Day 3 in Hong Kong and it has been the warmest yet! It was 25 degrees at 9am this morning and although I had nowhere to check it from I think it was the hottest day so far so it must of been at least 28 degrees by lunch time. It was really cloudy again this morning but there were blue skies by the afternoon, apart from over the harbour where it constantly looks overcast!
This morning I did the Big bus tour round Kowloon which took roughly about an hour. I got off at the promenade and had lunch at one of the restaurants there out on the terrace with the view over the harbour. There is a big strip of restaurants along here so I made a note to come back and try a different one for dinner. After lunch I took a stroll along the promenade and the “avenue of the stars” which is lot’s of star shapes with hand prints in with lot’s of Chinese names of people I have never heard of. I walked all the way to the star ferry and took that over to Hong Kong Island and then jumped onto the big bus tour to take me to the Hong Kong zoological and Botanical gardens.
I got to the gardens which was on a hillside and sort of an island surrounded by a bypass. The map made it look huge but I had walked round a third of it in 10 minutes so I quickly realised this wasn’t going to take that long. The botanical gardens were on one side of the park and as far as I saw the only water there was, was a big fountain in the centre, not really what I was expecting. To be honest it was a lot more like a walk round your local park, there weren’t any flower displays as there were in Beijing and shanghai. On the other side of the park there were the zoological gardens with lot’s of different monkeys, gibbons and even 3 orang-utans! There was a pond filled with lots of frogs and I took a picture then got a bit freaked out that there was nothing stopping the frogs from jumping out of the pond. Now some people may say I have an irrational fear of frogs, but you weren’t there the day my cat brought one into the house and it was jumping towards me and squeaking and well, thats a story for another day. The point is it freaked me out and I had to get away from the pond.
The next attraction was the reptile house, which consisted of two crocodiles and a python so I don’t think you could really class that as a big collection, but then near the visitor centre there were twin baby orang-utans in a nursery and they were adorable! There was also an aviary but my personal opinion on that is that birds are boring so I headed towards the exit.
Now according to my lonely planet guide (which has been like my bible while I have been here) Hong Kong park was just around the corner. Now seen as this was on my list of places I wanted to see I started wandering in that direction. It was a lot further than I was expecting, in the boiling heat! I finally got there and there was a huge fountain in the entrance way to the park so I had my photo taken in there which cooled me down a bit. Hong Kong park is what I was sort of expecting the botanical gardens to be like with gorgeous water features including a waterfall which you could walk behind. After wandering round Hong Kong park for a while, I stopped at the cafe for a drink and to have a look in my guide book for where I wanted to go next as it was only 3.30pm. I remembered I still had a voucher for a boat tour of Victoria harbour so I headed towards central pier to do just that.
It was good timing actually because the tours were every hour and I had made it in time for the next tour with ten minutes to spare. The tour went along Hong Kong island and then across to Kowloon which was where I got off, it was pleasant but a bit windy and still looked really grey across the harbour which was a shame as I wanted to try and get some good pictures. There was a sound system playing a commentary but I couldn’t tell you what it said as a child was shouting over it about not being allowed any more ice cream!
I walked back along the Kowloon promenade and found a few restaurants that looked good, the prices were a bit steep though so I settled for another one that looked just as nice that sold something called the Hong Kong special which was a bit like chili con carne but a bit spicier and left my lips tingling for ages afterwards. I sat outside and just watched the sunset over the harbour which was nice until the people on the table started smoking and the wind made it so I got a face full of smoke so I decided to leave and head back towards the hostel.
Here are the rest of the pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/78649657@N03/sets/72157629365934676/
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