Hong Kong: Mid-Levels Escalators and Duk Ling Junk

For the record, Hong Kong stinks! Not all the time, but today the amount of stinky overflown drains we have seen and smelt - ugh. Come to think of it, it makes it very difficult to try and eat anywhere else but an air conditioned place where you don't smell anything, otherwise its hot and smelly and then you see menus talking of fried duck feet and pig guts.

Yesterday, we also had the unfortunate opportunity to walk past a place who just cut up Durian. It is basically a fruit, which is believed to be an aphrodisiac, small problem though, it smells absolutely foul - like a sewerage farm to be precise. So just to reconfirm, Hong Kong stinks.

Ok moving along, we wanted to go up the Peak, but the clouds were hanging low today, so we decided that seeing as we have the boat booked from Central, we will have to go that way in any case, we might as well go see other stuff we missed the day it rained quite heavily. Nothing wrong with that plan, until you start waiting around for the bus - something was wrong as we waited for nearly 45 mins for a bus which comes every 10 mins or so. The overcrowded bus, which was short a few chickens, finally arrived, with everyone trying to get on it, as no one was sure when the next one was coming past.

Once back in Central, and after doing a few other things which involved a present or two, we needed food ( I know it seems like we eat all the time - but actually we don't - things just take very very long to do!). After trying a few places - with set menus which will set you back around HK $ 250/ head, we found the Chippy Shop, run by, yes you guessed it, Indians from India - indeed! I guess at full capacity it doesn't sit more than 16 people and it was full. Food was fair - and their set menu, cost only about HK$ 95. I had fish, chips, baked beans and a Fanta, Ingrid had a burger and chips, Caleb had scrambled egg, bacon and a bread roll and a Fanta. After that we had two lattes - total bill - HK$ 330. As you can see food is quite expensive, for nothing that interesting.

We were in the corner, next to the door

Whilst looking for a place to eat and waiting for the Chippy Shop to accommodate us, I walked down to see if there were any other options and I found the mid-level escalators. Basically this is the world's longest covered escalator - a whopping 792m and it links all the roads between Queens Road and Conduit Street. It runs up until midnight from about 10:00 in the morning. Between 06:00 and 10:00 it runs down to accommodate the rush hour. So we went riding on that for fun with Caleb saying he doesn't know where we are going (from his chair) and we chirping from the back that we don't know either.

Standing below escalator top right

Escalator and steps

Going up

Looking straight down

Escalator

View from half way up

3/4 way up

Steps and escalator

Escalator ends in the residential area

We abandoned the escalators at Conduit road for a taxi to take us to Pier 9 in time for the Duk Ling. The Duk Ling is a Junk (no not junk for those of you who can't read) - its an old fishing boat and is the last remaining batwing sailing junk found in this part of China, which was restored in the 80's. They only do rides with it twice a week for the public. The ride basically shows off the whole of Victoria Habour and takes about an hour, which is extremely busy with all sorts on the water even little fishermen boats (taking their own lives in their hands if you ask me!)

Star Ferry - famous in Victoria Harbour

Duk Ling coming to fetch us

Ahoy me 'arty!

Batwing Sail

Are you kidding me?

Camera man Caleb in action - this was one of the better ones

I love this boat Mommy!

Once we got off (we boarded it in Central and then got off in Kowloon), we then walked on the Avenue of the Stars, this is the same as the version of the one in Hollywood, except, we mainly knew two stars, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. All the other Chings and Chongs were not that familiar to us.