There are millions of blog posts that teach you how to spend a day in Hong Kong. This post is a lived, crazy and heartfelt writing on how NOT to spend a day in Hong Kong!
Better than any movie script, our experience was a roller-coaster of emotions 100% true and experienced to the full!
The 5 of us had planned a day in Hong Kong as part of our independent trip to China.
Excuse me, I forgot the introductions. We were: my two daughters (16 and 18) and me on one side, and my boyfriend and his son aged 17, on the other side.
Our day in Hong Kong was set to begin at 11 a.m. together with the guided tour we had booked. The train ride was a brisk 14 minutes, and our Shenzhen (China) hotel was a few minutes’ walk to the metro station. We still managed to be ten minutes late (we left the hotel at 8!), because apparently, efficiency is for amateurs. And I’d happily accept the blame and agree we’re just slow, but that would ignore the bureaucratic gauntlet we had to run. We passed through no fewer than 5 passport controls, had our luggage inspected, and descended into Hong Kong’s underground metro system—a place so vast and modern, it feels designed to prevent you from ever seeing the sun again.
After almost two weeks in China, we were pros in Alipay and We Chat and of course, we knew that traveling to China without internet and Alipay is a form of suicide.
So, we thought we were prepared. Oh, how naive we were! Hell yeah, HK played the trick on us! Their Alipay app did not work for us (you could only register if you had a Chinese, HK or Macau phone number) and ended up in the fabulous West Kowloon station somewhere between considering returning humbly to China and praying to make it out of the station into the city.
So yeah, we outdid the ‘Chinese suicide’ only to fall headfirst into the ‘Hong Kong suicide’—no internet, no money app! To survive, we quickly took advantage of the first ATM and squeezed a few HK dollars for the most crucial of all immediate necessities: metro tickets!
And yes, our mole-time came to an end! We not only reached the light but also the guided tour of Guruwalk! (I simply love their pay-what-you-want tours conducted by fun and knowledgeable people!) Summer explained lots of interesting things about HK’s past, present and future and made a quick introduction to the traditional foods to try!
Already better equipped for HK, we used our intuition and maps (luckily, I had downloaded maps way back in Romania – maps.me works better in China than google maps!) to head to the number one attraction: Victoria Peak. This is the place to observe HK’s fabulous skyline and soak in the postcard pretty views of the former British colony!
Hungry, our stomachs declared an emergency mission: try the honey-glazed barbecue pork. But the no-internet situation forces us to recall with precision the streets of our tour. Not an easy task, the GPS is our grumbling stomach.
But a serious glitch ruins the foodie plans!
Andy’s phone is missing!
He runs all the way back as only a 17-year-old lad could! At first alone, then we retrace the streets as a team … to redeem the phone. No result! At the Victoria Peak ticket office, the staff gives us hope. So, the boys go to collect the precious item but come back empty handed. Apparently, it was another phone! With our hopes shattered and hundreds of Instagram-perfect teenage photos missing, we grieve the loss of the phone. The smiles dissolve faster than a sugar cube in a hot cup of tea.
The no-phone situation of the boys is dramatic from another point of view as well. Even if we arrived together in China, our departure dates were different. We, the girls, were supposed to leave the second evening, while the boys had 3 more days to go. On top of that, it was Andy’s phone that had the better internet and the payment app for China (among the boys). And you remember, phone without internet and Alipay in China is every person’s nightmare. Literally. (In China there is basically no cash, just money apps).
Things were getting from serious to worse. And it was the first time we regretted HK didn’t have as many street cameras as China did.
After our frantic search, we got in touch with doormen, cleaners, even a police patrol. They listened patiently, asked questions, and scribbled down our phone numbers before politely vanishing into the HK night. There we were left alone and hopeless. Exchanged the drooling honey glazed barbecue pork to basic McDonald’s once more!
At the end of our day in Hong Kong, we head to the train station to go back to China. Luckily, here, the automate machines accept Visa and Mastercard. To speed things up, we take two neighbouring machines. We, the girls, pay for our 3 tickets for the 9.50 p.m train. By the time our tickets are being printed, the boys’ screen says SOLD OUT. (It was 9.12 and there were 2 trains left for the day: 9.50 and 11.00 p.m).
The stress is so real right now. On one hand, the Hong Kong-China border crossing is a special kind of ridiculous. Seriously, I think they just invented new bureaucratic hoops for us to jump through. I’m pretty sure we passed through passport control so many times during our day in Hong Kong they start recognizing my face. “Oh, it’s you again! Here’s another form to fill out with details we already have!” And of course, a day in China wouldn’t be complete without a sprint—so we ran like our lives depended on it to catch the train back to Shenzhen.
On the other hand, my guilt is having a meltdown because I didn’t buy all five tickets together. If only I had, we’d be living the high life, carefree so to speak. Now I’m left to imagine the worst-case scenarios: “Even if the boys manage to get the 11:00 p.m. train, how will they find the hotel without Andy’s phone and his magical internet apps?” My brain is playing a movie of them wandering the streets, hopelessly lost. It’s a level of fret that could power a small city.
How much misfortune can happen in a day!
Just when you think you’ve used up your daily amount of chaos, my phone lights up and I read the following message: I want a 2k reward. Coming from Andy’s phone.
I freeze instantly.
I grab my phone and call my boyfriend.
He answers and the first words out of his mouth say they failed to get train tickets for the day. Mentally, I already have the picture of them on-a-park-bench-in-a-foreign-country scenario. They’re stranded there and have no other choice than take the first train next morning at 7.
I’m pretty sure my blood pressure is vying for a world record.
Just as my heart is sinking, his voice suddenly explodes with pure joy. ‘We have the phone!’ he screams into the receiver.
I’m standing there, utterly bewildered. How? What happened?
Apparently, after securing tickets for the last train of the day (because they’re nothing if not resourceful), they had a stroke of genius and decided to call the police dispatcher’s office. And in a twist that Hollywood writers would find too unbelievable, the police had the phone. Why the police hadn’t called us is a mystery we’ll politely choose to ignore.
My head is spinning to this day. Finding a phone in a city with 7.5 million inhabitants humming with tourists is like looking for a needle in a haystack… and finding it! On top of it, it all happened around the most crowded attraction of HK! It is a mystery! I sometimes have difficulties finding my own phone at home! Neither do we know or care where or when the troublesome phone with green Batman case was found! The amount of relief was at least as big as the level of stress not long before!
So, the boys, pumped with adrenaline changed the tickets for the next day and hopped on a taxi to the police station.
And as if this day hadn’t provided enough twists and turns, they decided to pull a prank on us. They sent the text that made our blood run cold, acting like they were still stranded. But once the joke was revealed, the relief was immense.
It was a day that deserved a celebration—and what better way to do that than by hitting up some clubs in Hong Kong?
The night was, after all, still young.
And still, how much good luck can happen in a day!
