Hong Kong, you know the story: special administration zone of China after it came back to China from the UK after 100 years. Finance center. A few million citizens. We knew all that. We expected a big city, but what we have seen is just beyond every imagination or expectation. No James Bond movie can show it;-)
The main hobby of the people here seems to be SHOPPING! And they do it all the time. We have once counted 20 shops of Camper shoes spread all over shopping malls in HK... And the shopping malls are huge.
View from our window
Example of an apple store: we have seen at least 3 that big or bigger...
After cycling 1 month in quite hilly Japan, where we cycled almost 2000km and 10000meters climb (ascent) we enjoyed very good international food here: from Cantonese Chinese through Korean, Indonesian, Thai to Turkish:-) at least that is what we have tried:-) and the massage. These were quite painful but very good for our muscles, so it was worth it.
Fa Yuen street food market at a lunch time
Dumpling soup for breakfast
Yellow chicken still has its head hanging
Good thai curry and veggies
We also both went to the hair dresser, we wanted to look good in this huge city... An after a few months it was also necessary:-)
If we didn't eat or let our bodies being squeezed by tiny Chinese ladies we travelled around the city:
- with a ferry
- with underground
- with a train
We have observed people and the streets
Sunday in Victoria park
Our favorite evening was the one spent at the harbor during the laser show. Wow, how unreal it was!!
After a few days waiting for our visa for our next destination: China, we had enough of the city and went to Lamma Island only 30 minutes away with a ferry.
View from a ferry on our way back
That was a very relaxing and calm day and we have seen maybe only a few hundred people instead of thousands;-)
Tommorrow we fly to Kunming in China in province Yunnan. We are very curious and excited about our next cycling destintion. We expect 1200-1500km with a lotnof up nd downs... It will be though but for sure beautiful and adventureus! See you soon!
At lake Akan we
rested for a couple of days but not without hiking up a volcano
beside the lake.
The hike itself
was a very steep 3 hours climb. No problem going up but going down
was very painfull after an hour. Painfully we found out for hiking
you need for sure different muscles than fo cycling. So the next days
we cycled with very sour muscles. Never mind the trip was beautiful.
It was quite steep
Due to our sour
muscles we only cycled to another lake around 30 km way but not
without a climb of about 700m, hm.As a rewarda great and unexpected (for us) natural onsen appeared just on the top of the hill!
The lake Onnetoh
is located on the foot of a still active volcano.
The camp ground
there was fantastic. We had our first camp fire after we left
Australia. Even more we found some mushrooms and put it into our
curry that night.
Next day we cycled
a bit along a dirt road and enyojed the long down hill section
towards Ashoro.
Stopping at a
supermarket we ran into our friend Min from Taiwan who we met before
at our warm showers host in Sapporo.
We cycled together
for the rest of the day, camped in Honbetsu at a free campground and
cooked curry together, Min prepared a delicious outdoor-style soup.
Since
we were keen to see also a litte bit of the south west of Hokkaido we
planed our route towards Lake Toya which led us to Shimitzu over a
very busy and dangerous pass along the road 274. Truck after truck
passed us on our way up. Later we found out the trucks used that road
instead of the highway to avoid the fees. I do not have to talk about
how you feel when you ride on a narrow road into a less illuminated
tunnel in foggy conditions and trucks comming from both directions.
The cyclists among you know what we are talking about :) it is a kind
of adrenalin feeling. All others need to imagine ;).
Just at the top... foggy like hell
The
downhill after the top was an easy ride then because we cycled
somtimes faster than the trucks.
Pouring
down is something which belongs to Hokkaido like sandstorms to the
dessert. Luckily we managed to arrive at our destination just before
it started.
The
next days were pleasant riding: first cycling half a day towards the
ocean, then along the sea side.
Resturant on the main road
The evenings we spent first at
hotsprings and then looked for some camp spots.
After
we reached Shiraoi decided to stay at a nice litle campground a few
km out of the town in the woods.
First
night there were only us and a motor biker.
Second night us and more
then 250 motorbiker since they had a biker meeting there.
Nevertheless we learned Japanese motorbiker party in the same way as
back home in Germany :).
At the
second day we made a day tour to Noboribetsu which is the most famous
onsen at Hokkaido.
Before
we arrived there we cycled the very remote road 350 up to a
perfectlly round volcano lake.
A few
people only. Cycling down towards Noboribetsu the place called „Hell
valley“ complete differnt picture awaited us and all by sudden
tourists everywhere but the place called hell valley is really
something special to see and should not only be reserved for touring cyclists:).
Friendly welcome to hell valey...
Our
trip through Hokkaido was nearly finished when we cycled up to Lake
Shikotsu. Dreaming about our trip suddenly the lake appeared in front
of us.
Acctually
the lake is a real highlight and it is so close to Sapporo. The light
over the lake changed every minute, the volcanos around were covered
in clouds for minute then for another minute clear views. Just very
nice.
That
night we camped at the lake and relaxed with some beers cooking our
last outdoor Japanese curry.
The
next morining we woke up and the sun was alreay way up in the sky.
We
cycled along the lake later on and enyojed it a lot as you can see in a short movie below.
The way
to Sapporo was quite hilly! Luckily we had a swim in the lake and a
coffee with an ice cream just before the climb which gave us a good
energy for going up.
Last bits of the road to Sapporo were okay, nice
downhill and even a cycling path. We ate a ramen after tough cycling
and went to Kenichi and Kasumi to meet them again.
A nice surprise:
also Min, our friend from Taiwan was already there. We had a lovely
meal prepared by Kasumi and good talking about Hokkaido adventures.
The
next day we packed our bikes and all the gear into the boxes and
bought our last original Japanese sashimi. We will miss that for
sure!
Short news because of the actual flood in Japan. We left Japan on Wednesday and are in Hongkong, no rain here and very pleasant 30 degrees C:) Stay tuned, we will soon post new stories!
