You want to catch the train?!?! Lets talk MTR and OC
It was time to leave Hong Kong Disneyland and start the next part of our adventure. We were heading to Hong Kong proper. The question was which way!
With our luggage x 5, I figured the most direct and simplest way to get from hotel to hotel was to catch a taxi. DH and I talked it over the night before and we were prepared to fund the cost of the taxi. Afterall, my father wasnt exactly young and hed been having a little difficulty walking around the park.
So, when we headed out to the porte couchere where I was going to ask the Bellhop to get us a taxi, I was totally unprepared for my parents hijacking the conversation. They had decided that we were going to be catching the train instead.
What?!?!?!?!
The Bellhop looked at me and I looked back at him. We both just managed to not sigh in unison.
In his defence, he did try to convince my parents that it would be quicker to take the taxi; but my parents wouldnt listen. And we were in a culture where when the elders speak, the youngers listen. The Bellhop pulled out the MTR map and marked some stations on it, pointed us in the direction of the Disney bus, looked at me and wished me well.
Me? I knew better not to argue with my parents.
If you recall from last night, Id already taken us on the Disney bus to the transport hub. Seems like a fair number of guests did take the Disney bus, with their luggage, to the hub to catch the train. We would be one of those fair number today.
The Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway (MTR) has been in existence since 1979. It currently has 155 stations on the map and is still growing. As most of the railway tracks are underground, the services do not have to contend with road or pedestrian traffic. We were to find that in the heart of Hong Kong city, most services would run every 2 - 4 minutes in peak hour; and every 4 8 minutes in off peak. It is a highly efficient and convenient way of getting around. And economical!
We had purchased Octopus Cards at the Disneyland Resort station. The cards cost HK$150 for an adult ($50 for the card and $100 worth of credits) and HK$70 for a child ($20 for the card and $50 worth of credits). Thats about $20 in our money for the adult and $10 for the child.
The Octopus Card (OC) is a rechargeable contactless smart card and is widely used as a means of electronic cash in Hong Kong. The card is that this payment system was originally developed by an Australian based company. The irony of this should not be lost on any Melbournians reading this. We can only dream of a MYKI card that will eventually work after all the tax payer funds weve already siphoned into the project.
The OC is BRILLIANT. We topped it up a number of times and used it in supermarkets, convenience stores and even some of the street cafes as well as for the MTR. Even McDonalds and Starbucks accepted payment by OC. We were never held up at the OC readers and it always seemed to calculate amounts correctly. All MTR, buses, trams and ferries used the OC for fee charging so there was no fiddling about for the right change.
Best of all, the OC is reuseable. My parents have brought their OC back to Hong Kong three times now. On this trip, their cards were initially deemed to be no longer valid. To fix this, they just headed to the customer service counter at the Resort station and the officer there re-activated their card, complete with the previous balance that was still on the card. It took all of 30 seconds to complete this reactivation.
The Disneyland Resort line was opened in 2005 and connects to the Sunny Bay station. The station? Well, take a look!
The trains that run on this short 3.5 km track are fully automatic (no driver), with services every four to ten minutes
I was really impressed with the train interior. It was spotless
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With Disney theming!
We had to change lines at Sunny Bay station. From Sunny Bay, we headed in the direction of Nam Cheong station where we again changed lines, this time to the Hung Hom line. Our hotel was located in Hung Hom.
The interchange at Sunny Bay turned out to be the hardest of the lot for the elders as there was a bit of up and down walking involved. My mother did have second thoughts about catching the train with luggage at this point.
Nam Cheong interchange was pretty simple in that we just needed to walk about 100m to the right platform.
Somewhere between Sunny Bay and Nam Cheong, the train did come out into the daylight. For DH, DS and myself, this was illuminating. It was our first look at the high rise of Hong Kong.
Once before, we had a similar illumination; and that was on the train from Montreal into New York city. For anyone that has approached NYC and seen the population of towering apartment complexes and buildings, you will know what I mean. Hong Kong is very similar.
It was a brief glimpse at the apartment outskirts but I think we were all gobsmacked by how close everything was. For me, Hong Kong buildings just seem to be even closer together than the sky rises in NYC.
I was rather circumspect with making sure that all visible signs of TOURISTS were put away. My camera was firmly left in the bag as I concentrated on making sure we were not targets for wandering hands in a strange city. I do wish that I had kept it out during this trip.
Hong Hum station is the end of the line. We got out of the station and it was about a 200 300 m walk (up escalators) through a shopping mall to the hotel. All in all, hotel to hotel, it took us about 50 minutes to complete the transit. I wasnt used to taking a look at the card readers this early in the game, so I can only estimate that it cost us about HK$15 each ($2 in our money) for the journey.
Most of you reading this would probably want to head to Tsim Sha Tsui from Disneyland. The best interchange would be at Lai King and take the line towards Central. If you want to head to Central/Hong Kong Island, I would stay on the line heading to Hong Kong station. Hong Kong station is where the IFC shopping mall is.
(Continued in Next Post)
