As I mentioned in my last post, our Cathay Pacific flight from Sydney was delayed so we missed our connection to Tokyo. Fortunately, an airline attendant met us and presented us with vouchers for a hotel and meals and boarding passes for a flight the next morning.

I had to laugh to myself (and told Mike the overnight delay was my fault) because when we landed in Hong Kong I was amazed by how enormous it’s become and thought to myself I’d like to see the city again someday, I also had asked my sister-in-law what it was like since it transferred back to China in 1997. She says it’s one of her favorite global cities. So SOMEDAY suddenly became TODAY!

We didn’t have much time as we arrived in late afternoon, and they gave us vouchers for the dinner buffet that didn’t start until 6.

We spent quite a bit of time in Hong Kong and the then-Portuguese colony Macau in our 20s and used it as our jump-off point for our 3-month trip through Asia when we left Japan. Back then we stayed in the downmarket Sky Guest House in Tsim Shat Tsui, which was a bit of a dump! 😂

Unfortunately we arrived in the middle of a big typhoon, so some of the popular evening events were shut down and it was overcast…so we didn’t go up on the peak.

We took the shuttle back to the airport and then rode the handy Airport Express downtown to Central HK. From there we took the Star Ferry across to Kowloon.

The historic 137-year-old Star Ferry, which transports 70,000 people per day, was the only thing that seems to have not changed about Hong Kong! It still costs just 50 cents to ride.

Hong Kong has exploded with high-end fashion everywhere. It seems like a much richer city now, even though it’s part of China and the median and average salaries are still low.

As for us, we felt like slobs who had been flying all day with no clean clothes to change into. Stupidly. We had checked our luggage for the first time! We both bought Hong Kong tshirts so we wouldn’t stink the next day!

Our flight departed late yet again but fortunately we had no flight to miss. We made our way to the Shinkansen station, bought bentos and drinks, and traveled to Osaka in a short 2-1/2 hours.