Melsea's 1st Half World Cruise, Arcadia 2016 Part 3

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melsea
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Melsea's 1st Half World Cruise, Arcadia 2016 Part 3

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Post by melsea »

Day 3. Hong Kong 2nd Day.
16th March 2016

We awoke not too early but early enough for us to still go to breakfast. I was trying to remember what the lady had told us on our journey to the hotel from the airport last night about the timings of breakfast, I thought she said 9.30 closing when in fact it was 10.30 which was good for us.
The breakfast was a buffet and like many places they never seem to master it. There was a variety of foods that I liked and I managed to find something hot to eat. There was also a long queue over by a counter which I thought was to get a different items of foods, it turned out there was just one chef cooking eggs of variety but it was taking too long. Behind this queue were three ceramic dishes that had bacon, potato croquet of sorts and waffle like item. Well I didn't want eggs so I asked this lady could I just get the bacon as I wasn't going to queue as I had already put a coupe of hot items on my plate and I didn't know there was bacon behind them, me being short I could not see this. So with my luke warm of everything I sat down and had also orange juice which was nice. Sat next to us was an Irish lady who was not impressed with anything so far. One thing she did mention was the Chinese Visa which from what she was saying and really I could not quite understand what she was saying or where she was in terms of locations or whether she was from Ireland or NI. It seems she went to the Visa office, I think, and she managed to get her visa for £80. Well I have absolutely no idea how she did this. I looked up the info I have on my iPad in ibooks where I have my PDF's of the downloaded info from the Visa place of the Chinese Embassy. If she was from NI then yes she probably got it for £96 but for a Single entry, for a multiple entry which is what we had to get, this would be either £106 or £126 but I thought she said she had a UK passport which meant it would have cost her £151 regardless of type of visa as they group them together for UK, Canadian and USA citizens. So I am slightly miffed at what we had paid and I usually check, double & triple check everything.
So onto the day. Bill stayed at the hotel as he was still tired from the travelling and he also has very sore feet as well. Our hotel the City View just off Nathan Road with the metro station close by, Tsim Tsa Mei. I had some HK Dollars and went to the station and found the customer service desk where I was able to buy a 24hr pass costing 65HK$ with equates to just under £6 for the whole day. I doubt I actual spent anywhere near 65HK$ all day but really it is such a small amount so I didn't mind. My first port of call was to the waters edge by the Star Ferry terminal and is next door to the Ocean Terminal where the ship will dock tomorrow. Incidentally there is another new cruise terminal and that is located where the scary old airport used to be out in the harbour and this takes more than 2 ships I think at a time and has a bigger better terminal building.
So onwards I walked to promenade to take in the very foggy not clear sight of HK Island, the clouds were hugging the tall buildings and part of the tops of them would protrude out of the low clouds, a very eerie sight to say the least. Having done that I went back to the station to continue my journey to HK island as I was heading to the HSBC building which is roughly on the same spot the original bank was when it first opened in the 19thC. I know you are thinking why on earth am I making a beeline for a bank!. My reason for visiting this iconic building is to locate and find a poster. This poster is advertising their business and the picture is of a hand holding a butterfly from Origami Paper which was made by an artist who happens to be my sisters niece, she produces Origami Art, frames them adding poems sometimes. She has her work all over the world and has had commissions from America & Japan which is where she studied Art. Last summer she had a stand at the Arts & Craft Exhibition at Hampton Court Green and did a presentation endorsed by Kirsty Allsop.
She told me before I came away about her poster artwork and to look out for it. I knew if I went to the HQ I would most likely find it there. If it wasn't there it wouldn't be anywhere. And sure enough it was in fact 2 very large posters adorning her work. So I took photos on my iPad and I knew I was being watched as banks in this part of world it would be a no no. Having taken a few photos, a little while later someone from inside the bank came over to me, I smiled at him and told him that my niece made the Origami butterfly on the poster so wanted a photo, he smiled and said finish it and move on, I smiled and thanked him. Mission accomplished I then posted it on my nieces Art Facebook page and it made her day. In fact I found it in another place later on. I went to find the longest undercover travelator in Asia. It goes a long way and I decided I didn't want to go to the top, also it had started to rain and so made my way to the subway to find the Apple Store on HK island, they have four stores here, this one and three on Kowloon across the bay, one of which is not far from the Ocean Terminal. Once there I wanted to buy some new earphones as the ones I have are falling apart somewhat, also to get a longer cable for charging our iPads, the 2 meter length one. I emailed Bill who was at the hotel where they have excellent wifi, I told him what I was doing and he then reminded me to also buy a new keyboard for my iPad, the Logitech make not an Apple one, again my other one is not well. So purchasers made I travelled back to Kowloon. I got off at the Cruise terminal place and walked along the front and took some photos. I walked to various places and more photos were taken. I then went in search of the other Apple shop as I know Bill wants to go there to see them about something. It was 8 minutes away from the cruise terminal thinking we would go there tomorrow once we have embarked. I got back to the hotel when it was virtually dark. Having spent far too much for our meal the night before we went in search in the very place that has the largest Chinese take away restaurants, it's called Hong Kong the streets below. Didn't need to go far and found somewhere to eat, there was one other Western couple in there. It was an average looking clean place and we were given a menu in English. We picked out 4 dishes we thought we would like and they arrived, they were not small portions. We had one drink between us. The whole meal came to about £18. It was absolutely delicious so a great choice.
Back at hotel we get our bags all ready for our embarkation tomorrow, yippee.

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