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Old 19 Nov 19, 09:56 AM  
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NeeNeeWong
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Beijing and HK Nov 2019 - Day9&10

So yesterday started out as a great day. It was a melting 28 degrees.

We enjoyed some cookies in the morning that we bought from Wellcome the night before. Shutters were down on the hotel this morning, but the uni was about 30 mins away and it kicked off near Jordan last night so it was getting closer, but still half an hour away. We did wonder if they knew something they weren’t letting on. Exit was available onto Nathan road or Mody road through a tiny door in the shutter.

We got the subway over to admiralty and then walked to man mo temple from there. This seemed more like a familiar temple to us than the ones in Beijing. it was definitely more like at home. However it seemed a lot smaller than Beijing and a lot less impressive. It also smelt extremely strong of incense sticks, which we didn’t really smell in Beijing.

We then walked from here to the HK zoological and botanical gardens. It was nice here. When we got here I felt like this guy after climbing up some of the hills.

Seemed like a little bit of peace in a busy city. They have monkeys and birds here and it’s free to go in and walk around. We spent a couple of hours here. It was also nice and cool in between all the trees.

We were feeling hungry and it was about half 1 so we heading down the hills - so many hills on such a hot day! I couldn’t tell you where we ate, we just followed our noses into a building and headed to the back. We were also following a lot of business people so just have been a decent area. They had lots of choice of bowls of rice with different toppings. We went for pork and duck. It was good, just wished I had found out where exactly we were! I had forgotten to charge my phone last night so I had switched it off.. Little did we know we would regret this later! As there are lots of building around google maps wasn’t much help either.

We then walked back towards the park and followed the signs for the peak, we got up about 2. No queues at all. It was 98hkd return including sky pass.
We decided to take a walk around the mountain. When you exit if you head right there is a walk that comes back round in a loop, fairly flat an took us about 2 hours, stopping for photos.
At 5ish we went up to the sky terrace. Sunset was due at 5:40 today. We managed to get photos of both day and night and then headed back down just after 6.

We then headed to the nearest metro, which I think was central. It said here that they weren’t stopping at Tsim tsi shu - our stop. Or the next stop, the stop after that was Jordan. We knew it was about a 30 minute walk from here as we had done it the night before. We couldn’t find anything on the news at this point about anything going on. So we thought if we get off at Jordan and then head west we would avoid the uni which was east.

We left the tram and it was busy, but we put that down to rush hour. Then as we headed upstairs it hit us. Lots of people, going nowhere. 2 exits shut and the other 2 rammed. And I mean rammed, like London rush hour and they are all trying to get out one door. We headed back downstairs as Chris was translating it to bad news, police and riots. We decided to get on a train and head back to central. We could maybe get a train to Kowloon and walk from there. But no trains were stopping. All were passing by!

So we then had no idea what to do, Chris’ phone was dying and mine had only 20% so we thought we’d save that for emergency. We decided, head up now as 20 mins had passed by and it was quiet. But as we went up and out the turnstile, we heard run run! Police get back downstairs! Never been so worried in my life! A little old lady adopted us and translated clearly for us. She said they are sending a special train but only 1 and it’s heading north. Get on or go out. Well we got on.

We figured if we headed up at least 2 stops, we could run across the platform and then head south. Mong kok was close to where it was all going on but the next stop was much further away. We definitely weren’t going to walk down between it all! So back to central we headed. We knew that by Times Square there is a IHG as we were looking to stay here instead. We decided against it as it was a bit run down looking. We thought they could check our hotel was still open and safe and if not just sleep there tonight. So jumped on the metro from central to causeway. Here we found Holiday inn easily. They called our hotel, open they said. We asked how to get back. They told us ferry was best everything else is shut.

The security guard out front saw us with the map the hotel gave us looking confused what way to go. Chris phone was dead and we wanted to save or just in case. The security guard helped told us easiest directions for the ferry. We stuck to them but the ferry was busy. Lots of young people, lots of black clothes and lots of masks. By now we just wanted to get back to our hotel. We said if we got across and it was tear gas bad we would just come back. We couldn’t see anything from this side across to Kowloon. Night photo on the boat crossing.

We let all the other people off first and held back. The noise was outstanding. We headed along the avenue to the art museum. From here we could see our hotel front entrance in Nathan road. 2 mins walk we thought. But in our way was a HUGE crowd. We zigged and zagged between them all to get onto Nathan road.

The scene was like something out of a war zone. Barriers from metal posts that had been pulled down, bricks stacked up so cars couldn’t even go down the road. We decided to keep to the walk, look down and go.
No stopping for photos as another local saw us and told us don’t take photos that’s what they want. I’m sure you’ve al seen on the news what’s going on.

We had to run down to the side entrance to get in, but we made it.

They were gathering at the front by the avenue of stars and then walking up either Nathan or Chatham road and our hotel was in the middle!

It was super scary, especially not knowing what was going on. I’m glad we made it back as today we changed hotels.

This morning they were clearing all the bricks but I did not feel safe. I didn’t want it all to kick off again at any point this week and we would be stuck again. We decided to go the holiday inn at causeway instead. We almost last night considered going home. But this morning with the clearing of bricks we knew we could escape this area and go over to HK island.

You could hear the shouting and bangs going on all night, so pretty restless sleep. But we left early this morning and Causeway bay let us check in early.

We’ve just spent today wondering in and out of shops around the area getting to know it. Much busier over here! Feels a lot like London. Nothing much exciting today, pretty chilled after yesterday. We have spent most of today getting supplies that we left like water and snack. We have just been nosing around at shops. We’re not sure where we are going for dinner yet. Tim Ho Wan is a 30 min walk away, so we might try that.

Tomorrow we are going far away from Kowloon to Ten thousand buddhas and then hitting the food stalls on Shim Shui Po.
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Old 19 Nov 19, 04:26 PM  
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Melbatb
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As you can imagine I am following the news very closely - even though DS is safely in Thailand for 2 more weeks. I understand that the big protest you came across was to try and draw resources away from Poly U so students could escape. A few managed but others who tried to leave were arrested and face up to 10 years in prison.

I went to 10,000 buddhas a few weeks ago. It is a long walk up hill and thankfully the area has calmed down as there were some issues at the Chinese University of HK.

Stay safe.
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Old 20 Nov 19, 12:32 AM  
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NeeNeeWong
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Getting Excited
 
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Originally Posted by Melbatb View Post
As you can imagine I am following the news very closely - even though DS is safely in Thailand for 2 more weeks. I understand that the big protest you came across was to try and draw resources away from Poly U so students could escape. A few managed but others who tried to leave were arrested and face up to 10 years in prison.

I went to 10,000 buddhas a few weeks ago. It is a long walk up hill and thankfully the area has calmed down as there were some issues at the Chinese University of HK.

Stay safe.
I think I would be glued to it too.
We know now that they were trying to divert attention. But at the time as it was happening there was no news going on as every press member was so focused on the unis and these others were coming at the uni from all angles so hard for the police & press to keep up.

It just seemed crazy the amount of the street being ripped apart. We didn’t think they would come anywhere near as it was far away and escalated so quickly.

The lady on the tube said that’s there a map that’s live but it’s in Chinese. Chris can hear and speak it but can’t read it.. But there are symbols for police, dogs, gas etc. So we can look at this to see more info live as it’s updated by the public. So we are going to keep our eyes on this now before heading out anywhere.
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