What a long day – Started with a 12.05am flight out from Perth to Hong Kong.
Hong Kong – Kowloon
After checking with our bags on the 27th September, we headed off to the airport lounge to get away from the hustle and bustle. Settled in for a quick snack before the monday morning early flight. With a prompt on-schedule departure time, we flew out. Landed 30 mins early in Hong Kong at 07.45 the same day. Hong Kong has a great way in how they manage their flight arrivals.
Get off the plane, and headed down to the Automated People Mover (APM)
Type: Driverless underground electric train system
Function: Connects distant boarding gates (such as the Midfield Concourse or West Hall) and terminals to the main arrival and immigration/baggage reclaim areas.
This connected us to the main part of the airport where we passed through a series of checkpoints and facial recognition procedures. First up – Immigration (stand/facial scan/terse looks from staff). Then headed off to baggage collection. This is where things became weird. Approx 95% of the plane was transfer between flights. The remaining 5% were staying or stopping off in Hong Kong. This meant that the baggage hall was the quietest we had ever seen the place.
Next stop – customs. Straight through.
Last stop involved a walk down into the bowels of the airport to look for the taxi ranks. Ours was red.
Red Taxis (Urban Taxis): Operate across Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and most of the New Territories. They cover the widest area.
Green Taxis (New Territories Taxis): Limited strictly to the New Territories (such as Sha Tin or Tuen Mun). They cannot pick up passengers in urban districts.
Blue Taxis (Lantau Taxis): Restricted exclusively to Lantau Island and the Hong Kong International Airport/Chek Lap Kok.
After a decent 35 min journey, we got into the hotel for around 09.45. This first part of the trip, we are staying in Hotel Grand Harbour Hong Kong (Kowloon side). Dumped our bags off and headed to the lounge (more about this later). Head breakfast before heading up to the roof (21st Floor) to check out the views as well as the pools.
WOW.
Went back to the room for a crash and mini sleep.
Back to the lounge for afternoon tea (more about this later).
More checking out of the hotel food and drink joints.
