First Impressions of Hong Kong in 2024
good morning from Hong Kong just arrived off a late flight last night stepping out into the daytime for the first time today so you can see surrounded by this megatropolis of different buildings one of the most densely populated if not the most densely populated cities in the world to get us started on our day of exploring Hong Kong and seeing what it's all about we need a good coffee now there's no shortage of nice modern hipster coffee shops here J are positioned against these slightly rustic buildings look at this first a scene here you've got these tiny Apartments some of the tiniest apartments in the entire world with this very hipster coffee shop yeah that's type thing that you can get here in Hong Kong let's get a nice cup of coffee and get on with our journey can I please get a long black long black and then a um do you do iced coffee iced coffee you I yeah please how much how much is a coffee setup I know £9 £9 for two cupies guys Hong Kong is one of the most expensive cities in the entire world and uh yeah we knew that just from paying for our hotel a very sort of average room for a high price is what you'll get here in Hong Kong but uh yeah sure the coffe is good just expensive I think we've been spoiled by the mainland everything on the mainland is quite cheap yeah um so it's a little bit more expensive here a nice hot cup of jaw to enjoy in this area just looking around here guys while we stroll with our coffee it reminds me of the the favellas of real you know with just with the skyscrapers kind of towering over it you've got this kind of this green fence here is a is a city sort of football Court like a like a Pana foot Sal court and just all of these different color buildings everywhere right so what we want to do today is we want to take the famous ferry across the river to uh to cowon to downtown Hong Kong and uh got a real taste of everything there is to offer and a nice morning here in Hong Kong see some people here getting the morning exercise in lots of outdoor outdoor Parks I don't know having a bit of tug of war or something yeah you know it's always raining in C it's all it's always rainy it's very tropical you know right on the South China Sea here in Hong Kong and uh yeah so people tend to congregate under these highways and under these sort of walkways and various different things just to kind of meet up or go to the gym got some anties here doing the public workouts staying fit it's always you know you got the Elder generation in Hong Kong or even the same in mainland China just always heading to the park to uh to get their workouts in always staying Nimble staying fit look all these facilities just completely open for everyone you know one of the most densely populated cities in the world and they've just got these sort of facilities just completely open to everyone look at that nobody's even here using it I mean I know it's it's raining and everything but uh but yeah look at this gu just skyscrapers towering over everywhere see here I've got uh some old boy practicing his basketball nice very good very good and look at this I would be surprised if this is open to the public fullon 5G football pitch at that seven aside Tuesdays Thursdays and Saturdays that's when they watered the p Wow real Turf ehh imagine playing re S as side League you can just see there skyscrapers taring over there you're shooting that way that's like proper FIFA Street isn't it just proper megatropolis 40 pitch that's nice nice sort of prominade along the river walk here loads of outdoor football pitch basketball pitch people want the dogs you know old people using the public gyms nice H it is nice nice ni uh nice morning sort of cozy atmosphere so our friend Max who you would have seen in the Shanghai videos he used to live in Hong Kong M and he was telling us that on Sunday is basically like service workers who people are like clean and stuff Sunday is their day off right like people work in hotels and stuff yeah right so um on a Sunday they will just flock to all of the public spaces nobody has in Hong Kong like a house big enough to home them and all of their friends smallest apartments in the world here but yeah I think they bring like karaoke machines they like at each other's hair they just hang out but I think that's so nice to like and it's so good for you to be outside yeah so everyone's making used to the uh the outdoor space all the public space nothing is private here cuz uh well it's kind of forced to be that way because of you know how small the apartments are how densely populated it is here all right we're approaching the river here I'm excited to go on this Ferry are you yes I love much safer than planes that we were on last night yeah terrible flight absolutely terrible flight coming in here it's uh I think there's some sort of monsoon going on or typhoon or something like that cuz uh yeah just had the worst turbulence absolutely horrific the plane kept just rapidly descending horrible and then last night it just stormed and stormed and stormed all night so yeah hopefully we get a little bit of rest spite today it is raining a little bit but uh it's not going to stop us exploring this great great City wow so much history here oh just goes on forever so you can't even see how far it's going on on the camera there but uh look at this eh just uh approaching the water line here oh them waves are quite big oh my goodness Jesus size of these waves that's going to be an interesting and ferry ride I mean I'm