Our final train today ….. We spent the morning wandering around the area close to the hotel and found a lovely market area, so spent some time there indulging in some retail therapy. Around midday we headed off to the station. The stations for the bullet trains are always slightly out of town and they tend to resemble airport terminals. Even the terminology is similar with ‘boarding gates’ and airport-style security. Depressingly even the seating is similar – nowhere near enough of it (to ensure you wander round the shops instead) and what there is is incredibly uncomfortable!
At Shanghai the bullet train terminal was clearly part of a ‘buy one, get one free (BOGOF)’ offer as it is even right next door to the airport.
Once in the train we knew the routine, though this was the longest yet. The only difference was the constant dire warnings about arriving in Hong Kong without a ticket. Sure enough, the train more or less emptied at Guangzhou and we were the main people left on board. It seems that Hong Kong is part of China, but not if you are Chinese – then you need a special permit. We are fine though as we don’t need visas to visit Hong Kong. After the two opium wars we obtained a 99 year lease of the New Territories in Hong Kong in 1998. This ran out in 1997 and you can’t help but wonder whether it was a typo in the agreement and they meant to get a 999 year lease. In the end it proved too difficult to hand back the New Territories and not the rest of Hong Kong as all the infrastructure was inter-connected and so in 1997 Chris Patten was the last Governor of Hong Kong. It is now described as a Special Administrative Region of China and has its own separate government. It also has a completely separate legislature, but it remains to be seen what happens after 2047 when the 50 year transition agreement ends as nothing was specified about how Hong Kong would be governed after this ends.
We arrived at the hotel in Causeway Bay on the north side of Hong Kong Island around midnight, but being a 31 floor hotel, we do have a great view of the harbour.
