Day fifteen – The journey home

Getting up at 7am, we checked out and took a taxi to the Kowloon Airport Express Station. The Airport is only 24mins away by train, costing less then €9. You can even use your octopus card to make the trip. Very handy for us we had some credit left on our cards that needed to be used.

We were actually able to check into our flight at the train station, which itself is situated inside the Elements Shopping mall, the same place we took the bus to Shenzhen Airport. It’s great to know we don’t need to drag our bags onto the train. The next time we’ll see them should be in Dublin!

We we couldn’t get two seats together; we were offered one upgrade for the 13 hour flight home. We declined, as we really wanted to sit close to each other. Thankfully at the airport they were able to allocate use emergency exit seating with at least two free rows in front of us. Perfect to stretch out and rest on the way home.
As the flight had been delayed, we were given breakfast vouchers to pick up some food at the airport. We opted for the Burger King croissant and pancakes. Not very tasty, but filled us up.

It’s great, Hong Kong Airport has free WIFI throughout! It’s allowed us to catch up with twitter in-between trying to spend the last of our cash.
The service on the flight was the reverse of the coming over. We started with breakfast, both Vinnie and I had the Chinese option, noodles with Dim Sum, might have well have our last Chinese meal of the trip!

Arriving into Heathrow at 5:30pm local time, we connected to our AerLingus flight at 8:10pm and arrived into Dublin around 9:30pm.

Packing to leave :(

It's after 3am and we're packing to leave. It's been one amazing adventure. We've got many more updates to follow, going to use the 13 hour flight to London to get blogging, so watch out for those. Our flight was scheduled for 7:20am but due to the recent typhoon, it's been pushed back to 11:20am. This means we arrive into Dublin around 9pm local time, some 18 or so hours after taking off! We'll update via twitter/twitvid before then!

Day fourteen – The affects from Koppu

What a night, the apartment shuck, but at 10am the warning signal was dropped back to a T3 and was downgraded to a tropical storm. The Typhoon had a named too – Koppu! Sweet!

It’s our last full day in the city, so trying to take things easy we opted to take the midlevel escalators over on Hong Kong Island. Rather then having to walk up the hills around the small streets, you can take it easy and ride the mid level escalators that will take you the easy way up through the streets. Getting towards the top, we took a bus back down to the ferry port and traveled via Star Ferry to Hung Hom were we visited The whompai mall. Taking the MTR subway, we headed north to the New City Plaza mall with its 300+ stores.

We got back to the apartment around 6pm after making a stop a Beard Papas. I adore those cream puffs. In the London store there are only two varieties, but here we managed get 7 totally different kinds from white peach to fresh mango. Heaven. We settle into a Golden Girls Marathon (we brought season 1 with us) before packing out suitcases. We popped out for a quick drink before bed.

Thankfully we’d checked our email. Our 7:20am flight to London had been delayed at first by 3 hours then 4. This affects our connecting flight to London. Thankfully as we’ve a through ticket, Quantas would take responsibility for booking our connecting flight. So the plan is to leave the apartment around 8am for our 11:20am flight to London. Arrive into London around 5:30pm to connect with our 8pm flight to Dublin. If we miss the 8pm flight there is only one last flight home, if we miss that, we could be stranded in London overnight!

Day thirteen – Wash out at Disneyland

We set aside today to visit Disneyland. It’s a rather new park in Hong Kong opening some 4 years ago. Currently it’s the smallest Disneyland in the world, with Paris being the biggest outside of the original in California. This will be Vinnie’s first time to visit a Disneyland, last year we opted to visit DisneySea in Tokyo instead of Disneyland.

The MTR Subway easily connects you to the Disneyland line, a specially decorated subway train with Mickey Mouse ears etc. It only cost €1.40 to get our apartment straight into the park taking the MTR.

Beforehand we’re read information relating to weather and visits to Disneyland. The park runs as normal on a T1 signal, but all outdoor rides and attractions shut down during a T3. Unfortunately by the time we arrived, a T3 signal had been hoisted. We still had to pay full price and were warned that a T8 could be raised within the next few hours. A T8 means the Tropical Typhoon is approaching the city and for all services to shut down with everyone staying at home in-doors.

It rained almost non-stop. None of the outdoor rides were open. Most of the restaurants were closed. It really was a depressing atmosphere at the magic kingdom, not ideal for Vinnie’s’ first visit.