sure they're used to it problem is guys Hong Kong is absolute cluster of islands and on caves and all the rest of it on the South China Sea with loads of rivers coming through and loads of estuaries and everything all the different water things you could think of all just pour into Hong Kong here so there's so many different changes and currents and temperatures and everything also I did check online it says they only turn off the boats if there is an actual typhoon right like in action other than that they're like that you get on yeah so the bman are hard as Nails right that's uh I'm guessing over there is where we want to go I'm not sure I can see the fer is docked over here so yeah right let's get ourselves a ticket for that Ferry and get across the water here is the boat terminal 7-Eleven there for all of you all you needs everything ever 71 is a traveler's Haven all right let's see um well it's got a fery logo in this way so follow it that way no idea where we're going how we buy a ticket how much it costs where the faeries even go to just wanted to get on a ferry cuz it's like quite a famous thing to do in Hong Kong isn't it sort of cross the river oh there we go fairies lifts and toilets this way Fair's diagonally left okay is a very uh strange route to get to a ferry Isn't it past to McDonald's past the Hong Kong Duck Restaurant right I'm guessing the diagonally up was this right so I wonder how many like actual local people use the ferry or if it's kind of just like a a gimmick of it's a genuinely useful thing these have got suitcases it looks like they're going somewhere a little bit further away than us only want to go about 100 m across the river oh fell over well that's a very modern setup we've got going on here oh look oh these are going to maau right yes there are the so you can 1750 oh look it says today is full today's quarter is full huh huh maybe we should ask someone hello is there a ferry that goes to Kon from here yeah just across the river oh this way okay thank you all right well he said to go this way the west bridge and uh if you're rich enough like many people in Hong Kong are the West Bridge is where you can fly your helicop that is that is what I've got oh right that's so where do it brilliant let's have a look see what we can find passengers are requested to present Ferry tickets for verification at the checking counter this was a little bit uh more difficult than I had thought it might have been so looks like we were trying to get on one of the Long Haul sort of luxury VIP super fast boats trying to get on a Ricket the old fer and uh that's all the VIP stuff so we need to go to a totally different Ferry Terminal out of this Posh Mall looking thing well after a little Stoll and using Google Maps which works perfectly here in Hong Kong unlike the mainland of China we found our Ferry Star Ferry Sim Shu I don't know if that's how youd pronounce it but that's my best guess right well this is a little bit more like what I expected uh not as nice as the Five Star Mall that we paraded ourselves through earlier this is uh yeah this is where the the real working man gets on his Ferry and that's what the that's what we're doing not none of that fancy fancy catamaran malar over there oh this is the price I want to pay oh this looks better what's that 40 yes 40 40 that's better not £17 all right there we go an old classic slightly worn out ticket machine here yeah this is uh this is the real Hong Kong this what we're this is what we want all right well up here there are 80 for two tickets and head down to the great Ferry of cowon beer feel the Unseen W that's this is real traveling see in the Unseen Nobody seen this before certainly not a British lad the ship is moving with uh a great amount look how clean the water is I'm surprised at that it's actually like Clear Water DM guys uh we're in got some choppy Waters today choppy Waters right I don't know where's the front and back of the ship this is uh going to be a rough one guys it is stormy in Hong Kong and this boat is rocking even though when we're tied up to the uh to the pier here yeah what Happ we go there oh no what's that say St oh okay can't go there it looks like they're not letting people on the deck or something you can see the guy he's just pulled in the gate there tied it up way this is a task just walking around on this interesting HH wow look here's the engine room here yeah W this is a type environment my Grandpa would have worked in this is excellent look at that you can just see all these engines and uh well I'm sure if my grandpa was here he would tell me what every single part of this is but all I can hear is noise and feel the heat roaring out of here wow what a what a place to work that is you know and imagine even back in the day it was even even worse conditions in that you just had to get on with every day but uh look like covering parts of pieces of cardboard that's all being burned and stuff but uh all right well nice Ferris wheel there but that's what I'm seeing guys you can see Sky Skyline over over there Skyland over there Skyland over here you know it's not just at one place Hong Kong is so dense we're going quite fast aren't we yes right and even more over here it's just insane the uh the density of buildings here and what's quite surprising to me that I don't see a lot of construction I expected to see scaffolding everywhere you can see this building here is getting built up but uh but yeah I thought it would just be like construction and scaffold and what