Yesterday we took the bullet train from Guilin to Shenzhen, where after a short subway ride we arrived at Futian Port – the border crossing between mainland China and Hong Kong. The whole procedure of being looked by non-smiling border control staff on two sides took about 1,5 hour, but then we were out of China after spending 49 days there.

Within Hong Kong we took subway again and part with a taxi and arrived at our new hotel, the City Garden Hotel. A bit of a shock, this was the first real big chain hotel during our trip (before mostly guesthouses, hostels and the occasional small hotel) and it started immediately with some discussions as they wanted to charge us extra for Charlotte’s breakfast (total a bit over 600 HK$, so quite a sum).

After Martijn had his 1:1 with the manager on duty it was all arranged, we got the breakfast complimentary and their misunderstanding with booking.com was something the hotel would clear out (to their support, booking.com seems to be misleading towards the hotels here, we got a different confirmation than the hotel). The next thing we encountered was that the pool already closed at 7pm, so we had to run to get the promised dip for Charlotte.

The next day, after our first night in Hong Kong and a bit of getting used to different prices in stores and restaurants we enjoyed one good thing about the big hotel, a great breakfast buffet.

The day was spend with morning pool visit, then on the tram to go to the Victoria peak (we skipped it as it was completely in the mist) and then we took the Star Ferry to Kowloon.

The plan was to visit the ladies market and the temple market, but unfortunately it was raining so much that this plan went literally down the drain. So much for nice weather in Hong Kong, although it is hot here.