Initial Thoughts
Hong Kong was the first stop during my three-week trip to Asia. The next stops were Vietnam and Thailand. I was travelling with a friend but he arrived a couple of days after me.
Anyway, I arrived in the evening and went straight to the hostel I booked ahead of time. The flight was smooth (did not get dragged off even though I was flying United... this was nice), but over 15 hours on a plane is killer. It starts to feel like prison and I would find myself counting down the hours until my next meal. My previous personal record for time on a plane was 13 hours, so it did feel like an achievement when I landed!
I found Hong Kong super-easy to navigate and was at my hostel within 45 minutes of leaving the airport. The most amazing thing about Hong Kong was the MTR (the Hong Kong subway system). It put Toronto’s subway system to shame... as you can get pretty much anywhere using it. It was super clean (as you are not allowed to bring food/drinks on board) and it was fast and frequent – getting around was not an issue.
I had booked the hostel for two nights but extended my stay there for the entire time I was in Hong Kong. The staff were friendly and the location was good (right across from an MTR stop). It was my first time at a hostel so I was impressed. However, I soon realized it was not as good as some of the others I would stay in over the next three weeks. It was a bit crammed looking back and there were too many people sharing one room and bathroom. However, Hong Kong real estate is ridiculous and so the price was worth it.
The best thing about the hostel was meeting the other travellers. It was super easy to make friends since you only have a bed to sleep in and are forced to hang out in the common area any other time you are at the hostel. There were a lot of Europeans (mainly from the UK), some Americans and fair number of Canadians given our small population. Everyone was super friendly as well! There was a rooftop where we would have a few drinks and go out to the bar after... pretty cool.