slot so maybe they've literally ran out of places to build well you can see it kind of sprawling up the mountain there yeah it's really really interesting place Hong Kong geographically do you think if you go over if you shout in there would you well that's fine now don't you do this been very silly right come we here right yeah no just just embarrass yourself in front of all of your Chinese comrades a bit more of this engine room more guys look at this down here there's somebody there's a cattle can you see that there's a there's a cattle over there wow so maybe the engine Master can uh make himself have a cup of tea when it's Works done very interesting isn't it how about this eh a b of cow who have thought sitting here enjoying it's quite a blue sea as well Blue Water yeah you know I always wanted to come to Hong Kong you know when I was younger growing up I always thought wow you know all the lights and the big buildings and the skyline and I always saw people like going along this River and taking photos and putting it on Instagram I I love that I love the go there here we are look at this there's a super yacht and a ginormous cruise over there helicopter just flying in there's a big Panasonic building lots of brands that you'll you'll know and use another Ferry comes in as What's happen like clockwork throughout the day there's the fairies cut across the bay of Koon and now our Journey's finished let's venture into the real historical part of Hong Kong downtown cowon first thing on the agenda here is to get a proper Hong Kong me breakfast our first meal in Hong Kong I want to go somewhere very traditional and I found a little place on Google Maps that's serving up proper Hong Kong n breakfast let's see what it's all about look at this looks like a right classic it's called shine Island Cafe Hong Kong style look at that's telling you some of the highlights we got milk tea egg Tarts lemon tea French toast pineapple buns Hong Kong style looks pretty popular I just love this retro sort of feeling to it serving up a proper Hong Kong brunch hello have a table for two oh hello two piece oh there we go oh great thank you hey look at this all right yeah it's awesome proper I love the decorations in here they sort of like I don't know it almost has a bit of an American Dina type feel to but uh yeah real h Hello two please okay okay yeah that's that'll be just fine I'm sure thank you all right okay thank you space is a luxury here in Hong Kong so even your Cutlery comes beside you on the uh on the seat thank you all right y so okay what what do you recommend what's a real Hong Kong breakfast Hong Kong breakfast yeah what's a what's a traditional Hong Kong breakfast Hong Kong PE this all day per oh that's that's is that very H oh she went away looks like it's fig it doesn't look like a Hong Kong breakfast to me there's a hash brown two sausages bacon and eggs and I doubt the authenticity of that but uh let's have a little look through the menu regardless anyway she's she's ditched me for somebody else done our own research to find out what a what a classic Hong Kong Le dish is on this menu but use very Google translate cuz it is actually all in uh in cantones here and maybe um simplified Chinese as well but uh yeah we found a b one that's uh yeah I'm excited for our first proper Hong Kong meal okay been ditched again we can't get this lady's attention can we she's a popular woman yeah she's running all different tables around here so yeah difficult to uh to get our attention for more than a few seconds hello hi can we have one pineapple pineapple one egg TT one egg pineapple one and one uh egg one and one Sati beef noodles s okay first and can I ice milk tea ice milk tea and um coffee black coffee black coffee yes please coffee hot um cold ice coffee thank you come you're welcome ah thanks so much I feel loved now it's made up for ditching a spice I feel loved right okay well help yourself do some Cuttery you know if you're having any problems in the restaurant oh just got a quick knife at your hands AR you runch is arriving thank you thank you okay so what we got here oh and the drinks are coming as well it all comes one nice organized event look at these sort of metal tumblers that you get here it's all right it nice black coffee and a that milk tea very very Hong Kong ni all right so this is not beef saté noodles oh that looks nothing like beef sa noodles I mean it's toed with an omelette looks nice but I mean um well this is an egg tart and that there is a pineapple bun so tell me what is a pineapple bun there's a big secret to this pineapple bun which is there's no pineapple in no pineapple so why is it called a pineapple bun looks like a pineapple cuz it's kind of got all these little I don't know crusty bits on the top yeah so a little open yeah inside it's supposed to be filled with something isn't it well I guess it's just a fluffy piece of bread with like a crumb like a you give it a taste no you got to taste the whole thing okay well our first pineapple bun in uh in Hong Kong this is a proper Hong Kong Le speciality fluffy bread crispy on the top it is pineapple Leaf I not it is tastes like a biscuit yeah it's very sweet the topic it's good mhm it is a lovely white fluffy bun with a crumb of biscuit on the top that's quite clever is it like a like a cheesecake you know but with bread instead of cheese oh there we go oh so what's this then so confused where did this come from so that's the beef Sati noodles but I just don't know what that is our menu has