Hong Kong is for Lovers

Lee and I took a fabulous trip to Hong Kong for our 10th anniversary. I have to admit to feeling guilty and selfish for taking a trip without the kids. They were really sad when we left. They stayed with Ying for the school days and church friends over the weekend. A great big shout out of thanks goes to Tracey and David Larson, for keeping Ally happy and entertained. Thanks a billion to Michelle and Davies Walker for treating Eve to a great birthday party - Happy B-Day to Lauren! Thanks to the Finotto - in Cooper talk that's 'Anotto' family. Cooper loves Vanna like his own mamma!

We stayed on Hong Kong Island in the Lan Kwai Fong Hotel. It was pretty nice - and pretty pricey, but you only have one 10th, so we decided to do it right. We had read about the small rooms, and boy were they right! When the bellman brought up our bags with barely fit all three of us in the room! But, it was a FANCY teeny tiny room. 

Here's a night shot from our room on the 23rd floor.

We really enjoyed sleeping in late and taking it easy. One of my favorite parts of the trip was the little bakery down the street. They had amazing braided sugarloafs, which I shamelessly ate one of each morning. 

Our first day we headed down to a very urban shopping area (I can't remember what it's called) to buy camera items for Lee. We are both rapidly turning into camera snobs! Lee bought a wide angle lens that he has been drooling over for a long time. Yeah!  We also hit the 'Ladies' Market', which was one or two streets over. I found some great scrapbooking ABC punches, which made the whole day worthwhile for me. Here's a camera shot of the area around the market.

We took the Star Ferry across the harbor to get from our hotel to the mainland. It was pretty fun. Living in Texas and Florida before that, we didn't really get the chance to take many ferries. I really enjoy the ferries in Asia. Of course, Lee is drawn to any vessel that floats! 

We also took a trip to Macau, which is also an island off mainland China. I am sure I will mess up the history, but Macau was originally settled by the Portuguese. It is an interesting place to visit because they speak both Portuguese and Cantonese there. We took a ferry from Hong Kong Island to Macau, which took a little over an hour. Once in Macau we had to go through customs before entering the island. We got suckered in by a tour guide, who took us around the island and showed us all the main sites. It was pretty funny because as he was bargaining with us for the price, a little old guy came up and tried to sell us a rickshaw tour. Macau is very hilly, and we just had to laugh at the idea of this ancient old guy peddling us all around the island on his bike! He was so mad when we opted for the car ride... he actually ranted and raved for quite awhile, yelling at out tour guide, until we finally left him there, still yelling! 

This is a 500 year old Buddhist temple that we visited. We almost died from incense inhalation!

We took a hydrofoil ferry back to Hong Kong Island. Lee was excited to add it to his list of vessel types he has been on. 

Other noteworthy events on our trip were: going to a movie theatre and watching American movies in English!!!!, getting to speak English most everywhere we went, enjoying clean subways with polite passengers, eating western food every night - like Mexican and pizza!, finding Diet Coke at every restaurant!!! 

Hong Kong was very different than Shanghai. One thing we noticed right away was that rather than seeing a million scooters and bikes, everyone had little hand carts that they moved things around on. We are used to seeing scooters piled high with items like a/c units, and even small refridgerators. In Hong Kong, because it is so steep, everyone uses little hand carts. We also were happy with the fact that in Hong Kong, people don't push and shove like in Shanghai. It was nice being somewhere where people are polite and friendly! There are a lot more westerners in Hong Kong and speaking English again to storekeepers and locals was really nice. 

I really liked the elevated moving sidewalk on Hong Kong Island. When you exit from the Central Subway station, you can walk a little bit and climb a few flights of stairs and take a moving sidewalk all the way through the downtown area. Since Hong Kong Island is a mountain, it's really steep. It was fun to be on the sidewalk looking down at all the pedestrians and watching life around you. I really enjoyed taking it each night. It was faster to walk to our hotel, but I always opted for the sidewalk because it was so interesting to look into the shops on the second and third floors of different buildings as you cruised on by.

We had such a great trip, but when all is said and done, by the end of our 5 days, we were both ready to come home to our little ones. They were so excited when we called from the Pudong airport to tell them we were almost home. We even missed Shanghai. We took the Maglev train (which gets up to 300 km/hour) home. As we were waiting in the taxi line, some woman pushed right between Lee and I to try and get the next taxi! Lee and I were standing shoulder to shoulder with our luggage and she physically forced us apart to cut in line! Of course, we didn't take it lying down! We both immediately let her know what we thought... needless to say she ended up right back where she started. But, we definately knew we were back in Shanghai... we didn't make it 20 minutes off the plane before someone was pushing, shoving and trying to cut in line. Home, sweet home!

We love to rag on Shanghai, but anyone who knows us knows how much we love living here. We are having the adventure of a lifetime. We are so happy to be here, doing interesting things and going to great places. The world is just full of wonderful people and we can't wait to meet them all!