{"id":1932,"date":"2010-07-16T23:00:52","date_gmt":"2010-07-16T15:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/?p=1932"},"modified":"2010-07-17T23:05:10","modified_gmt":"2010-07-17T15:05:10","slug":"please-leave-the-country-by-lift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/?p=1932","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Please leave the country by lift&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/p_440_297_89595ABD-6A91-480D-8228-9FD1E0115254.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"alignleft size-full\" \/>Survived the bus ride and it was a couple hours shorter than we expected. All night we were stopping at toll booths or swerving and braking around other vehicles &#8211; not really conducive to sleep. A short hop in a taxi to Guangzhou&#8217;s main train station :gps:<small>(GPS)<\/small>::23.15054::113.25344:gps: and into the chaos of the queues once more. This time we were lucky enough to get a guy who spoke a bit of English and were able to book tickets to our next destination, Guilin (for when we are done in Hong Kong) &#8211; good thing too &#8211; any later and it would have been another overnight bus! There is nothing like the feeling of having a confirmed ticket in your hand, accommodation arranged and a solid plan &#8211; it&#8217;s the simple things when you travel that make life enjoyable!<\/p>\n<p>We grabbed the next train from Guangzhou to the Hong Kong border at Shenzen &#8211; only 1.5 hours next to an old lady who hadn&#8217;t read the signs in the new trains that say &#8216;no spitting&#8217; and in front of a kid who fragrantly lost his lunch. Walking across the border was more like walking through a shopping mall. Onto another waiting train\/tube the price for which gave us a shock &#8211; we are used to paying about 20p for a tube ride, this one was \u00a33.60, but it is some distance.<\/p>\n<p>It didn&#8217;t take long to find our hostel (Lee Garden Hostel) in the terrible looking &#8216;Fook Kiu Mansion&#8217; 8 floors above the bustling streets that are straight out of &#8216;Blade Runner&#8217; (but less dingy) and exactly what we pictured. The hostel is clean, our room tiny and the Internet speed rocks with YouTube and Facebook back sans censorship. We sucked up a good few hundred megs (possibly gigs) of news and entertainment while relaxing and recovering from the last 24 hours on the road.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/l_408_280_6924F1C1-542B-4D96-8611-533667D1B7F4.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"aligncenter size-full\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In the evening we headed out in search of a recommended camera shop and food. You don&#8217;t need to go far here. The place is packed with shops selling everything that shines and flashes (from 10+ carat diamond rings to iPhone 4&#8217;s) &#8211; it&#8217;s shopping paradise. <\/p>\n<p>Hong Kong is great:<br \/>\n&#8211; People detour to throw garbage into bins.<br \/>\n&#8211; There are public &#8216;pay as you go&#8217; wifi booths on the street.<br \/>\n&#8211; Traffic lights are respected by cars and pedestrians.<br \/>\n&#8211; They drive on the left (rest of China on the right)<br \/>\n&#8211; UK standard plugs in the rooms.<br \/>\n&#8211; You can flush toilet paper instead of depositing it in a bin.<br \/>\n&#8211; It&#8217;s FAR less crowded and feels calm and quite in comparison.<br \/>\n&#8211; You can get anything you want (food to fashion) as long as you are willing to pay.<br \/>\n&#8211; Ribena in the shops, definately a British influence.<br \/>\n&#8211; HSBC &#038; Standard Chartered logos on the bank notes.<br \/>\n&#8211; Way more visible security ( cameras and deadbolts) &#8211; but feels very safe.   <\/p>\n<p>What a place !  Need to sleep now. Sightseeing to tomorrow. This one would be good for a LOL <a href=\"http:\/\/www.noahsark.com.hk\/eng\/index.php\">Full sized replica of Noah&#8217;s Ark<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>[Pictures: Walking accross the border &#8211; &#8216;Please leave the country by lift&#8217; &#8211; should be fun :), Our Cameron Street neons]<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><small>&#8211; Posted from my iPhone via Wifi<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Survived the bus ride and it was a couple hours shorter than we expected. All night we were stopping at toll booths or swerving and braking around other vehicles &#8211; not really conducive to sleep. A short hop in a taxi to Guangzhou&#8217;s main train station :gps:(GPS)::23.15054::113.25344:gps: and into the chaos of the queues once [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17,4],"tags":[],"geo":{"latitude":22.2991409,"longitude":114.1745605,"description":"16-60 Cameron Rd, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1932"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1932"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1942,"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1932\/revisions\/1942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wanderlust.simid.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}