Today was our last day in Hong Kong. After a fabulous buffet breakfast we set off to find the Noon Day Gun. We caught the MTR to Causeway Bay, the location of the Noon Day Gun. Hence we thought it would be reasonably easy to find if we just headed towards the harbour. Boy were we mistaken.
We walked towards the harbour only to be confronted with a mass of criss crossing roadways that we were somehow meant to navigate our way across. We walked along the road and over a few bridges that allowed us to cross some of the roads but still no luck. When climbing yet another overpass we met a lovely couple who told us this was not the way to the gun and that the best thing to do was to go back to the Excelsior Hotel who do a free tour.
We walked back over the many overpasses to the Excelsior Hotel. David and Connor spoke to the Concierge who gave them directions on how we could get there. We were now cutting it very fine with less than 10 minutes before it was due to be fired. In order to get to the gun it was like something out of the Amazing Race or a spy movie. We had to go out of the hotel, across a driveway, into their underground car park, walk to the end, turn right down a secret passage, walk along the winding passage way which also served to pump sea water in and out of the Excelsior to use in their chillers. We were surprised to find once we followed this tunnel to the end that we popped up right next to the Noon Day Gun.
When the gun came into view we were all slightly underwhelmed. We were expecting a large cannon and were met with a small cannon/gun.
There was an official standing near by keeping a close eye on the time preparing to fire the gun. He loaded a large shell and then at exactly noon he strode forward and fired. We were extremely shocked by the power of the gun. When it fired, the noise nearly exploded our ear drums and smoke filled the air. A few moments after firing it the gates were opened for people to be able to get a closer look at the gun and its surrounding cannons. The gun is fired every day as a long standing tradition in Hong Kong. It is also now used to raise money for charity with people being given the chance to fire the gun (and keep a pellet) for a significant donation to charity.
Our next mission (once we could find our way back through the tunnel and then find the entrance back into the MTR) was to go to the Central Bus Station to make our way to Victoria Peak. We easily found the number 15 bus and hopped on board. We were under the impression that the bus would take us to the Victoria Peak Tram. We would soon discover that we were mistaken. The bus ride seemed to take a very long time winding through busy streets, moving ever upwards towards the peak. It took us a long time to get up there with both the boys falling asleep. It was very interesting because an ex-pat Chinese man sitting behind David was pointing out interesting sights and explaining a lot of information about Hong Kong to his child. When we finally arrived at Victoria Peak we made our way to the viewing platform. What we could see was lovely but the view was not at its best because it was very foggy.
Unfortunately we discovered that the Victoria Peak Tram had been closed for maintenance (just for the few days of our stay). The time to check out from our hotel was fast approaching so we jumped on the next bus back down to central Hong Kong and took the ferry back to Kowloon.
We packed up our luggage and went for an "emergency" food stop to McDonalds. After we had fed the hungry masses we collected our luggage and made our way to Hong Kong airport using the MTR and Airport Express trains. Unfortunately when we arrived at the airport we found that the Finn Air check in was not going to open for another 3 hours. We found a comfortable place to sit and read, blog and snooze until check in time. After check in and security we made our way through to the departure lounge. It was here at about 11.30pm we needed another "emergency" McDonalds stop - we seem to be having a lot of emergency food stops. Not sure we will ever eat McDonalds again after this trip!!!!
Just after 1am we finally took off from Hong Kong bound for Helsinki and then Stockholm. The boys did really well to stay awake as long as possible. Needless to say they slept for a good portion of the 11 hour flight.
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