Solo travel, as much as it freaks me out, also holds a sense of wonder for me. Liberating, it tests one's grit when it comes to literally navigating the unknown - may it be looking for your destination on the map or looking for a place to eat.
One certain thing about solo travel is that it is never easy but for the times that I went further beyond my comfort zone trying to reach an unfamiliar place and tested my limits in finding my way back after getting lost, it was definitely worth it.
As with everything else, it's nice to yolo the fuck out of life sometimes but it's another thing to be stupid. Reality is, solo travel has its risks so I always made it a point to inform someone where I plan to go on that day (shout out to my cousin @Dormine! hahahah).
Looking back, I wouldn't mind solo traveling again. I think it's actually more conducive to finding less-promoted places that turn out to be just as beautiful as their more advertised counterparts or even better.
So for my 6-day HK trip, I made a rough outline of the places I wanted to visit as well as the day I probably should visit them. I managed to visit almost all of them, although definitely not in the schedule I planned because what is solo travel if not for the freedom to do what you feel like doing at the drop of a hat lol. There was also a lot of coffee breaks, food run, and chill in between.
Anyhoo, I also chose to ditch the heavily-visited ones like Disneyland and OceanPark because I preferred to spend all those waiting time checking out temples instead. Maybe next time. ☺️
Overall, I think I spent around P35,000 (roundtrip airfare at P9000, airbnb room at P6,500, while the rest are day-to-day expenses like food, transportation, entrance fees as well as knicknacks and what-nots)
First Lesson; Getting There
Okay, here's the thing. This was my first trip to Hongkong, I didn't have a credit card, and I'm bad at directions but it's amazing what our survival instincts are capable of in times that we are left on our own to fend for ourselves. Intense but that was how it kinda felt for me the moment I landed at Hongkong's International Airport.
Getting to mainland Hongkong from the airport is hella expensive compared to the rates here if one's gonna take a taxi. As I was a traveler on a budget, I decided to take the bus instead. Admittedly, I'm not good with buses either as I prefer the train but since it's the easier alternative at that point, off I went.
It was not enough to simply know what bus stop you're getting off. If possible, count how many bus stops you'll pass before you reach your bus stop. My cousin actually advised me to do this but I nonchalantly shrugged it off, saying I'll know when to get off since it's shown on the screen. That was a mistake. After traveling for almost an hour, getting lost in the scenery as can be seen from the windows, we started to enter the more heavily populated part of the country and people started getting off in their own bus stops.
At that point, I started panicking whether already missed my bus stop or not. As I was seated at the back and too embarrassed to go up front and ask the driver himself, I got off at the next bus stop where a couple of passengers got off. It was definitely not where I should have been.
With my luggage in tow, I tried asking some people for directions but most of them don't know English and would just tell you "no" repeatedly,
After almost an hour, I decided to hail a taxi. While the driver knew a little English, it was still difficult to communicate and he ended up dropping me at a street where he said my room was located nearby. He also added HK$10 on top of the meter fare, with an explanation that didn't make sense at all.
So anyhoo, I got off and started wandering around. It took me a trip to a nearby Starbucks to connect to the internet as well as repeatedly going around and crossing the same streets over and over again before I finally found the place where I was supposed to stay.
Second Lesson: Do Not Judge a Building By Its Facade
I was staying at Jordan and the room I rented was on the 11th floor of a building. As I am used to, I waited at the reception area of the building for hours, waiting for a receptionist to talk to and to let me in. After watching countless people walk in and out, I finally went directly to the said floor in my frustration. To my surprise, each floor or even units in the building actually had different owners and purposes, like some are used as room-for-rents, others are offices, others are actually stores.
When I got to the place where I'm supposed to stay, the owner told me that he was wondering if I got lost since he had been waiting for me since a few hours ago. I was too tired to explain that I was just downstairs so I just said yes.
Since it was already late afternoon, I decided to just walk around and see nearby sights and I guess that's when my adventures officially began.
✔ St. Andrew's Church Kowloon
✔ Kowloon Park
✔ Peking Road
✔ Tsim Tsa Tsui
✔ Bowring Street
✔ Man Mo Temple
✔ Cat Street
✔ Tian Tan Temple
✔ Ngong Ping Village
✔ Ngong Ping Mountain Buddha Monastery
✔ Hongkong Museum of History
✔ Temple Street
✔ Victoria Peak
✔ Lugard Road
✔ Edward Youde Aviary
✔ Hongkong Museum of Teaware
✔ Nan Lian Garden
✔ Chi Lin Nunnery
✔ Wong Tai Sin Temple
✔ Ladies Market
