Marcus dropped us off at Tullamarine airport at 07:00 am giving us plenty of time to ready ourselves for the 10:40 flight to Hong Kong. Being so early inevitably led to a touch of irony. As fate would have it our flight was delayed by an hour due to the late-arrival of the plane from its previous destination.
We finally got away at 11:30 and had a pleasant and uneventful 10 hour flight through to Hong Kong. The Qantas Airbus A330 was a quite old and showed copious signs of hard wear and tear and the quality of the meals indicated budget savings were a top priority.
On arrival at Hong Kong we managed to get through customs/immigration fairly quickly and were then met by Bobbie (Robyn Gregory) who has been living and teaching in Hong Kong for nearly nine years. We caught the airport express train through to Kowloon station and then taxied to her apartment which which is on the 29th floor of Harbourview Horizons overlooking Hong Kong harbour. The evening scene across to Hong Kong Island is enhanced by a spectacular light show with many of the sky-scrapers illuminated and pulsing with multi-coloured LEDs.
We sat up till late and chatted over wine and G&Ts until we realised that we’d been awake for nearly 20 hours and needed sleep.
In the morning we had an early breakfast and then walked around the Kowloon waterfront to the Star Ferry Terminal where we caught the ferry across to Central on Hong Kong Island.
View from Robyn Gregory's apartment, Kowloon
We then caught another ferry to Yung Shue Wan on Lamma Island which is half an hour or so by ferry south west of Hong Kong. On Lamma Island we did a five kilometre walk around to a fishing harbour called Sok Kwu Wan where we had a pleasant lunch in a fish restaurant on the waterfront. The walking conditions were pretty hot and humid so some cold beers provided a well deserved supplement to the seafood luncheon.
We then caught the ferry back to Kowloon via Ape Lei Chau Island which is the second most densely populated island in the world with 66,755 people per square kilometre. The incredible number of 30 plus storey buildings jammed into such a tight formation is mind boggling.
Ape Lei Chau Island
On arrival back at the Star Ferry terminal at Kowloon we strolled back once again around the waterfront and when back at Bobbie’s unit we had cool showers prior to relaxing over some more cold drinks. The day’s temperature maximum was 32°C and 76% humidity which gave us justification for G&Ts.
Night time view from Bobbie's apartment, Kowloon, Hong Kong