Category: Hong Kong

Feeling blessed – meeting old friends in Hong Kong

On my first bicycle tour I was stuck there for two weeks during Chinese New Year as I had to apply for visa and it turned out to be the most amazing way I could ever be stuck in a city. Trying to describe this in a blog post really doesn’t give justice to all the amazing-awesomeness of that time!

Imagine roof-top camping for two weeks and feeling as a part of a Hong Kong family who even take you to all their New-Year-family-gatherings.

Thanks to the strong solidarity in the bicycle community, christian hospitality and a lot of luck I met Cat, Mike and her sons who agreed to have me sleeping in their living room for the first two nights and allowing me to leave my stuff there when going to apply for the Chinese visa (which is essential as there seem to be some troubles in getting visa for China as a cyclist).

Thanks to the prelude you already now where these two nights led to. And they were delighted to meet up again.

Cat and Mike had planned out a lovely evening with sight-seeing, dinner and seeing their new home. We were reminiscing about the first time we met and catching up on each others life with promises to stay in touch and see each other again. I am really looking forward to the next time!

Pre-dinner Sunset over Hong Kong – amazing, isn’t it? They took me here last time as well, but this time we had a much better view

 

Taiwanese-dinner at the very same restaurant they took me for dinner on my first night in Hong Kong.

Getting into Hong Kong

Arriving in Shenzhen at lunch time, it took us only all day to get to Hong Kong. Thanks to the bikes it wasn’t too far to get to the border (maybe 10 oder 15k?) but I wanted to have a last lunch in China and finish off the mangos I bought in Zhaoqing the day before.

And I was reluctant. I didn’t want to leave China. So we were loitering in front of the big border building for a bit.

Getting through went smoothly without any hassle – and then we took a wrong turn. A turn I thought that was impossible. We were outside. I was convinced that there is no outside. There is only the metro to get out.

***

Excursus: The non-existing-exit

Two and half years ago I arrived in Shenzhen for the first time and asked on the Hong Kong side for the exit – I was determined to cycle. But was told by the tourist information lady “You can’t go outside. There is no exit. You can only take the metro.” I was frustrated but since she was very firm on this being the only option – I sucked it up and pushed my bike to the metro. (This is actually one of my favourite stories of my Shanghai-Singapore-bicycle tour.) And that’s were it got hilarious. I was told, I could not take the metro with my _BI_cycle.

So I was stuck. I could not go back to mainland China for not having a visa. I could not exit the border station as there was no exit. And I could not take the metro which was the only way out towards Hong Kong where I could get a visa to go back to China…

I did the only sensible thing that was to do at a situation like this – and started laughing. 

For some reason this sensible reaction caused some confusion so I got explained again that I was not allowed to take my bicycle onto the metro. I explained that I perfectly well understood what I was told. And that I was stuck.

And then I learnt some magic. I got handed a tool to take off my front wheel. Because something that has only one wheel attached to it, cannot be a bicycle anymore.

***

So you might understand my confusion of being outside at a bus port. But since we agreed upon no more cycling than was inevitable this was not the option I wished for this time.

Magic!

Only took us about an hour to find our way back to the metro, going some no-return-lanes the wrong way and squishing into elevators.

Yepp, that’s Niklas and his bicycle with all it’s wheels in it’s appropriate places on the bus. I was pretty impressed and didn’t think we would ever find a bus driver who would allow the bike on board regardless of it’s wheels.