So we woke up in the morning and caught a quick cab to Changi Airport, rated #1 in the world last year. We have visited 4 of the best airports in the world on our trip already, although I think from here it will head downhill. For me, the quality of the airport is determined about 90% by whether or not they have free internet. This makes HK, Kensai/Osaka, and Phoenix great airports, while Singapore and LAX bad airports. So our flight was great between Singapore and HK. It was about 3.5 hours and featured cheese ravioli as the meal with HaggenDazs (however that's spelled) vanilla ice cream as the desert. The ice cream was totally frozen solid but that didn't deter me. I attempted to dig right in and proceeded to fling my ice cream 3 feet into my shirt. Thankfully it was so frozen it didn't leave a mark.
After landing in HK we took the Airport Express train to Central and hailed a cab to go to our hostel. Our hostel is the only one on HK Island and was described as remote but that didn't begin to explain it. It is near the top of Mount Davis at the west end of the island and a near impossiblity to get to without a vehicle. Taxis are about $8US to get there so that was our plan anytime going home or a 40-minute hike up a steep trail full of switch-backs. The hostel itself was very bare-bones as our room had two bunk beds and that was it besides the wonderful A/C. We do have a great view off the west end of HK Island so I took a nice picture of the sunset and boats on Wednesday. When Mackenzie arrived she said it seemed more like a jungle military camp and that we were in North Korea than a hostel in Hong Kong.
After setting up shop in our room we got the hostel minibus back to Central/Sheung Wan to eat dinner and prep for Mackenzie's arrival. After showing Fernando around the neighborhood we decided we'd like PizzaHut for food and set about finding one. After trying in vain for about 10 minutes amongst the 40-story buildings I remembered one about 15 minutes up the hill near a Church building that missionaries operated out of in my mission. We walked through the nightlife district on the way (looked pretty happening, never got a chance to visit in my 2 years there) and used the Mid-levels escalators to reach our destination. The picture of the old mansion is the old Church. We sold it a couple of years ago when the Church opened a new building but I was happy to see it again. We grabbed our pizza and ran back down the hill to minimize our lateness for Mackenzie's arrival.
We got there just a few minutes after our scheduled meeting time but learned her plane had arrived 1 hour late so we had time to kill. We ate, relaxed, used our iPods, and the like. When she finally stepped off the train Fernando was passed out and I was in the middle of an Office episode. Thankfully I looked up in time to sight her and welcome her to Hong Kong before she walked off to our planned meeting spot. From the train station we walked out into the night tosee Hong Kong lighted up in the dark and visit Victoria Peak for a panorama view. It was great being back and looking over HK remembering days of my life I will always treasure. HK will always be a land of miracles and joy for me. The memories of long days wandering streets and knocking on doors have melted away to all that I remembering being the happy times.
After taking the tram back down to downtown we walked a bit to try to find a supermarket to purchase breakfast in the morning but ended up settling for a 7-11. Upon walking out the door I walked up to the first taxi I saw and we hopped in. I told him where we were going and he had never been there before and grew more mystified the longer we climbed up the hill in the dark. He kept chatting with me in Cantonese and I was surprised at how well we carried on. When we arrived at our destination he pronounced, "F...ing Crazy" and suggested we find somewhere else to stay next time. On that note we headed off to bed.
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