I had already travelled down to London last night so that I didn't have to be stressed today with any delays etc. Despite it being horrible weather in Manchester when I left it was really hot in London yesterday and the same again today. We decided not to bother Schlepping across the city with our backpacks on tubes and trains and just got a cab directly to the airport.
We got an uber at 1pm to give us plenty of time to get to Heathrow but made really good time and got there at about 1:45pm and didn't need to be there until 2pm.
Check-in was really easy as had done the online check-in and got our seats. I sat us behind the exit row seats as there are 2 seats and then our row which had 3. We were the aisle and middle seat and the exra leg room next tot he window was either booked or blocked off (they usually keep these to sell at the airport). With it only being one seat I thought there might be a good chance of it being empty which would give us chance to spread out. Printed our baggage tags at the machine and also our boarding cards then just did the self service bag drop and we were done.
Grabbed a duty-free fragrance as usual so I have a fragrance that will remind me of the trip (it's funny how smells can transport you back to place.
The seats on the flight were as I predicted so we had the row to ourselves. I think after being spoiled on Virgin with the upgrade this felt really uncomfortable trying to sleep on the flight through the night.
The meals weren't a patch on Virgin either but they filled a gap. I caught up on my Tiktok messages during the flight as I bought the wifi data package (well worth getting) for $20 for the whole flight.
I managed to get a couple of hours shut eye and then it was time to land. Passport control was pretty painless and our bags came through quickly, then we headed to the train station.
We had decided to get the train as the hotel was meant to be really close to the station. We did make the mistake of buying a single journey ticket but then realised we would have been better getting an Octopus card which is like the London Oyster card. So we bought one anyway after the first train and just added HK$200 on HK$50 of which was a deposit or something? You also get a small handy map of all the train lines and routes etc, really useful.
We took the wrong train twice and in the end, after being on such a long flight we just jumped in a taxi to the hotel so we could dump our bags and have a look around.
We were in a kind of downtown area that didn't look very commercial or touristy, so we could get a real feel for Hong Kong.
We headed down to Victoria Harbour as I remember the view being really good once it goes dark, last time I came to Hong Kong. It was advertised as the world's biggest light and sound show. Well, the music sounded like someone's iPhone speaker and we kept thinking it was the warm-up. I mean granted there were lots of lights on the buildings flashing to the music but it was that quiet I would hardly call it the world's biggest, but for the fact, there were a lot of buildings involved. I've seen better in Florida to be fair. We grabbed some fish balls and Shumie as a light snack to last us until we found someone to have dinner.
After the "Show" we headed back to the hotel and found a place to eat along a side street that seemed to have lots of bars and locals eating there. We opted for two starters, Calamari and bolognaise-loaded fries (typical Hong Kong food - not lol).
Quick walk back to the hotel and then it was good night Hong Kong.
Travel Tip
Today's Tip would be to get an Octopus rail card if you are planning to travel around the city as they have a really good rail network and it doesn't seem to cost a lot per trip.
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