Being our last day in mainland China, we had all morning to ourselves. It was the first day so far we didn’t have to wake up early for an excursion or a flight, so we had a wonderful lie in for once.
Around 8:40 we went down to breakfast, our last included meal on this trip. After this, we're on our own. While waiting for the lift we saw out the window that they were doing heavy construction behind the hotel. This made our lovely view of the lake all the more precious, since everyone across the corridor had to look at a building site.
We spent quite a lot of time at breakfast, grateful that it was not crowded this morning. We also needed the meal to last us most of the day so we took it slow and steady. We returned to our room with a good two hours to spare. We rested a bit more, then proceeded to repack our stuff, as checkout was promptly at noon. We ended up running a bit late but still took a hurried photo of us on our lovely balcony.
At 5 minutes to noon, Kelly realized she couldn’t find the airplane tickets, or the passports for that matter. Christian ran down to check out whilst Kelly panicked and turned the room upside down. Luckily, the necessary documents were found in a pocket in Christian's suitcase.
We proceeded downstairs and left our luggage with the hotel staff in the lobby, as our guide wouldn’t be picking us up till 3pm. We then went out to explore the beautiful lake across the street.
The day was absolutely ideal, although quite swelteringly hot. There was a path that encircled the lake, where many local Chinese passed away the summer afternoon. Along the path were little pig shaped benches, with the occasional pagoda as well.
We walked over a white marble bridge in the shape of a perfect bell curve, past a zig zag pathway going over the water to a lakeside restaurant (zig zag because Chinese believe big ghosts can only walk in straight lines. The small ones can't jump - hence the high step-over into most old buildings).
We ventured off the path long enough to find a little convenience store, where we bought 3 bottles of cold drinks for 9 yuan total.
While walking we saw a beautiful little girl of about 5 with adorable pig-tails in a tiny motor boat with her father. Christian tried everything to get a good photo of her, but she became shy when she saw us on the bridge.
Once we had circumnavigated the lake, we realized that the other side was a completely dead end. We were 20 feet from our hotel but totally blocked by the lake, so we headed back around again.
By this time it was incredibly hot and so we went back to the hotel to recoup. While there, we purchased a few necessities and played around with the camera, filming ourselves being silly. There was a cleaning attendant we both really liked; a 30 something woman of about 4 foot 3. We watched her while she quickly and efficiently cleaned up EVERYTHING, down to picking up dust with little silver tongs and putting it in her basket. She was always ready with a smile and a 'Good Afternoon' throughout our stay, so we offered her 5 yuan, for no real reason. She became flustered and tried to refuse, but we insisted and she rewarded us with a lovely smile.
John arrived around 2:50, and our driver a few minutes after that. It was a new driver this time, apparently Mr. Long had had technical difficulties with his van.
The trip to Guilin's Liang Jiang International Airport took about 45 minutes. John obtained the necessary forms we needed to fill out to depart China. We left John with a fat tip, and proceeded to check in. Our luggage was 3 kilos overweight, but thankfully the check-in assistant let us go through without paying a penalty this time. We were two rather than eight because Kelly was carrying the excess weight in a groovy Nike gym bag she bought in Xi'an for 50 yuan.
We passed through customs without incident, although as usual Christian set off the security alarm and had to be physically searched, much to his delight by a cute female attendant.
The boarding area was pretty sparsely populated when we arrived, but started to fill up quickly, and at 5:05pm we boarded China Southern Airlines flight CZ3031. Much to our amusement, when they announced boarding, the western tourists all formed a neat line, and the Chinese just got into the line where ever it suited them.
We were seated in 10A and 10B, which was supposed to be a window and middle, but much to our dismay there was no window there, but a blank wall. A brief word by Kelly with the flight attendant had us moved to the very first row, with a great deal more legroom and the desired window view for Christian. One of the attendants sat next to Kelly for take off, and in true Chinese style, didn’t wear his seatbelt.
Not expecting a meal, they gave us some bread and marble cake for the brief 45 minute flight, and Christian received a free beer as well. Now on carb overload, we headed Southeast, descended through the clouds and the next thing we saw was the sea.
