So if you read my prior post, “An Unforgettable Journey… to Hong Kong” (posted way back in June), this is the sequel… the journey BACK to Hong Kong. After a lot of confusion getting TO Hong Kong, we ended up spending the night in Shenzhen (mainland China). Although our accommodations were nice, we were only in our hotel for a short night’s sleep (maybe 5 hours) before we were back up, eating breakfast, and ready to cross the border (again) to get back into Hong Kong. We had asked the workers at the hotel if they could call us a taxi to bring us back to immigration and then we sat down in the lobby and waited. A kind gentleman who was sitting across from us struck up some small talk (in English!) and so we chatted with him for a while. We told him our crazy story from the night before and he tried to tell us what we would need to do to get back into Hong Kong (and to our hostel) and how we could get there. We waited for a while, chatting with him, until his own ride came and then, seeing that we were still waiting there, he invited us along with him. His name was Sam and he does business all over China, his friend/partner was also in the van and we chatted all the way to the border. Not only did they give us advice on what busses to take, where to get off, etc.; they also walked us to the bus ticket counter and bought the tickets for us. They showed us where to enter and then said goodbye. I’m pretty convinced that Sam was an angel that God sent to us to bring us back to where we needed to be.
We entered into the immigration line and waited for what felt like an eternity. The downside of travelling over Chinese holidays is that EVERYBODY who’s Chinese is also travelling over the Chinese holidays. We happened to be travelling into Hong Kong at the same time everyone from Shenzhen was travelling into Hong Kong. So we waited in the longest line ever, packed like sardines, hardly moving and casrrying all of our luggage.

It was a long start to our vacation. We finally made it through customs (for the third time in less than 12 hours) and headed to the appropriate bus stop.
After boarding, we were nervous because we had no idea where to get off the bus, but a kind lady saw our confusion and was very helpful. We drove through the city and along the bay, watching the bustling activities along the loading docks, and taking in the lovely scenery.

About an hour later, the lady nudged us and told us it was our turn to disembark. We got off and asked around on how to get to our hostel at Chungking Mansion. Along the way, we were solicited to buy purses, watches, suits and hash (yikes!). We were relieved to finally get to our hostel, get checked in, and ready to finally start our vacation!