Monday, January 3, 2011

We Heart Hong Kong

Greg and I have a confession, we both have fallen in love. We love Hong Kong! We have just returned from our trip there and already can't wait to go back. We loved everything the city had to offer...  easy/cheap/an abundance of public transportation, easy to navigate streets complete with signs pointing you in the right direction, beautiful landscape, opportunities for hiking just outside of the city, cleaner than Bangkok streets, and I know Greg will want me to mention the local bars have a good selection of beer including pale ales and IPAs. While HK was not easy on our pocketbook, it was a city we know we will return to soon.

We went with a list of things we wanted to do, but no real schedule. Here's a day by day look on what we ended up doing.

Tuesday: Using the Octopus Cards (a card with money on it that you can use on every kind of public transport) we took the airport express train to Kowloon where we'd be staying for the week. We found our hotel relatively easily and realized we could see the harbor, a nice surprise thinking we'd booked a room with a city view.

Night  view from our room

Rose Garden in Kowloon Park (the park right  by our hotel)


Wednesday: We explored Hong Kong Island by foot including the botanical gardens, ate our first bowl of Chinese Noodles, took the historic peak tram  up to the highest point on the island to enjoy the sunset, and ate dinner at the East End Brewery where Greg enjoyed his first IPA in about 5 months.

Central Pier

Enjoying a big bowl of noodles!

Walking up a pedestrian only street.

Hong Kong Botanical and Zoological Gardens

St. John's Cathedral

The Peak Tram picking people up at the bottom

Night view from The Peak!

Greg enjoying his dinner at East End Brewery
A list of the beers on the wall to make our friends Eric and Melanie drool


Thursday: After another lunch of noodles, we took the train north to Tai Po to explore the Hong Kong Railway Museum. We dressed up to go out for the evening, including navigating the Central Mid-Level Escalators  up through Hong Kong's steep and hilly terrain.


Kowloon and Canton Railway Logo, not in use anymore but the old railway that connected Hong Kong to Guangzhou

Greg by the old engine "Sir Alexander"

The river in Tai Po

We stopped for some train pictures of course!

Taking the Star Ferry across the harbor

A night out

Enjoying a bottle of Italian Wine

Friday: We toured the Hong Kong History Museum (a quite through museum starting when the earth was formed through present day) and enjoyed the evening at a harbor side bar to enjoy the fireworks. Unfortunately we did not see the majority of the show, but the YouTube video we found of it looked amazing. We ended up meeting some British Expats, now living in Vietnam but have lived in the US too. You never know when you will make connections.

History Museum

Beautiful City

Happy New Year!!!

Saturday: We took a ferry out to one of Hong Kong's many outlying islands, Lamma Island. The island has a nice set of trails leading from one side to the other. The main trail was quite crowded in parts, but we did some side loops and then only saw a few people. We enjoyed a fresh seafood dinner before catching the ferry back to the main island.

 Yung Shue Wan, Lamma Island

Taking a break from hiking

Bananas growing right over the trail

Sok Kwu Wan, Lamma Island

I'm tired! We'd just hiked down then back up this side of the island

Sunday: After checking out of our hotel room and leaving our luggage with the bellmen for the day we headed to a traditional Chinese tea house from some Dim Sum and of course tea! Next we took a double decker (most of the public buses are double decker) from central HK to Stanley a cute touristy village to the south. We explored the shores and toured the Hong Kong Correctional System Museum . After taking the bus back to central we boarded a wooden double decker tram to make our way east to visit another location of the East End Brewery to enjoy our last meal of the trip. We arrived back to Bangkok early Monday morning and thus brought an end to a great vacation. Next time you should come with us!

Dim Sum and Tea

Stanley Beach


Trams!


Our last meal, enjoying eating outside and not sweating to death. Actually we were a little cold and were thankful for the portable heaters :-)

1 comment:

  1. I really like your pictures, and am jealous that you had the chance to wrap up warm - I miss the cold.

    Nice to meet you today :)

    ReplyDelete