After our third flight on Shanghai Airlines I just have to say, if you ever come to China I would strongly consider mixing in some flights to avoid the longer train rides. The trains are a good experience and all, but both Air China and Shanghai Airlines have been pretty comfortable and without incident. That and they are only 2hrs long as opposed to 20+. That's not to say that Aaron and Stephanie's warnings were without merit. On our last flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong I was reading a newspaper article about a flight that had to conduct an emergency landing due to turbulence, whcih included a 10 sec free fall. Pretty scary and I am sure if it happened to me I would not be recommending flying anytime soon.
As for us the flight was pretty uneventful. About the only thing of interest occurred before we left Shanghai. While waiting for our lunch order at Burger King one of the managers spilt a huge tub of grease all over the floor of the airport. It went all over and he almost bit it into the grease; sadly for us he kept his balance. In an effort to stop the spread they covered it with cardboard and then they started sweeping it with a broom and dust pan. In the meantime airport officials came running up and yelled at them about something and some cleaning guy showed up with a roll of paper towels and a squidgy. Not really sure what he thought he was going to do with that. After a few minutes of watching them sweep and squidgy the grease Chris noticed a small vent on the ground. Yup, a crap ton of grease was draining into the vents below. Once we were done we walked down stairs to get a drink and yup grease was draining down through the ceiling tiles. It smelled awful and was staining the wall, ceiling, and the carpet. Once we got our drinks we headed to the gate an boarded our flight for Hong Kong.
Safely on the ground here in Hong Kong we grabbed the Airport Express to Central station and then another train to our hostel at Fortress Hill on Hong Kong Island. The hostel really is not much to write home about.. in fact it is pretty much crap. It is in a regular apartment building and the rooms are dispersed amongst local residents. I guess if your going for the local apartment living experience then this place is for you. The door key is basically a card that fits in the door handle, which then allows you to turn it open. It is kind of hard to explain, but really does not seem all that secure. The room is pretty spartan, two bunk beds, a small bathroom with smoked glass doors (you sill see what I mean in the pictures), and a small AC unit. The whole room might be 10ft by 6.5ft since laying in bed I nearly stretch from one side of the room to the other.
Once we tossed our stuff in the room we headed for Causeway Bay in search of an internet cafe and dinner. The hostel has a computer, but there is a 10 min limit and there is always a line. We walked around the area for a good hour looking and then just gave up to our hunger pains. Since nothing else really materialized we settled on Pizza Hut for the second time in as many days. We were both hungry and since it is considered fine Italian dinning around here we had to check it out. No lie, the place has about 20 waiters running around all dressed up, serving you from trays, refilling waters, etc etc, It is honestly hilarious that Pizza Hut is considered a nice place to eat and just not some guy who delivers a pizza to your house. After another pepperoni pizza we hit the pavement again in search of the internet. We must have walked around the whole area without finding a damn thing. After asking a few people who had no idea where one was (maybe they had no clue what we were asking) we gave up and headed back to the hostel. By 9:30 we were in bed and with nothing better than a single english channel showing Ugly Betty we decided to call it a night.
We got up this morning pretty late and watched each other shower through the smoked glass bathroom doors (I won't say what else you get to watch each other do.. just use your imagination). The hot water was boiling hot and came from a small water heater in the shower. The good news is it was hot as crap. The bad news is it lasted about 5 min before it started to run out. Once we were cleaned up we headed upstairs to our front desk to ask them about internet cafes. Between her blank stairs and her reply that there aren't any around the hostel I deduced she would be of no help to us at all so we just left. The plan for the day was not really set in stone. Honestly about all it really included was finding the internet. We headed out to Central station to look around on the Hong Kong side of the island. We walked around for awhile.. maybe 40 min and then just decided to grab lunch. During lunch we debated the peak tram up to 5 the overlook of Hong Kong, but were advised by a local to check it out before hand because it was raining and usually that meant is was too overcast to see anything. He recommended we go to the observation deck in the Bank of China building and something else that eludes me at the moment. Since the mountain looked pretty socked in we elected to check out a nearby toy museum (recommended by lonely planet) and then went to the observation deck instead of paying for the 5 dollar train ride to the top of a fogged in mountain. The toy museum was complete crap. Honestly 90 percent of the things recommended in the Lonely Planet Hong Kong guide book is crap. We then walked over to the Bank of China and went up to the observation deck. It was cool, but did not take up much of our time so we found ourselves looking for more to do. Honestly, Hong Kong Island is pretty much what you would expect of any major city, short on sites, full of high rises and shopping.
With nothing left to do on the Hong Kong Island side we headed to Kowloon to walk around.. still in search of the internet. We thought we had a lock on an internet cafe that appeared on one of the guide book maps, but it ended up just having wireless and no computers. Dejected and tired of walking we stopped of at McDonalds to have a drink and get out of the heat. By now it was about 4pm and we had been looking for 6 hrs. We left out of there and on a whim headed for something called computer city a few blocks a way, thining at the very least they might know where to find the internet. It was still hot and humid and we were both about to give up when at the very last second Chris spotted a sign for a gaming and internet bar. It was not easy to get to, but we finally arrived relieved that we could finally sit and rest after our long search. Sadly for us the place was ruined by construction and a bunch of asian kids playing some shooting game with the sound turned all the way up and screaming as they killed each other. Unable to stand it any longer, we gave up and left our long sought after internet for quiter activities. Still a little worn out we took in a movie at a nearby theater (for those interested we saw Hancock). It was pretty comfortable and a nice distraction from walking around the city all day.
From there we followed the guide books advice and watch the "Symphony of Lights" on the harbor. It pretty much looked and sounded like the Disney light parade just with buildings instead of floats. Feeling pretty hungry we grabbed dinner at an Australian Jazz bar with a live Jazz band... who new Jazz, Hong Kong, and Australia finally getting together.
That about wraps it up for today. Hopefully we will be able to upload all of our pictures to flickr sometime tomorrow. As of now it seems like it will be a pretty slow day other than a possible trip to Hong Kong Disney.
