On landing at Aukland International, we went to Tourist information bureau at the airport who advised how to best get to The Wharney hotel in Wanchai. They were very friendly and provided us with maps and a water bottle as a New Year’s Day gift.. They advised us to buy an On-Loan Octopus MRT card for travel within the city and put some money on it; any money not used will be refunded minus a 10$HK admin fee. We put $300 on the cards which covered us for the 4 days as it can be used on public rail, bus and ferries. Just badge and and out. We also bought an AirPort Express ticket for about $75 for the two of us. The public MRT train into the city is cheap and clean as we thought it was better value than the shuttle services provided for most tourist travel.

The Express service took us direct into the city and then we took the MRT to The Wharney hotel at Wanchai. After checking in we wandered around the local Wanchai Market area. Apparently this used to be a red light area but it certainly was safe and clean enough. The Star Ferry was local to us so we walked down to the terminal to cross Victoria Bay to Kowloon. This offered us ample opportunities to get our bearings and take some photos of the city. Close by was The Avenue of the Stars promenade which borders the Bay and is  an interesting walk. It was also a great place to view the Laser show where they cast images on most of the the buildings’ surroundings.

It was also Chinese New Year (Year of the Snake) over a period of 10 days so we enjoyed some of the festivities.