Hong Kong....is awesome!

I am so happy that Bob and I made it to Hong Kong for New Years because I had such a wonderful time and I really really liked Hong Kong.  First off the weather was awesome, second it's really international like Bangkok in the sense that everything is very easy to use and people speak a lot of English so it wasn't too hard to get around.  It also didn't hurt that we had a gorgeous view over the river that was just amazing.  (If you've ever watched the SyFy series "Caprica" I'm pretty sure that Caprica was modeled after Hong Kong.)

That's a view looking across from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island.  We stayed in the swanky Sheraton Hotel right by the river.  Like I said, the weather was amazing.  It was light jacket and jeans weather, as opposed to the shrill bitter cold of Shanghai and Tokyo.

I hadn't done a lot of research about what I really wanted to do in Hong Kong, i just knew that I wanted to go during the holiday season because I'd been told by a number of people that the city goes all out when it comes to decorations.  And it's true.  The buildings already have a ton of lights all over them but around the holidays they add even more with Santa Claus on them , or Christmas trees and ornaments, it was so bright at night because of all the lights.

We did a lot of wandering around and I signed us up for one official tour so that we could go to Victory Peak and the Arberdeen Fishing village and just get to see a bunch of different things.  I really enjoyed the tour and think it's one of the better group tours we've participated in.  It was a nice day and we had a pick-up right from our hotel in the morning.  We started the tour off with a lovely temple (yeh, we don't really care about temples but it was nice), and then moved on to Victoria Peak.  My mom said that when she and her family wen there when she was younger nothing was built up on the peak, but now it's crazy, there are gigantic houses everywhere.

So the picture on the left is of incense.  The incense is wrapped around like that and burns in a weird circular pattern.  I thought this was pretty neat as I've never seen it look like this before.  There was so much incense in the whole place that we didn't stay inside very long because our eyes started to burn.  The picture on the right is me in front of the doors into the temple.  When you enter the temple there's a little step and you're not suppose to step on it, you must step over it, and with the "correct" foot, which is your right foot.  Otherwise you're doomed.  Don't worry, we stepped across with the right foot.  The picture below is of some statues inside the temple.

 

There's a starbucks at the top of Victoria Peak, just incase that was keeping anyone from going, don't worry you can get your coffee fix there.  You can also get some delicious frozen yogurt which we had because we missed breakfast and were starving.  I had pomegranate frozen yogurt with oreos.  It's the breakfast of champions, followed by a mocha.  Excellent.  We have an excellent professional picture that was taken of us on top of Victoria Peak but I need to wait until I get to a real scanner to add it to my collection.  The best part of the professional picture is that I had to buy it as a set with a little plate that says Hong Kong and has the same picture on it.  I've put the plate up in the guest room to freak our guests out.

After Victoria Peak we stopped at.....a Jewelry Factory where I got (the top ring):

My fingers look really wrinkly in this picture...but I LOVE my ring.  Bob wanted to let me pick out my own engagement ring and had bought me the lovely bottom ring which we used for my wedding band.  As soon as I saw this ring I was sure it was the one for me.  So it turns out this was the best tour ever as it resulted in my getting my ring.  I show it to Bob all the time and ask, "Have you seen my beautiful ring that my handsome husband bought me?"  He just rolls his eyes at me. :)

After our Jewelry fun we went to the Jumbo Floating Restaurant for a DimSum lunch.  The food was pretty good considering it was part of a tour.  The restaurant is on this huge boat out in the middle of the river and you have to take a little SamPan to get to it.  (Sampan is a boat.)

And to finish the day off we went to the Aberdeen Fishing village to the Stanley Market which is supposedly famous.  We looked around a little but didn't buy anything, mostly because we could get everything in Shanghai and not have to carry it back with us.  Over all, an excellent day.  Stay tuned for our New Years Fun.

Loves and Kisses,

Margaret and Bob