Day started out with another packing-our-bags action, left the bags at the hostel, checked out and left to have breakfast. We had an interesting breakfast :) Basically we chose one combo that was available and as we saw around us something that the locals had as well. It consisted of 2 pieces of toast and one fried egg with little bit of ham which was ok and normal. Then there was a choice of coffee or tea. I got tea as I don't drink coffee - well the tea was some strange milky-reddish sour yukiness. Oh it was bad. And then the last thing was instant noodles in a bowl with broth and meat - it all created a soup like thingy. That noodle+meat soup seems to be a popular breakfast here. So strange :)
After breakfast we headed to explore the city. First we looked up the avenue of stars where they have hand prints of famous people inserted into the street. Of course those famous people were mostly Chinese names that we had never heard of before, but we had fun reading the strange sounding names (just look at the pictures and you will understand ;) ). The street itself was great of course, it was by water and there was a great view to Hong Kong island. We decided that we will come back here in the evening to look at the city in lights.
From stars avenue we took a ferry across the water to Hong Kong island. Morning was sunny and very hot, but by the time we got to the other side with the ferry (it was about 7-10 minute ride) it was raining :) Great thing was that we were able to walk across town without walking in the rain as all the walkways that are on the second level above the car streets have roofs :) Anyhoo, we made our way to the longest escalator in the world, it took us all the way up from Central to other side of SOHO. Escalator ride was not all in one piece though, there were some small bits every now and then that had to be made on foot. From start to finish the ride took about 20 minutes.
Having gone up by the escalator for 20 minutes we started to make our way down again. Tried to get to some churches, but they were closed. At some point we found ourselves in a park with crocodiles :) Came out that we had unknowingly entered into the zoological and botanical gardens of Hong Kong. It was this huge open park with animals and reptiles in natural environment (or course caged off) and also all kinds of plants and a green house and many fountains and play grounds and all that for free - whatta nice place this city is.
In the travel guide there is a suggestion to go and view the city from a bank tower's 43rd floor so we figure to do that. First we could not find the correct building, after some asking around we found the correct one and helped ourselves up to the 43th floor as said in the guide. Well the whole floor was empty, there were nice and big windows though so we just enjoyed the view as we were suppose to. The floor was all quiet and for a while we just stared out of the windows - view was great. It was so pretty there though - there were huuuge windows, then the ceiling and one big pillar was made of a mirror :D Riina could not get enough of standing in front of the mirror covered pillar as it made one look so skinny. So we started to take pictures. Uh oh :) We were just having fun clicking away. At some point I got an idea that we can just set a timer for the camera and set it to the floor and then look up to the ceiling and it would take a picture of us - they I would not have the camera in front of my face. Ok so we set the timer and set the camera on the floor, giggling like mad, and then stared at the ceiling our noses together. As we stared I got a feeling that somebody was looking at us, but I did not want to turn my head away as this would have ruined the picture. So there we stand with Riina staring at the window and all I can think about is that there is probably a security guard staring at us, ready to kick us out :) And I was totally right, as soon as the picture was taken we turned our heads and indeed it was a security guard staring at us :D Oh we escaped from there as fast as we could :) Oh we were laughing so hard for quite a while, we must have looked like the biggest weirdos staring at the ceiling noses together :D
Making our way closer to the water again we tried to go and see few art exhibitions at the art center. This turned out to be a failure - for the whole 14 floors we found only 2 small exhibitions :( We spent about an hour chilling in a park reading, then headed to the subway to find the night market. Got out of the subway station at the correct location and figured to make a little detour into a park. Only way we could find to get in there were some narrow stairs and lots of them, so up we go. Once we get to the top there is nothing more there than a sports field :( And on the map it looked like a nice big park. Allright, so we decide to get back down from the other side, only to find one angry guard there telling us to go back the same way we came. We were stuck :( At the end we ended up making a huuge circle to get to the night market. Night market was not all the way open yet and at that time was quite boring :(
While resting on the top of the hill we climbed I also tried my phones GPS receiver and different applications. Nutiteq did not work at all - didn't even get GPS location for me. Google maps got the location, but as there was no internet connection then I did not get a map. Built in Nokia maps worked like a charm (I had downloaded the maps previously - or Mart downloaded them for me).
Evening was spent at the stars avenue drinking hot chocolate, looking at the lit up city panorama and talking life philosophy with Riina :D This was good times :D
I just realized that half of my vacation is over :(
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