Kohti valoa / Photoblog

We spent the last day in Moscow just hanging around in coffee bars and enjoying the first warm and sunny day of the spring. Snow was melting and mud started to cover the streets so we decided to continue our journey and headed for the airport. As I'm afraid of flying it was quite a mental challenge to board the tin can Aeroflot that was waiting for us at the Sheremetyevo. After nine hours of never-ending turbulence we landed to New York of the Orient - Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is one of those cities that you like immediatelly when you step out of the plane. Especially, if you dig New York or any other big metropolis, this is the place to visit. It's my fourth time here and I'm as excited as during the first visit some years ago when we took a train from Tibet to Hong Kong. It's all about city life, shopping, sky-high buildings, hundreds of different cultures, cheap electronics and climbing! Climbing? That's right, we actually managed to do some climbing after the trip to Russia. This is not the number one spot for climbing in Asia but there are still some high quality crags very close to the city center.

When we took a bus from airport to the town we saw this huge rock cliff dominating the skyline high above Kowloon. After one day of recovering we grabbed our gear and trekked half an hour through a monkey forest to the foot of the cliff. We completed the climb in five pitches and after three hours of climbing we stood at the summit of Lion Rock, 500m above Hong Kong. The view was stunning, very similar to Victoria Peak but from the other side of the city. Too bad Puise couldn't join us because his knee got thrashed by a subway gate in Moscow.

I'm having problems uploading pictures from my camera because we already crossed the border to mainland China and the Blogger site is currently being blocked by the Chinese government. Facebook, Youtube and other social medias are also closed down. I managed to send this post from my phone after some old school tricks but the connection is too slow for the large pictures in my camera. I try to upload some of the images later if I manage to use the Blogger site with a computer.




Ticket to the moon - choose Aeroflot.



The Peninsula was already full...




...so we went to Chunking Mansions instead.




Hong Kong island seen from Kowloon.




Last moments before sunset.




It was a great idea to go shopping in Mong Kok during the rush hour.




Huge apartment buildings in Kowloon.




We sent all the winter (Moscow) gear back to Finland.




In Hong Kong it's possible to buy beer with your travel card..




..but try to avoid this if possible.




HK by night.




We trekked through a jungle to the rock cliff and met these guys on the way.




Teijo enjoying the view while climbing the 4th pitch.




Our belay slave lives here.




From the last pitch before pushing to the top.




After three hours of climbing we made it to the top.




Abseiling down.