Hello Hong Kong

We made it safely to Hong Kong!

We were a bit worried about getting to the train station on time. We had heard that the traffic could be quite bad and it might take up to two hours to get to the station. We were up early enough and ready, so we got a taxi at 8:30 am. We were worried for nothing because it only took us half an hour to get there! We had to wait for an hour before they even opened the customs line. At least we had the time to find the customs line! We ended up being one of the first to get through to a customs officer and I think we were the first to board the train!

We had a nice little, and I mean really little, room. It had two bunk beds and not much else. We had hoped for showers on the train, but we only had sinks. Oh well, we made due. Yasmin was very happy to see that they had a western style toilet at one end of the car. We did some home schooling while we waited for the train to depart and also for the first little bit of the journey. The girls were very excited about the bunk beds and the train as a whole. We’ve walked to one end and the other. Some rooms have triple bunks in them so they fit six people!

The scene outside wasn’t too terribly exciting on the first day. There was a lot of flat countryside. The view in the morning was better. You could see lots of hills and mountains. You could see that the rural areas of China aren’t nearly as well off as those in Beijing. None the less, we all felt that train travel is a fun way to travel. The beds were pretty hard so we didn't get a great sleep, but still fun.

We made it to our budget hotel. It has a great location. We walked through a shopping street. It's similar to Morocco with it souks. The stalls are jam packed with goods and lots of haggling going on. We said we wouldn't buy anything on the first day, but we ended up breaking our rule and buying some place mats, napkins and chopsticks. We bargained them down to about half price and paid only about ten dollars for a set of twelve.

Although we thought we did fairly well to pack all our things for the year into three suitcases we are already talking about sending some of it back. Too much baggage to carry around! We'll see...

CM