An awkward length of layover. 2 - 3 hours, no question - you stay in the airport and wait. 12 hours or more, you probably want to get accommodation and do something fun. So what can you do with 6 hours?
Some of my more conservative influences told me i was crazy to consider a trip into the city with only 6 hours between my flights, but I figured I've never been here before, and it could be years before I come back, so there was no way I was wasting the time in the terminal.
Getting to the city couldn't be easier - a train runs right from the terminal every 10 minutes or so, and costs 115 Hong Kong dollars; to convert to pounds sterling is approximately 1/10. Good value in my opinion.
On this occasion I didn't really do my homework to see what the best options are, and I relished the experience of stepping off the train into a massive, confusing city, with no game plan whatsoever. This kind of adventure comes along so rarely, but is absolutely the most engaging and rewarding part of life. I did have a few rough goals in mind, despite having no idea how to achieve them.
Like an idiot, I left the train station and started walking down the pavement (idiot!).
I twigged pretty quickly I was missing a trick, when I realised I'd walked 2 blocks and not really seen another person. In one of the worlds most densely populated cities.
Lesson one; everyone walks on elevated platforms which seem to run all accross the city!
I got myself up onto one of these platforms, and followed it in a general downhill direction until I was right in the harbour. As good a place as any to get a snap of the city....
A tricky challenge. I basically set off walking roughly uphill & away from the harbour, and it was great!! I'm the sort of person who can be completely engrossed by walking down any street in a strange city, and just sucking up all the really tiny details which differentiate the place, but which most folks may not even notice. Too much great stuff to put here, but a couple of really memorable hours for me. And then I found it....
There's a bloody great zoo right in the middle of the city! It's free to enter, more like a park I suppose, and because it was about 8 in the morning absolutly no one else but me, a couple of joggers, and the zookeepers were there. The city itself is basically a rain forest on the side of a mountain, which makes me think the animals must be relatively happy (despite their incarceration). I spent a half hour or so hanging out with the apes and leemurs etc., getting those valuable photos for all the folks who need a 'thing' to focus on, to justify why the day was good.
Here's me struggling terribly with the humidity, in front of some orang-utans!!
This one was unbelievably easy, but so satisfying!! I took a wander down one of the really obscure looking back lanes where the hawkers hang out. I actually got some really nice Chinese silk for my Mrs from one of them, but that's not the story. Behind the hawkers was a little dumpling place, really unassuming with perhaps only 4 or 5 seats, and no customers. They did me an order of their signature chicken & prawn steamed dumpling from scratch while I waited. Total cost, about 3 bucks sterling. Amazing!!
So there you have it. 6 hours available, 4 consumed pretty well by dipping my toe into a new city, and leaving with a few stories to tell. Loads of time left to take the fast train back to the airport where i can enjoy a couple of overpriced beers and write up this story :)
Thanks Hong Kong - I hope I get to see you again soon xx
