Arriving in Hong Kong

I arrived in Hong Kong on a Friday night, although that fact was a complete and utter mystery to me until I arrived in my hotel room. Crossing the Date Line has a habit of messing up my sense of time. Hong Kong airport was a joy to behold with it's immaculately clean, open plan design and helpful staff. I had to queue for about twenty minutes in the immigration line but the airport had free wi-fi so I kept myself occupied. Compare and contrast with Miami which makes no such luxuries available and where the queue at immigration is measured in hours, not minutes. Collecting my bag was also simple so I proceeded on to the taxi rank.

A salient piece of advice I would give to all travellers in Asia is to carry the business card of your hotel with you at all times. If the need ever arises, showing a taxi driver that card is a sure fire way of getting home even if you are completely lost. This method also requires zero linguistic skills in the local language, always the simpler option. I was staying in Central, on the Hong Kong Island side, and my taxi driver got me to my hotel reasonably quickly. Getting a taxi was the simplest solution at the time although many options exist, from taking a bus to either the Island or Kowloon (mainland side) or taking the very efficient train to the city. The taxi is the most expensive option but it is still quite reasonable, I think I paid $40 or so, no $200 Tokyo cab fares here!

My friends in Cayman used to live in Hong Kong so told me to look up their old friend who still ran some bars in an area called Lan Kwai Fong. Once I had refreshed myself, changed into something a little less comfortable I set off for LKF with only a vague idea of where and what I was heading into. I was not to be disappointed