A Brief Travelogue on Hong Kong & Shenzhen Trip

Below is a brief travelogue on the Blogger’s recent Free & Easy trip with his wife and youngest son to Hong Kong and Shenzhen from July 8–12, 2010 with selected photos of interest. For more comprehensive details and photos, please go to http://lautaionn.blogspot.com for readers who understand Chinese.

DAY 1 - JULY 8 (THURSDAY) K.L./SHENZHEN/HONG KONG

Left LCCT of K.L. with Air Asia Flight AK 80 at 6.35am and reached Shenzhen Boa’an International Airport at 10.35am.

After passing through the China Immigration check-point, we took the Chinalink Express Bus to proceed to Shenzhen Bay Port where we had to exit from the territory of China and enter Hong Kong by passing through two Immigration check-points under the same roof of a building.

My observation is that the China Immigration officer (a lady attending to me) was rather moody (not even acknowledging with a nod or a smile after I thanked her upon leaving the counter), while the Hong Kong Immigration officer was more friendly and smiled when I thanked him. The queue at China Immigration was also very long and it took a longer time to get past, while its Hong Kong counterpart was smooth-going. Is it really “one country, two systems or two attitudes"?

We carried on with our journey with the Express Bus to Kowloon Station at Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong. From there we took a cab to the 4-star Kimberly Hotel. As the cabbie grumbled about the soaring prices of apartments under construction in the city centre as our cab passed by, I chipped in by quoting the Chinese proverb “an inch of gold for a foot of land (寸金尺土)”to describe the scarcity of Hong Kong land, he promptly retorted that it is now “a foot of gold for an inch of land”. How interesting and how true!

We were lucky to be allocated a spacious deluxe suite (exceeded our expectation) at the 20th floor of the Hotel bearing the room no. of 2010 as the occupancy rate was overwhelming that day.

After taking bath at about 4.05pm, we started our outing in the busy streets of Kowloon after buying the Octopus cards (I did some homework from the internet) to travel with MTR trains. The first stop was Mong Kok where the popular Ladies’ Market (Tung Choi St) is situated.

Food and beverage are well known to be generally expensive in Hong Kong, but we managed to find a stall in Mong Kok which sells beef-ball wantan mee for HK$10 only per bowl with better quality as well as quantity than K.L.!

We also tasted the popular mango desserts of the Hui Lau Shan chain-store. We also took roasted duck rice at another restaurant which was priced at HK$28 per plate but the taste was very delicious.

I observed protest banners put up by the Falun Gong (banned qigong movement in China) practitioners by the road-side of Kowloon condemning the CCP with such remarks as “Heaven Destroys CCP, Quit the Party for Survival”. Subsequently I also noticed other similar protest banners of a different nature displayed in front of the Hang Sang Bank and DBS Bank in downtown Hong Kong Island. Obviously, democracy and freedom of expression are very alive and kicking in this "Pearl of Orient" despite the fact it is now a Special Administrative Region of the PRC. The SAR government is really tolerant!

DAY 2 - JULY 9 (FRIDAY) HONG KONG

In Hong Kong, it is really true that "have card (the Octopus) and map will travel". The public transportation system is so efficient and effective with MTR stations strategically located at almost all places of interest or tourist resorts and the train service is so excellent.

This morning we travelled to Wong Tai Sin Temple and had for the first time the pork burger sold in the MacDonald’s restaurant.

At noon, we travelled to Hong Kong Island where places visited included Sheung Wan, Central and Causeway Bay. The popular expatriate haunt for drinking, clubbing and dining Lang Kwai Fong is understandable to be quiet in the day time but we just made it a point to drop by and took some photos.

Taking a rest from prolonged street-walking at the Landmark Square.

Back to harbour area of Tsim Sha Tsui in the afternoon, we visited the Avenue of Stars (Hong Kong’s equivalent of the Hollywood Hall of Fame) and took some photos against the backdrop of Bruce Lee’s sculpture and with plaques on the promenade containing the hand prints of Jacky Chan (my son, top left) and Sam Hui (myself, top right. Sam is my all-time favorite Cantonese singer).

At night we visited another well known night market and busiest flea market i.e. the Temple Street in the areas of Jordan and Yau Ma Tei, to do our last-minute shopping as we would leave Hong Kong the next day.

DAY 3 - JULY 10 (SATURDAY) HONG KONG/SHENZHEN

What a foolish experience! We were supposed to meet our local tour guide Mr. Albert Yung of Win’s Travel Ltd for a half-day island city tour at 7.35am after checking out from the Kimberly Hotel. There was a man who walked in at exactly 7.35am and my wife mistook him as our guide and hurried me to take off. We put our luggage into his van, not realizing that he was supposed to transfer other hotel guests to Hong Kong International Airport. Both of us found out the inadvertent mistake only about 20 minutes later in the journey, already crossing the bridge towards the airport. This driver of another travel agency was actually responsible to fetch 4 Thai tourists to the airport but he thought we were the intended passengers as we were also carrying luggage to leave the hotel (but he was not vigilant enough to notice that there were only 3 of us and not 4). And on my part, I must admit my foolishness for not having clarified with him about the purpose or destination in the first place before boarding the vehicle and secondly failing to be suspicious about the absence of a tourist guide and a driver in any case of city tours. Instead, I chatted with the driver happily on general topics including Thailand political situation and the Red Dress raised by him along the way (doubt did cross my mind then why he talked about Thailand when I am a Malaysian).

