We’ve been planning our big family vacation for Songkran break for some time now and were really excited to visit Beijing and Hong Kong. We’d worked details to stay the first half of the trip with one of my good friends from college who’s an expat in Beijing and then take the latter half of the trip in Hong Kong.
Candace found a 72 hour visa free policy in Beijing that (should have) allowed us to visit for 3 days. She called the airlines beforehand and researched all the ins and outs to make sure it’d work. All assured us our itinerary looked fine.
The day of our departure arrived and we were all excited for our big trip! When we arrived at the airport, the guy at the check-in counter was worried Beijing would not let us enter as we had a connecting flight through Hong Kong. We assured him that we met the policy but he only agreed to book us through to Hong Kong…we’d have to work the rest out with Air China once there.
Once everyone was on the flight, I noticed these 3 all matched their seat colors!
LOVED Thai Air – their economy class is better than any US carrier’s business class I’ve been on (domestic).
LONG story short, once we arrived in Hong Kong, Air China refused to let us board the flight as they said that since we only were booked to Hong Kong on the previous flight (and not through to Beijing), it didn’t meet policy. So if the guy in BKK would have just checked us all the way through as per the original itinerary, no problem. Now we’re stuck in Hong Kong and have to find a last minute hotel for 6 of us and an itinerary for the intervening days. Considering all of the last minute hotels for a family our size wanted between $400-800 / night, that was not a nice prospect…and we had to cancel all of our plans with our friends in Beijing, get refills on local SIMs (took hours on the phone trying to get it to still work), and deal with the stress of not knowing where we’d sleep that night. I’d rather forget those 5 stressful hours in the HKK airport…they were not fun.
Enter AirBnB (and iPhones with local data plans!). They really saved our bacon. We were able to book 2 tiny apartments, last minute, for about $120 / night for us. It was the only thing available that wouldn’t cost me well more than $1000 for the 3 unplanned nights. We were VERY thankful for somewhere to sleep!
Once we admitted defeat at the airport, we caught a bus to our first night’s apartment. The bus ride was great and a good introduction to the sky-scrapper filled city that is Hong Kong.
We arrived in Mong Kok, amidst a TON of people and neon lights, and were escorted to our humble accommodations!
We were sure happy to have somewhere to sleep, even if it was 10 sq feet!
We ate dinner at a local restaurant and had a bit of sticker shock of Hong Kong prices! $80 USD for spaghetti and chicken for us.
Very happy to hit the bed and regroup for the next day…the kids did great with the ever changing plans and rather stressed out parents.
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