31.12.2007

I left Finland on 30th of December as I wanted to be in Hong Kong on new year's eve. Because it was holiday season there wasn't many cheap flight options. I ended up choosing Oasis Hong Kong as my airline. Oasis Hong Kong is a quite new low-cost airline. To ensure cheap tickets I booked my flight 6 months before my departure date. Oasis Hong Kong flights to HK from London so I also had to book a flight there. Initially I wanted to fly to London with Ryanair's cheap flights, but eventually I decided to fly with Finnair because with Ryanair I would had to stay in London for a night.

My flight to Hong Kong from Gatwick airport was scheduled to take off at 8pm. I took 2pm flight from Finland to Heathrow airport as I didn't want to wake up too early and wait too long at the airport. I ended up worrying about whether I make it in time or not, but in the end everything went as planned. My total travel time to Hong Kong was 24 hours. For reference I can say that Finnair flies to Hong Kong from Helsinki in 9.5 hours. I started thinking that I might get a direct flight back home from here. Of course it costs more but it saves a lot of time and you don't have to worry about cacthing your continuation flights. If I only knew early enough when I will return from here.

We arrived in Hong Kong airport about half an hour late. The sun was shining and it was almost 20 degrees warm. Because now it's the dry season in HK it wasn't very humid. The weather seemed very European. What comes to the weather: I'm happy as long it's warmer than in Finland:) By the way, one thing that struck me as I got out of the airport was palm trees! I had no idea that there were palm trees in Hong Kong. Although it makes perfect sense as the country is quite south. But I had never combined China with palm trees on my mind. Anyways, I love palm trees, so it's all good:)

From the Hong Kong airport I took airbus number 21 as adviced on my PolyU guidebook for exchange students. Scenery along the bus route was amazing. So many tall buildings and so many people. It was stunning to see how full of people the streets were. And how many shops and advertisements there were on the streets. The airbus went to the Hung Hom railway station, but I got off few stops earlier as I was going to a hotel nearby. I almost screwed my new year's plans as I delayed my hotel booking till the last minute. I ended up getting the fourth hotel that I booked. Being late cost me about 100 euros extra but that's what you get when you don't take care of things in time.

Park Hotel was the name of my hotel and it is located in Tsim Sha Tsui East. The hotel was very classy, but the view from my window was just terrible (sorry, forgot to take a picture). After settling in I contacted my friends who also came here on the same day. We met at some crossroad and went on to our sightseeing tour. It was about 7pm and already people were reserving spots for them to see the New Year's fireworks. It wasn't looking good for us as we didn't want to spend the evening sitting on one place. We walked around and went to eat some chinese food. Our first local food experience was... OK:) We just couldn't understand the boiled cabbage with soy sauce on top of it?!?!

Hong Kong is divided into three areas: the New Territories, Kowloon, and the Island. The Hong Kong island is the place where most of the tall skyscrapers are as it is the main business area. We had to decide in which side we would like to watch the New Year's Eve fireworks show. We decided to watch it on Kowloon side, the side where our hotels are. About one hour before the show we went on to search a good spot for us to see the fireworks. The harbour was pretty crowded as you may imagine. I decided to watch the year change from the Avenue of Stars. One thing I noticed while I was waiting for the show to start was the number of young people who were playing some portable gaming device. Everyone seemed to have either a PSP or Nintendo DS.

Finally the show started. "The countdown" started about 20 minutes before midnight with the Symphony of Lights. Once the countdown went to zero the main fireworks show started. The IFC TWO tower with it's fireworks was the main event. I'll try to put the video here for you to see.



After the show we went to some bar nearby. After few drinks we headed to Bahama Mama's in Tsim Sha Tsui, recommended by Lonely Planet. After first night I can say that the drinks are cheaper than in Finland but not too cheap. The year 2008 is now officially started.
Happy New Year!