Kong Island.

After finding the entrance to the HoiTo Court building (not the easiest feat we accomplished; no signs were posted for the guest house itself), the staff (who had been indulging in late-night eats) found us & ushered us in. And introduced us to our home for 6 consecutive nights, a very cozy (small) & clean (very nearly brand-new) room. It was basically a studio flat with a small bathroom (a shower curtain would have been more familiar to us but we did fine without) & a kitchen area (sink, counter space & mini-fridge) separated (via sliding privacy-glassed doors) from the double bed (with drawers built in underneath) room that included a window A/C unit. It was nothing resembling any of the Chungking Mansions horror stories that I'd read about & it was actually quite a HK value for only HK&360=US$48 per night. Despite a much firmer than usual mattress, we got a very late-to-commence but pretty good first night's sleep!

** We do realize there are only 25 photos in this first album, but don't worry, we just wanted to start off "reasonable" before eventually hitting that "downright insane" number of photos that we inevitably will (if you know our camera happy selves at all)! ;-)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

You guys naver updated the blog.
I have been waiting for your upload for so so long.

Josh,you must be proffesional about animals.
You are right,it was not a beaver in my blog pic.
Your comment made me laugh.I thought some animal sientist left a comment .

Josh said...

I cannot deny that I'm an avid animal afficionado. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't have just made them my career instead of my hobby.

I think it's ok if you consider me an animal scientist! ;-) I won't argue with you about it.

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