HONG KONG // DAY 1

My first official day exploring and seeing Hong Kong was definitely crazy.

First I need to correct my roommates name, its spelt Cheryl.

Today we spent the whole day in Hong Kong island, and wow let me tell you it was a huge day.

We woke up at 10:00am when we aimed to wake up at 9:00am (fail). We finally got out of the house by 10:45am and made our way out. Decided to stop by the egg waffle place for breakfast, but unfortunately, today was a public holiday due to the Dragon Boat Festival so we decided to just catch the train over to Hong Kong island and grab food at Stanley Beach. It took us forever to Stanley Beach. Firstly, catching MTR to Admirality Station wasn't that bad; finding bus number 6 took ages. By the time we found its station we waited for a good 30 mins before it arrived. Just as we thought our adventure was about to begin, we got kicked off the bus into the main bus station and was forced to line to up go back up on the bus again. How Hong Kong buses work, I have no idea... After we sat on the bus, we realised that we went in a small circle back to the same bus stop we were waiting at before. Pathetic. Never the less we continued our journey to Stanley Beach.

On our way to Stanley Beach, I started feeling really sick. Let me tell you my tolerance for motion sickness is pretty damn good, but oh my god I felt so sick on this bus I thought I was about to puke! The bus was driving so fast and so jolty! And because theres so many curves and swerves on the road I kept flying from one end of the bus to the other. On top of that there were so many people! We managed to find a seat about half way through the bus ride and I just pretty much sat and closed my eyes. It was also because I had nothing to eat.

Next minute, I lost my Octopus bus card. $300HK (about $40AUD) just disappeared just like that. I figured it fell out of my pocket when I was hunting for a seat... Someone must have picked it up and kept it. Great start for my first day in Hong Kong huh?

Regardless we made it to Stanley Beach and we managed to get free ice cream! Winning! We then headed to Stanley Market where there were lots of stalls selling cheap things. We ate at a local restaurant, which had a chinese name to it. I had wonton noodles (typical me). It had so much MSG Cheryl and I couldn't finish it. We had to drink a whole jug of water!

We further explored Stanley Market and then walked back to Stanley Beach and watched a very short dragon boat race.

We then caught two buses and did lots of walking to get to Happy Village which is famous for their horse races. Unlucky for us, they were closed so we weren't even allowed to walk in to take pictures! Well, at least we got to see the outside of it.

Something to add... on the bus, I saw an older mans balls, penis and pubic hair hanging out of his shorts!
MOST DISGUSTING THING EVER.

Caught another bus and a tram to Victoria Peak where we found out that it was pricey to catch the tram up to The Peak so we legitimately treked it all the way to this main road which is near Central Station just to catch a bus that goes up to The Peak. Once again, it took forever to find. Two lost girls just making it up on the spot.

I got to admit the walk and the multiple buses and the confusion of directions was worth it because when we got up there, the view was beautiful! One side you can see the mountains and the other side you can see the city. We stayed there till it got dark and ate some baked goods and bubble tea. We had good chats about traveling, our lives, careers etc etc...

After spending some romantic quality time together, we headed back down and catch a ferry back into Tsim Sha Tsui.

So many beautiful lights.

We wandered around town where all the big flash shopping malls were and then settled down for dim sim - yummy!

Over all it was a successful day. Even though it started out badly it ended amazingly and I had such a good time!

I swear to god we went round in circles so many times... we saw the same place about 5 times!

On another note, we lost two room mates but gained a new one! She's from Korea and she's only here for 4 days. She's a 25 year old recent graduate in design and she's working for some company where she gets to design phones I think.