Well, I’ve already been home for about a month now, but I never got around finishing this little series of mine while I was in Hong Kong nor the days afterwards. So this is just going to become a short wrap-up of the last days. I’ll add photos to the post later on (I hope 🙂 ).
On the third day I took my trip to the New Territories of Hong Kong. They basically are now the suburbs of this vast city. There are about 3.5 million people living in this area. The name implies some sort of wildness, but as a matter of fact, it really is rather urban than a wild. Here also the poorer areas of Hong Kong can be found. The trip showed us some of the larger suburbs, as well as we came close to the border with Mainland China. There are also some very nice parks there and areas which we were told are being occupied by lots and lots of Hong Kong people on weekends for relaxation and BBQ. All in all, the tour was nice, but nothing very special, I had hoped for a little bit more, but as a matter of fact… well… it’s urban and no wildness.
Next day, Christine and her brother Andreas arrived in Hong Kong and over the next two days we discovered Hong Kong together, re-visiting some of the areas I’d already been and also strawing more into the smaller streets I had avoided while walking alone. We visited Temple Street’s Night Market and of course got a lot of souvenirs there.
The final highlight of my holidays was a trip to Macau, a neighbouring island of Hong Kong and also a Special Administrative Region of China, which means, it has the same self-administrative rights like Hong Kong for the next upcoming 41 years (it had been handed over to Mainland China in 1999). We got there by an one-hour speed-boat trip, for which we had to emigrate from Hong Kong, immigrate in Macau and vice-versa on our trip back. While Hong Kong was a colony of Great Britain, Macau was one of Portugal (so everything is written in Chinese and Portuguese, only little English). What’s interesting about Macau is the fact that it is the “Las Vegas of the East”, as casinos and gambling are legal there. And they have a larger market than Las Vegas. According to our tourist guide, there is about 4 times the revenue earned at the casinos of Macau than in Las Vegas! Besides the casinos, we found a factory outlet where we could buy cheap real brand cloth (no, not fake!).
The last day at Hong Kong we spent rather relaxed by visiting some places we liked again and walking through the history museum. We had to leave for the airport at around 4pm and I had to check-in about 4h early of Christine and Andreas, as I took a my trip home via Doha again.
Flight home was not as pleasant as the trip to Hong Kong as there were significantly more people on the plane and I hardly could sleep. Re-immigration to the European Union went without any problems… until I noticed after Customs that I had forgotten one of my bags in the luggage area… I had to get a special permit for re-entering and of course had to get through security again, which took some time, but I found my bag where I had expected and could finally return home to Austria without further problems.
To sum up my trip, I really liked the time in Hong Kong and it will of course become a valuable memory. I still liked getting home, though.