five items like this has five items on it yeah but we got two coffees yeah which is 1 2 3 four five I don't know oh know Jeff I love peanut butter and this smells so peanut buttery absolutely steaming hot looks like I smoth that Pine little bun out the way there we've got some instant noodles beef and some sort of Sati s of sauce on top of there which uh yeah definitely tell we're entering brunch territory here for sure this is just actually tremendous I've never had anything like it before there you go there's your saat beef yeah it's really nice I don't like salad myself so this is uh going to be the beef is super soft like B oh yeah it's pulling away no bite to it try it says on the menu it's just instant noodles there nothing special about the noodles sometimes it's all you need a bit of Simplicity they look Steam and hot mind instant noodles bit of broth and some s Beef right let's have a look at this F oh it's warm lovely warm egg tart obviously much different to a b that because it doesn't have that top area it doesn't have the the sort of baked top that you would get so it's just more like a jam top where you see there it's just like a I guess that's sweet egg and this lovely crummy pastry here wow it's not sweet it's just like a it's not sweet well not very sweet I thought it would be like very very sweet sugary but it's more just like a a baked egg wrapped in a very light flaky pastry here a little another pite of that so flaky it's just everywhere yeah it's um not as sweet as I would like it to be but um yeah uh it's it's certainly quite nice it's a it's just like a warm almost like a soft scrambled egg in the walls of a flaky pastry it's uh yeah different how I imagine certainly not terrible but certainly not as good as this lovely biscuit bun I translated it and they said that we bought a set I don't know if that is an addition to a set maybe this comes with that maybe tell you what I'll be a rebel and I'll eat it that's a good slicer toast I'm interested in this omelet look through the middle wow my goodness oh my goodness me look at all that ham in there it's just like strains of smoked ham fry look at all that talk about a a ham omelette never had an omelette as filled as that it's just ham sipping out everywhere that's absolutely outrageous M that's nice salted egg the egg is a little bit salty and then you just an absolute abundance of ham in there going to finish the rest of this got all fueled up let's go out and see what else you can find in this downtown area busy here we're local favorites yeah it's a big hit but uh yeah so we have to feel using an app called octopus you can use that to pay to get on the buses on the Metros and anything it's kind of like a like a city card so you can load up your octopus use contactless on your Apple wallet or whatever and um yeah we have to use it in here cuz I don't accept card only cash and octopus payments a big but alip Hong Kong is different to alip Mainland Tri yeah you need a special alipay for Hong Kong it's really useful it's just like yeah it's just in your Apple wallet there you go you've got a balance of £30 and we're going to spend $10 pounds here on on lunch yeah not bad at all took 2 minutes to download and set up even tells you the balance you got left thank you goodbye oh and it instantly updated on the uh oh yeah balance 2 or one that's pretty good isn't it I'm not sure why you need a a special sort of Hong Kong City card instead of just using your debit card cuz you can use your debit card in all the other places but uh yeah on them in it all right look at this huh just surrounded right in the Town metropolitan area it's amazing isn't it you got all this concrete jungle and then cuz we are in a tropical location you got the palm trees lying in the streets well I don't think this can uh quite paint a better picture of Hong Kong if you're come in in springtime early summer is uh yeah absolutely shooking it down as it was last night when we arrived Everybody's Got The Umbrellas out yeah lashing it down it seems to just be cloudy thick gray clouds and then just rain whenever it wants all the time wow this place you can get a whole suckling pig wow look at that there there's some uh some Hong Kong dinner food you know that's uh you know we we've had our brunch that's what they might e for dinner the the bright red duck the ribs the hole the whole pig up there $3,888 which is £388 for they give you free steamed chicken with it oh well there you go bargain pays for itself if you want to see what real proper evening food is like here in Hong Kong and uh stay tuned for a video that's coming in the future cuz we got to film an epic street food adventure and try some of the best street food in Hong Kong so yeah maybe I vog on the channel already see if it's there just found this here an old church an old classic I don't know if it's going to be Church of England a Catholic Church I think it's a church of England church here just uh climbing up these steps in the rain oh wow it's beautiful oh my goodness man that is very nice we'll find out about it let's see what type of uh what type of church this is but it does look like type of church You' find in England rather than somewhere like Italy or Spain so I do believe this will be a church of England church here look at this in the Metropolis of Hong Kong you've got this proper classic British architecture style Church surrounded by these tiny apartments and whatnot so the foundation stone was laid by the right Reverend JC hore Bishop Victoria in 