Hong Kong airports runway juts out into the water, so we flew alongside fishing boats in our descent and before we knew it were touching down. Disembarking was easy and the new airport at Hong Kong gently guided us to our bags and out onto the vast concourse. Hmmm. No smiling rep with our names spelt incorrectly on a board. We waited. And waited. And waited some more. Kelly quickly visited the restroom and noticed Western style facilities. No Hole! God Save the Queen.
Realising there were 2 arrivals halls we trekked the 15 miles to the other end - to find.... No rep waiting for us. Kelly eventually spotted 'TourEast' in 1 inch high letters on a board - we went over to speak to the man disinterestedly gazing into space. He leafed through his voluminous list of names slowly. Oh so slowly. Then another lost passenger sidled up. Suddenly Mr Disinterested is leafing through the list of names looking for the newcomer. Then he asked Kelly for the front page of our itinerary... Which he immediately put down and then started writing something down for the other guy. Then he asked us something. Then back to the other guy. Then back to us. The three of us played poor-multitasking-tennis for a further 5 minutes, seemingly getting nowhere. Then, suddenly, we're all following him into a remote corner of the airport. Ten more minutes and we're wearing coloured stickers and being pointed to a lift down to the bus departure area. We emerged from the lift into what can only be described as bedlam meets a chimp's tea-party. One Chinese woman is shouting at newcomers to sit in seemingly arbitrary places. Other men are barking hotel names and destinations in broken English - broken in fact to the point of being Chinese. We sit. We wait. Our hotel name is shouted out. Kelly jumps up - no - that was the Sheraton. Yeah - sounds just like the Excelsior. We're told 8:30pm. Sure enough - we're on our bus - at 8:50. We were initially struck by just how...familiar everything was. The white/yellow license plates, the blue street signs, driving on the left, all just like home. 99 years of English Democracy made for a very Anglo-centric experience here in the heart of the East. The drive through the outskirts of Hong Kong in our ancient, rattly old bus was somewhat surreal - then we see the city. Or so it seemed. Mile after mile of soaring interestingly shaped towerbocks all lit from within. We were wrong. In the distance a bridge came into view - and just kept coming. An immense suspension bridge... no... 3 suspension bridges. No... That's 3 - all joined together. We traversed what is apparently the longest suspension bridge in the World for what seemed an age - and then Kowloon came into view. Nothing quite prepares you for the sight of a famous skyline in the flesh. The rest of our ride took us past more and more towerblocks - through Kowloon and onto Hong Kong Island. We stopped at several plush hotels - ours was last.
The Excelsior sits right on Causeway Bay, and we were promptly escorted up to our room; our luggage shortly followed.
We had a deluxe room with a vast view of Victoria Bay and the city across it. No view of the famous skyline, however, as we are actually part of it.
We couldn’t stay in our room for more than 5 minutes, knowing the city was waiting for us. We walked out of the lobby and past the World Trade Centre (its a big mall) into Sogo and Yee Wo Street.
Having absolutely no local currency, we stopped in a Bank of China branch to use the ATM machine. A quick balance check showed we had six figures in the bank all of a sudden. What a delightful surprise! We took out HK$1500, having no idea how much that was. Assuming an exchange rate of HK$13.55 per £1.00 (that was the exchange rate at the airport), it is about £110.00. To our delight, we were to discover that the handover back to China in the late 90's would work to our financial favor, since the weakening Hong Kong Dollar compared to the burgeoning pound gave us an edge when buying anything.
Hunger was our prime motivator at this point - almost everywhere we looked were sights (and smells) we'd never encountered before. Unfortunately - all the interesting (and seemingly cheap) places were only marked up in Chinese. We walked on - the challenge now was a good cheap meal (economy is ALWAYS a driving factor - Kelly can't resist). We came across a Japanese place - the prices looked in our ballpark and the dishes intriguing. We headed in and ordered beef and rice and a chicken dish with drinks - $4 US. One fantastic meal later we were filled and ready to explore. We walked around soaking in the crowds, lights and, well, just sheer nice safe Englishness of things. The street markets started to close at around 11pm - we headed back to the hotel - hot, weary but happy.
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