Day 13 - Hong Kong, Stanley Park and Victoria Peak

I arrived in Hong Kong around 2 pm. I didn't know until I arrived that HK airport is not on Hong Kong island. I ended up taking a $100 HK ($14) train ride to Hong Kong station on the MRT that took about 25 min. The first thing I noticed after arriving were all the high end, brand name stores all in one area. Think Yorkville and Bloor East times a hundred. It was insane and the amount of foreigners I saw all over the place that were working here. My cousins came to pick me up at Hong Kong station. It was nice to see family and familiar faces.

I stayed with them in an area called Repulse Bay. It is absolutely beautiful out here. I just thought of Hong Kong as being a concrete jungle with high rises and lights as far as the eye could see. I never thought of Hong Kong as being a tropical but it really is. The view from my window in Repulse bay was of the beach and the mountains. What an amazing sight to wake up to every morning.

I decided it was time to do a load of laundry and headed out to Stanley park to buy some clothes. Its about a 20 min scenic bus ride from Repulse Bay. Now this is where the cool technology comes in. There is this card called the Octopus that basically is like a prepaid debit card. You put money on it and then you can swipe it on the bus and it will deduct the full fare. You then swipe it again while leaving and if you trip costs less than the full fare because you get off before the last stop it debits money back onto the card! What a concept! The other brilliant thing is that you don't use this just for buses but you can use it for almost anything in the grocery stores, department stores etc. This really should be implemented in Toronto, SO easy to use.

Arriving at Stanley Park I ended up going to the 7-11 to pick up a sim card for my phone. It costs only 12 cents to call home. Only catch is the network is pretty sketchy and works only in central Hong Kong. But it's something for now. I also bought a pair of shorts and tank top for a total of $29.50. How ridiculous! I love it!

That evening I went to a mall in Kowloon bay called the Megabox simply because I was told I should see it. I got there and felt like I was in a video game. The mall is insane. It's 10 stories high and an indoor ice rink. The escalators were interesting. They had ones from floor to floor but they also had "express" escalators that skipped floors. Not to mention the large inanimate cartoon trees, mushrooms, animals and video game characters on each floor. So weird.

At night I went up to Victoria peak to take a look at the city at night. Everythin was lit up. Beautiful!