With this being our last day in Hong Kong and our departure to the airport not scheduled until 4pm, we had saved a special trip for today.
It seems that each of these final days in HK, we are getting more tired as we keep sleeping in later. Today we got up around 9am and headed down for breakfast (which closed at 10am) before walking west along the waterfront about a mile to the old cruise terminal that we had walked to on our first day in China. It is also the Star ferry terminal. We purchased our reduced rate tokens (concession rate for over 60 year old people) from the vending machine at a cost of $1.50Hk or $0.19 US! What a bargain!
The passenger only ferry runs every 15 minutes or so and takes about 10 minutes to cross to the Central Pier on the Hong Kong Island side from the Kowloon side where we had been staying. The ferry wasn't very full. Once we reached the Central Pier, we walked to the large observation ferris wheel which we had observed from a distance and bought our tickets. The concession rate cost was only 50HK$ or about $6.50 US. It wasn't very busy and the ride was 15 minutes long or 3 loops around. The views were terrific.
Afterwards we walked east along the waterfront to the Convention Center enjoying the sites along the way. There was lots of construction which diverted our path. At the Convention Center, we found a small vendor selling soup and lunch for about $6.50. It was really good. I thought about continuing our walk to the North Pier ferry terminal, but it appeared to just be too long of a walk there and quite a long walk back to the hotel, so we elected to turn around and head for the Wai Tan ferry terminal and catch that ferry back to our starting point on the Kowloon side. We repeated the token purchase and enjoyed our last ferry ride in HK this trip.
On the Kowloon side we walked towards the hotel, but took a diversion to walk through the Park of the Stars which has handprints and bronze statutes of famous HK movie stars. It was interesting. Back at the hotel, we found a place in the hotel lobby to wait for our shuttle pickup. By this time we had walked about 6 1/2 miles, and sitting down felt so good. Angela hadn't finished the airline check in, but the Air Canada website was down all the time we were waiting and she couldn't finish it.
Our two shuttles picked our group up on time and we elected to ride in the second bus with Matthew, one of the guides. It's about a 45 minute ride to the airport and traffic was really heavy. At the airport we got in the check in line, but suddenly the Air Canada website became available and she checked in and we stepped out of line and headed for the immigration checkout area. We cleared that easily and then went through security screening where my luggage was stopped for finger nail clippers. After inspecting them and determining that they were no threat, we headed for our gate. Along the way Angela cashed in a couple free Starbucks hot chocolate coupons from a purchase she made earlier.
The flight left slightly late around 8:30pm local time due to its late incoming arrival, but it was a pleasant 11 1/2 hour flight to Vancouver retracing the route we flew to get to HK. Fortunately the movie selections changed because we were in a new month and I watched a couple before getting a few hours sleep. In the Vancouver airport, it's really slick that one can go directly to US immigration if one is flying into the US. There's even a 'Welcome To The United States' sign. Since we have Global Entry cards, we whisked through the immigration process. Outside immigration we noted there was a two hour earlier Alaska Airlines flight to Seattle. I checked for space availability and saw there was room, so we took that flight and arrived in Seattle around 6:30pm where our friend Bob picked us up. We took him to dinner at a favorite local restaurant (Huckleberry Square) before he dropped us off at our home.
It was a great trip and good introduction to Hong Kong and China. I'll post some summary observations about this trip in a short while.
We'll be back in HK in a few weeks to do a longer trip, so stay tuned for that trip report.
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