Hong Kong Visa Run

Well, there was nothing for it.

We had to leave the country, get a longer visa and come back in.

This is not an uncommon phenomenon in our job, but one we could ill afford; especially when you live on an island.

Mister Credit Card to the rescue and we were off to sunny Hong Kong.

We landed in the early evening and took the bus to Causeway Bay. After wandering around for a while we found the hostel we had booked online. This was made harder by there being no signage but we worked it out from all the foreigners we saw coming and going at the address we had.

The next morning it was straight down the travel agent's. Why not the embassy or consulate, I hear you ask...

Well, to most countries in the world, Taiwan is not a country but a rouge province of China - one with it's own flag, president and currency.

After finding the place, with no little effort we took a number, filled out the forms and waited.

When we finally got to see the administrator she seemed allot more interested our abilities to fill in a form, than our intentions in the country... good for us, as we would be working illegally until the paperwork came in.

We got that done, left our passports and agreed to come back at four to pick them up.

So we were left with five hours to kill in this strange island city of Hong Kong.

What to do?

We had some insiders tips on the best things to do on the cheap in this very wealthy little town.

From the travel agent's we walked to the peak tram.

This hundred year old public transport system was built to service the rich colonialist who were getting tired of their coolies dying while carrying their fat arses up the mountain to their massive houses with excellent views.

Today it is more used as a tourist attraction as the rich colonialist have fast German sports cars to carry their fat arses up the mountain to their massive houses with excellent views.

You get a great view over the city and the lush tropical forest on the other side.

I was more fascinated with the giant birds of prey that were circling and would sometime plunge into the undergrowth for a tasty lunchtime morsel.

We rolled down the hill again and caught an open-topped-double-decker bus down to the harbour. For a spot of lunch and to book a seat on the Star Ferry.

For a small fee the Star Ferry will carry your rich colonialist arse around the bay to give you a better view of this city state.

It might have been better at night to fully appreciate the Asian obsession with neon branding.

We went and got the passports before heading back to the hostel for a kip. In the evening we went over to Lan Kwai Fong - the expatriate nightlife area. We could just afford a beer if we were to be able to catch the train to the airport the following morning.

Here you can see a myriad of bars set on a steep hill in an area which must once have been home to opium dens. Smoking opium seems to have gone out of fashion... drinking imported beers seems to be in.

One thing that amazed me was that the local population seemed to be (mostly) all bilingual. They would swap between perfect English and Chinese without batting an eyelid. This is surely what the English teaching profession is working towards - to go anywhere in the world and the locals will understand you demands for more alcohol.

Anyway, that is about the size of it. Early next morning we took the super fast train out to the airport and we back to Hong Kong's slightly shabbier cousin - Taiwan.

Anyway, that is about it.