1904 the church is erected and presented to the colony which is Hong Kong this is a British colony by Sir CP chapter so here we go let's see what we've got in here it's a dark church it's not lit up I don't think it's having any service at the moment so yeah the vicar of St Andrew Church Caron Hong Kong W look at this you see that's very interesting isn't it look doesn't have any pews just seats wooden seats everywhere and uh Jesus himself is not visually crucified as well that's quite interesting the uh the foundations of the window don't actually show him being crucified and also notice the uh the form of the crucifixion his hands are like vertically in the air rather than out to the side of him which you would uh normally you know relate with the Holy Trinity of that direction there so that's interesting isn't it you know the red brick you know obviously the churches in England you know ones like ones in Durham and things like that are thousand years old 800 years old Etc but this one just 1904 it's merely 120 years old and you can see it can't you with it's yeah very very modern stuff um Evangelical Evangelical there you go let's see yeah it's just an Evangelical Church that's very nice it's nice that they leave the doors open as well like a good church should do always have the doors open for anyone to go in and uh take whatever time they need if it's a personal matter or if the need to get in touch with the priest or the chaplain well on a rainy day kind of limits what you can do but uh one thing that's always really good when you come to the city your first day in the city is to try and get to see the city from above now we found a building called the one which is in Caron we can go to the 16th floor for free apparently according there with some article online so we'll try it out and uh let's see Hong Kong and cowon from above and get a real perception of just how big this city really is all right so where is it I guess it's this entire mall maybe I'm not sure well we'll surely find out where it is can we go to the 16th floor all right up here to to view out of the city is it floor 16 Gard yes please yes 16 floor yeah not open it's not open foring uh what's this sorry only for a wedding only for a wedding oh okay oh we have to get married thank you I think we should give it a try anyway causing Mischief on our first day in arm [Music] just for banquet if you book not for oh you can't see ah I just wanted to look out of the window oh thank you nice people here in Hong Kong HH I'm not uh mess anything up looks very very beautiful is uh somebody getting married or no just arrest uh company oh like a corporate dining sort of situation I see wow England yeah England yeah from Newcastle Newcastle yeah wow look at that there is Victoria Harbor oh just there Victoria Harbor so I think weest stay over there somewhere mhm and uh yeah just uh rain every day right just always raining yeah this food just this food yeah and the the mosque down there very Multicultural City here in Hong Kong it's just the Skyland just goes forever doesn't it IFC IFC yeah in National Financial Center oh so that's like the the Wall Street of Hong Kong all the investment uh stock Brokers are in the is is there at all the Investments and uh yeah see uh investment bang everyone in there I see I can imagine the chaos going on on and the I don't know must be 60 70 floors of that uh the IFC there and look at the size of this building here I wonder if that's I don't know what that is that residential residential I guess yeah is that someone's Penthouse apartment up there CRA can't even imagine can you be in the clouds for half of the year with all this uh rain and whatnot I wouldn't like to know how much that cost either cuz like the smallest apartment is like $3,000 a month you start to see a few of the lights coming on there there's a crawling BG 1664 is shining over the uh over the skyline here but uh I just heard a bit of Thunder that's absolutely uh what a moody gloomy day here in Hong Kong but uh yeah there a lot of things to do to let us just like come in and have a look yeah it's a proba a POS corporate venue boues of flowers G carlsburg all right well this probably an all right place to end the video with the great Hong Kong Metropolis behind us obviously we weren't able to get up to the 16th floor but you know if you want to try a look and uh and come up to this uh what floor are we on I think it's the 13th 13th floor yeah the nice if the nice man's working he might like you in to come have a have a little look at this but uh yeah that's our first very first impressions our first morning here in Hong Kong had a lovely brunch we uh tried some of the uh local transport on the ferry and everything got to see the great Victoria Harbor we've seen the whole city and uh met some nice people but uh videos AR going to stop here plenty more videos coming from Hong Kong so explore with us and uh we'll see you in the next video which is probably going to be an epic street food Adventure so you want to see more food then uh stay tuned for that we're going to be eating our way through an amazing Street Mark Street Food Market in Hong Kong so yeah we'll see you then and uh leave any comments in the leave any comments below that anything you recommend us to do or anything we you know got wrong or maybe you want to correct us on or anything like that cuz uh yeah First Impressions we don't really know what's going on yeah thanks very much for watching see you in the next video goodbye
2024-07-09 13:54
