Josh's Trip to Hong Kong Day 2- Kowloon Park, Welcome dinner and HK university

[josh.p.]

Today we are due to meet in the lobby for 9:00, so I order a morning call for 7:30, so I can have a 30 minute nap, get changed, have breakfast and meet up. This is our first breakfast in the hotel and I was really pleased. There was plenty to choose from, both western and eastern including; Conji, Fried Noodles, 'Hotcakes', Sausages, bacon, cereals, pastries, but my favourite was the 'egg counter', you could request your eggs whichever way you wanted, with a number of ingredients, and they would be made right infront of you My favourite was the cheese omlette.

After breakfast we meet in the lobby for our visit to Kowloon park. This morning only 1 of the Hong Kong delegates can be with us as the rest are preparing for our 'Welcome Dinner' at the hotel. We arrive at Kowloon park at about 9:15;


We walk around until we reach the Hong Kong discovery museum which has some artifacts and articles about Hong Kong heritage etc, it was quite interesting but I wouldn't rush to go back there if I had a limited number of days in HK.

The main difference I noticed between our public park, and the HK public park was the effort that goes into maintaining it! Everything was spotless and there was countless gardeners keeping the place looking pretty.
Perhaps that is an issue of funding, I'm not sure, but Kowloon Park really was a nice place to be!
We then boarded the coach back to the hotel for our Welcome dinner/Lunch;

The welcome dinner was brilliant, we got to see the HK delegates who we obviously had not seen since their time in the UK, it was as though we'd never been apart really, the meal was really nice and a few speeches and gifts where exchanged before the UK group visited the Hong Kong university grounds. This was pretty un-eventul but it was great to be able to compare the HK univerty to a UK one.




A shot of the group outside the University's founder statue.

After the univesity tour we had some time to get dressed and have a wash before we visited a western/italian place called 'Fat Angelo's' for our Tea (So many meals... so little time!)


Part of the meal arrangements was that the vegetarians are seated together because it makes it easier when ordering meals for us. We had margarita pizza, spaghetti and pasta.
We then boarded the MTR to temple street market for some free time and shopping;


We got back to the hotel pretty early so some of the HK delegates sat around in our room and we where talking, meal-plans came into conversation and we found that they had planned mainly western style foods because last year's group where not at all willing to try any eastern food, and didn't like chopsticks either. We asked them if it'd be possible to include more Chinese style dining and we where amazed at the effort they went to by making nearly every single meal Chinese style, which was excellent as one of the things we where excited about was trying the Chinese food. The effort that the HK delegates and the 2 youth leaders went to was astounding for the whole trip- nothing was too much for them and it really made the two weeks special

Part three on it's way soon....

[foreverducky]

yeah, this is exciting! It looks like you all are having a fabulous time!

[Isafari]

Great report and photos Josh
What was going on at Fat Angelo's that made you both close your eyes?

[Vixynne]

Great report and photos Josh
What was going on at Fat Angelo's that made you both close your eyes?

I think they were trying to use telekinesis to turn on the burnt-out letters in the "Fat Angelo's" sign.

[Tink]

Can you imagine visiting a country and not being willing to try their food? I would personally find that pretty insulting.

It's great that your group spoke up and let your hosts know that you were there to experience China, not Western food in China! I know Hong Kong is quite westernized, but still!

Looking forward to more photos and experiences!

[Ursula]

Sounds like your hosts were fabulous people.

[josh.p.]

Great report and photos Josh
What was going on at Fat Angelo's that made you both close your eyes?

LOL, the flash on my camera is really strong and everyone jokes about it blinding them, so we closed our eyes for a photo it doesn't seem very funny now but at the time we thought it was hilarious haha

Can you imagine visiting a country and not being willing to try their food? I would personally find that pretty insulting.

It's great that your group spoke up and let your hosts know that you were there to experience China, not Western food in China! I know Hong Kong is quite westernized, but still!

Looking forward to more photos and experiences!

I do agree that in some ways HK is westernised- if you want to go down that route it's pretty easy to have a western experience, but if, like us you want to have a completely eastern experience, then that's possible too. The eastern and western parts are pretty seperate

When we visited mainland china for two days, that was a whole different kettle of fish! The people there had never seen white people and cars slowed down to take photos with us, numerous people asked if they could take pictures of us and in one shop they didn't charge us for our water because we where white!

The school we visited went crazy to see us It was quite a eye opening experience but I'll go into more detail when I get to that part of my TR

[josh.p.]

Sounds like your hosts were fabulous people.

They really really where We often felt bad at meal times because there was alot left over, especially the vegetarian choices, but it was not because we didn't like the food- simply the volume of it!!!