We did manage to ride the Winnie the Pooh and the It’s a Small World rides. The only indoor rollercoaster, Space Mountain was closed for refitting for the upcoming Halloween season.

After almost 2 hours in the park, we were told the T8 had been raised and the park was slowly shutting down. The staff jumped into action tying everything down with string in anticipation for the impending storm. We were ushered out of the park. It cost us €70/HK$700/$90 for less then two hours and two kids rides. Not even a main street parade or firework. Not fun at all. We did manage to get a few pics with the characters. Upon leaving the park we were told our tickets where valid for reentry up to 6 months from now. Fine if we lived close by. Anyone want free tickets?

We headed back into the city for a stroll along the avenue of the stars, a promenade with stars/handprints of famous Chinese movie personalities. It’s located along Victoria Harbor – perfect with an impending typhoon. It rained and the winds picked up strength. By 6pm, the T8 flag has been hoisted and the city was on shut down.

We headed back to the hotel to follow the news reports. We had no option but to stay in. This city is well prepared for occasions like this. They taped large windows, shut down all stores. Taxi demanded premium too!

It was pretty frightening up on the 20th floor with an exposed west window. The wind howled and fittings outside banged. The rain poured very heavily outside. Thankfully according to the Hong Kong Observatory, the path of the typhoon was take it south of Hong Kong, but wind speeds would still be very strong with inches of rain dumped on the city. A T8 does however bring a party atmosphere for the locals; as for them it means no work or school. They tend to head to the cinema or local bars to otherwise make the most of the enforced time off work!

Tropical Cyclone Bulletin from 1 hour ago!

So a Tropical Cyclone is hitting the city, the below is the latest warnings we've to follow!!

Bulletin issued at 18:45 HKT 14/Sep/2009

At 7 p.m., Typhoon Koppu was centred about 180 kilometres south-southeast of Hong Kong (near 20.8 degrees north 114.7 degrees east) and is forecast to move northwest or west-northwest at about 16 kilometres per hour towards the coast of western Guangdong. Gale winds are blowing over offshore waters and high ground. Local winds are expected to strengthen further generally.

(Precautionary Announcements with No. 8 Signal)

• Complete all precautions in your home. Lock all windows and doors, fit bars into position and insert reinforced shutters and gates if they are available. Adhesive tape fixed to large window-panes in exposed positions will reduce damage by broken glass. Storm water drains should be cleared of leaves and rubbish.
• Park your car where it is least likely to be damaged.
• Do not stand near windows on the exposed side of your home. Move all furniture and valuables away from these areas. Make sure you have a safe place to shelter, should windows be broken.
• Since seas are very rough and the current is strong with changing direction, you are advised to stay away from the shoreline and not to engage in water sports.
• Owners of neon signs are reminded that they should now arrange for the electricity supply to their signs to be cut off.
• Please listen to radio or watch TV for the latest weather information broadcast at the 15th, 30th, 45th and 58th minute of each hour. You can also browse the Hong Kong Observatory's web site for the information.

Tropical Cyclone Warning!

During summer, typhoons, or as their known in Hong Kong, tropical cyclones, regularly hit or skirt the city. Yesterday the city raised the city to alert level T1 and overnight it increased to T3. Next is T8 which means the city begins to close down awaiting the impact, fingers crossed we don't reach that. Until then, it's umbrella time as the hot rains hit the City.
The latest warnings are available from http://www.hko.gov.hk/wxinfo/currwx/tc.htm


UPDATE @7PM: Level T8 has been hoisted. The city is shutting down!!!

Day twelve – shopping

We set aside today to visit some more of the malls in the area. We started off in City Mall, located by the Star Ferry port and conveniently some 10 minutes away from our apartment. After this we headed over to Wan Chai via the Star Ferry.

Another very hot day, we were both soaked with sweat from both the heat and humidity. We wandered around the Wan Chai area before walking to Causeway bay and it’s many shopping plazas.
Times Square is one of the main centres, boasting some 260 stores across some 16 floors! We noticed it had started to rain after we arrived, this was the first time we’d seen rain on the entire holiday. Not bad after 12 days considering it rains everyday back home.

Returning back to the apartment we noticed that Typhoon Signal T1 had been hoisted. We’ve never heard of this before. Apparently this region is prone to typhoons or tropical cyclones from April to September each year. They have a flag system that is displayed at the entrance to all subway stations and on the top right hand corner of all local television channels. The rains continued into the night as the cyclone moved slowly inwards from its current 200km location offshore.