Anyway, we rushed back by breaking the speed limit along the highway to the hotel and the driver finally managed to pick up his passengers whose faces already turned sour. Through the help of the hotel bell-boy and the message left by our guide Albert, we took a taxi to rush to a restaurant in Causeway Bay to rejoin the group of 20 tourists comprising mostly Singaporeans and 2 Indonesian couple for the city tour. Breakfast was hurriedly taken (with some pau taken away to be eaten in the coach) as we felt shy to keep the others waiting anymore longer.

The places covered by the half-day island city tour included the Golden Bauhinia Square, Repulse Bay, Aberdeen Fishing Village and finally the Victoria Peak, where plenty of photos were taken for remembrance.

Taken with the tour guide Albert Yung (65 yr old).

After lunch at 2.15pm, Albert accompanied us to Hung Hom station where we boarded an electric train to procced to Shenzhen Lo Wu station.

We were met by another tour guide Miss Jenny of Boa’an China Travel after checking out from the immigration at 4.15pm. We then took a cab to check in at the 3-star Green Tee Inn at Dongmen Middle Road.

My family of 3 was to be joined by another 2 free-and-easy travelling Iranian girls from Tehran who happened to be studying for their post-graduate course in Architecture in UPM Malaysia. As they are Muslims, we had to take halal food together with them in the arranged meals.

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After dinner, we wasted no time to visit the nearby Dongmen Pedestrian Street, a major shopping area within the Luohu district of Shenzhen consisting of department stores, supermarkets, shops and stalls. We returned to the hotel at 10.30pm with very tiring feet.

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DAY 4 - JULY 11 (SUNDAY) SHENZHEN

The main purpose for my revisit to this city which I had been here in 2008, is to bring my wife and son to visit the Splendid China and the China Folk Cultural Village and the shows that impressed me a lot 2 years ago.

The 2 Iranian beauties were our companions for the 1-day tour.

Splendid China is a comprehensive miniature park with a theme that reflects the history, culture, art, ancient architecture, customs and habits of the various nationalities of China. It is said that over 100 major tourist attractions (such as the Great Wall of China, Forbidden City, Temple of heaven, Three Gorges Dam, Potala Palace and the Terracotta Army) have been miniaturized and laid out according to the map of China. Most attractions have been reduced on a scale of 1:15. It is divided into Scenic Spot Area and Comprehensive Service Area. The entire park covers 30 hectares.

Meanwhile the China Folk Culture Village is a theme park located adjacent to the Splendid China and it features displays of the daily life and architecture of China's 56 ethnic groups.

We also watched 3 shows from 4.10pm until 8.30pm and they were:

(1) Great Horseback Battle Show “Unparalleled Hero” depicting the war broke out regularly in 12th century in Mongolia Plateau. In the war to occupy the grassland, Tie Muzhen completed the great undertaking to unite all tribes and establish Great Mongolia Empire via years’ hard warfare based on his firm will and outstanding military talent……

(2) Great Folk Costumes Dancing Psalm “Oriental Apparel”. It is a great folk clothes dancing psalm integrated with folk clothes, dancing, music and aesthetic feeling held by Splendid China Folk Art and Dancing Group. It melts into the poetry of “wind, flo

wer, snow and moon” according to the regional partition of “east, south, west and north”, and exhibits the clothing culture and local conditions and customs of each nationality of China by romantic expression, fancy clothing, novel dancing and brilliant art.

(3) The Evening Party of Chinese “Dancing with Dragon & Phoenix”. It boasts of costing RMB100 million, 16 years art performance strength, hundreds of artists’ thinking, modern stage instruments such as sound, light, electricity, water, and all these make dancing, acrobatics, conjuring and other arts assembled together. A magnificent and generous professional stage, over 500 players, more than 1200 costumes and 55 minutes performance to entertain the audience with the floweriness and charm of Chinese culture.

After returning to the hotel at 9.00pm, we again proceeded to Dongmen night markets until 11.00pm.

DAY 5 - JULY 12 (MONDAY) SHENZHEN/K.L.

We checked out from the hotel at 10.00am and left our luggage there until 3.30pm.

We went to Dongmen Pedestrian Street for the 3rd time and walked until 2.45pm.

Jenny punctually came at 3.30pm to fetch us to the Shenzhen airport to bid farewell to this city.

We returned by Air Asia Flight AK 89 at 8.45pm and arrived at LCCT at 12.45pm and took a taxi home. By the time we reached home sweet home it was already about 2.30am Tuesday, July 13, 2010.

It was indeed an enjoyable and memorable trip after all!