Hongkong - Final Day

And then, suddenly, almost unexpectedly, the final day arrived :-(

I'm not able to describe the way Hongkong is in my heart, it surely felt like a home. So the departure felt like leaving for a vacation....

We spent the day walking around TST a final time, then some more hours in the hotel spa and pool. Eventually we took the shuttle bus to Kowloon station, enjoyed the easiness of the in-town check-in and had a last meal in one of the restaurants inside the Elements mall. It was a Thai/Vietnamese bistro and the taste of the dishes was simply great, a perfect farewell dinner.

We had some braised lamb...

...some Thai-style milk tea and...

...braised beef with 5-spices and basil, perfectly tender.

Even the HK airport is as entertaining as a airport gets, unfortunately we had to avoid most of the shopping opportunities in order to reach the gate on time.

Then there it was, the A380. My first flight with this mega-jumbo. Leg room was rather tight, though. 

Technically it was already the next day when we reached London airport for a stopover, but to close the whole HK story, here is the information that I had Eggs Benedict for breakfast before continuing to Berlin.

Hongkong - Day 56

Finally the sun was back on this day. First thing in the morning was to jump on an island ferry :-)

After some hops we came to Silvermine Beach where we discovered this little fellow in the sand:

Later a perfect sunset crowned this perfect beautiful day.

Hongkong - Day 55

Weather today was once more grey and cloudy. Anyway we went for more sightseeing. This time it was the famous Tian Tian Buddha on Lantau Island.

It was rather empty compared to other days, so we climbed up the many steps.

It is surrounded by six smaller statues, the Six Devas, here are two of them:

Across the monastery, which is a huge construction yard at the moment, we walked to the Wisdom Path. 

The wisdom path follows several wooden posts with inscriptions I wasn't able to decipher. It looked like wisdoms :-) However, the last and most elevated post contained no inscription, it was empty.

After some hard thinking about this fact I felt that I understand the message..and suddenly the sun came out for a couple of minutes, my personal 'enlightenment' :-) 

Back down we came across some animals... 

...like this beetle on a tea plant leaf.

Later, after the ferry ride back to TST I took some more night shots of the HK island waterfront with Wan Chai and Causeway Bay, the area where I lived and had such a good time. 

For dinner we went to a HK cuisine restaurant right next to the hotel. We had a meat platter... 

...Hainanese style chicken...

..with steamed salad and oyster sauce...

...and a lamb pot which was supposed to be cooked right on the table, which is strained my patience a bit since I was really hungry. It was good, though it contained several parts of the lamb which I wouldn't have ordered if I had the choice :-)

Hongkong - Day 54

It was Wednesday. In Hongkong that means horse race day at Happy Valley. So I took the ferry to Wan Chai (it always starts with "...I took the ferry..":-)

This time I sat in the upper deck front compartment, which is usually air-conditioned. Since the weather wasn't that nice the air-condition was off and the windows open..

First I went to pay a visit to the apartment building I spent the first 7 weeks in. I lived in the 19th floor of this building, overlooking the harbour.

After a stroll through 'my' old neighborhood Causeway Bay I met the others at the race course. It was a great evening again, we watched all of the races.

It wasn't as crowded as during the Oktoberfest event, but still very lively.

After a taxi ride home to the Kowloon side I had a late evening beer out of the complimentary mini-bar, watching the HK island waterfront lights and getting sad at the thought of leaving all this behind soon...

Hongkong - Day 53

It was still cloudy, didn't make many pictures. We went to see a couple of parks and the buddhist Chi Lin Nunnery once more.

Hongkong - Day 52

Bad weather today, cloudy and windy once more. So picture-taking wasn't fun. Here a couple of post-processed pictures from a walk around Victoria Peak.

Hongkong - Day 51

Just one pic today: mussels in black bean chili sauce as one dish of the seafood dinner at Temple Street Night Market. 

Hongkong - Day 50

Saturday was hotel-change-day. After this we wanted to get some fresh air and took the ferry to Mui Wo on Lantau to have a beer next to the ferry pier.

Weather was cloudy and windy.

On the way a speed ferry from Macau came along...

..as well as a container ship from Hamburg.

Then, in Mui Wo in front of the bar there was the finish line of a sport event. After some internet research I found out that it was the Salomon LT 70, a trail run along the Lantau Trail. 

Congratulations to the finishers for this awesome run!!

Later another time light-show-watching from TST waterfront promenade.

Hongkong - Day 49

I nearly missed to mention that the last post was the 500th post of this blog...unbelievable!!!!! How may hours of my life could have been used much better than in front of the computer trying to upload pictures??? :-)

Nevertheless one more day to report: a trip to the southern side of HK island. After a hike to Aberdeen and a bus ride along the coast to Stanley we had to admit, that Stanley is as tourist trap as everybody told us. Don't go to Stanley!

I stayed away from the Market but ran into as many Germans as in the whole 7 weeks before in total. For a drink we had the choice between Starbucks and McDonalds, do I have to say more? We went into McDonalds because of the nice looking coffee...

The bay was nice, though.

The Stanley pier was moved from Central..looked rather artificial here..as everything else..best thing was the weather.. 

Hongkong - Day 48

Last day in Causeway Bay before moving to Tsim Sha Tsui. We went for a cruise on the old tram, driving through Hongkong Island for hours for just a couple of cents...

Then back to Causeway Bay. It was only Thursday, still crowded...

Then dinner in The Dining Room, Shanghai cuisine. Signature dish are the pan-fried pork-filled buns...delicious. They come with a sweet-sour sauce made with rice-wine, very typical for this Shanghai-style.

The fried rice with veggies and some beef and bean curd is supposedly also very typical...according to the menu :-) Very good, anyway!

The restaurant is famous for it's dessert platter, which we tried Mango and green tea pudding and some sweet dim sum pieces, yummy!

Later a last stroll on the Wan Chai promenade in front of the conference center.

A helicopter happened to be in the area, very hard to take a picture in the low light...the Star Ferry starts for TST in the background..