It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas... In Hong Kong?

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Last weekend in Hong Kong was amazing. It has definitely made my list for top favourite cities I have ever been to!

We woke up really early on the Thursday morning to catch the ferry from the mainland over, which went very smoothly and we got into Hong Kong around 930am. We headed to the Visa center to get that over with and then moved onto our hostel to get the bags off our back and rest for a bit! The hostel was in an awesome area of the city, right on Nathan St and about a block from the Harbour. For my first hostel experience it was great - the place was clean and tidy and the people were awesome. Courtney and I had our own private room with two twin beds and a bathroom included - we lucked out.

We found a great noodles place for lunch on Lock Rd which was full of the local food. We were all crammed into the restaraunt and ended up having to sit at tables with random people, just so that everyone could eat and order!! It was definitely a fun experience. A lot of stores are so small that the employees do whatever they can to fit as many customers in at once! After lunch we headed off to find the Ladies Market which we were lucky to find. A really nice Indian couple who lived in the area ended up walking us over to the market, which we definitely wouldn't have been able to find ourselves (at least not by the way they took us!). The market was awesome. It could have gone on for 10 blocks but we only were able to do about 3 or 4 and that took up a good few hours! Everything from bags, to souvenirs, to watches and jewelry. I got some great finds and deals, it was a fun experience. We even got huge travel backpacks for awesome prices that we will be able to use for our backpacking trip over our holiday.

After the market we went to Victoria Harbour just as it got dark to see all of the lights of the different buildings. It was out of this world - it was so beautiful with all of the different colours of the buildings reflecting in the water. And everyone started to crowd around at 8pm for the light show which was pretty cool. There were a bunch of laser beams and flashy lights that came out of buildings and lit up the sky. It was crazy how many people were at the viewing dock to see it! But it was great, the Harbour at night was definitely one of my favourite things that we saw. We got a great dinner on Lock Rd again (such a great find for local food and restaraunts). We got a bowl of spicy green beans in this amazing sauce, and I got a plate of spicy noodles and beef which was out of this world. Seriously, I love the food here!

The next day we woke up early and went to the History Museum of Hong Kong first. Being a history nerd, this was awesome!! We went through the exhibit that took you on the "journey" of Hong Kong's history from prehistoric to modern times - the museum was so well put together and had some awesome artificacts. There were huge set ups that resembled real Chinese settings, such as the Dragon Costumes that they wear in parades and big statues and the huge Chinese lanterns of different colours. It was great. After the museum we went to Kowloon park which I found to be quite like the idea of Central Park in the middle of NYC. The park was so pretty, with a variety of different themes. One part of the park was a rose garden, another was a Chinese garden, there was a bird aviary and a maze. It was such a great park. We met this one elderly Chinese man who spoke English fluently and was so interested in Courtney and I teaching over in China - he was awesome. He even asked us about Stephen Harper which made me laugh! He was so intelligent, and told us that our fortunes looked promising haha. Fingers crossed he's right!

The last part of our trip was solely for Victoria Peak. Even though the weather that day wasn't the greatest it was a really cool experience. We didn't end up getting the tram - we took the bus up the mountain and it was a really fun bus right up, winding around the side of the peak, we were on a double deckered bus and you would nearly think you were about to topple over the side of the mountain! It took us a good half an hour to get to the top where the observation deck was. WHAT A SIGHT! I felt like I was in clouds on top of the world, on a clear day I can only imagine how beautiful the view would be. Hopefully Ill get back soon when it's better weather!

Everyone that we met were amazing over the weekend in Hong Kong. One of my favourite parts of the trip was seeing all of the Christmas Decorations. It really reminded me that it was that time of year again!! The windows and streets were covererd in ornaments and lights - it was so weird to be somewhere preparing for Christmas with no snow, just heat!! I have to remind myself that it's almost December 1st! There was Christmas music playing in every shop and building - it was so awesome. Hong Kong was truly a fantastic city - there is so much greenery and a lot of the buildings are built AROUND trees, they aren't just knocked down to make room for buildings, which gives the city a lot of character when you look at the architecture and nature combined. There is also a lot of British influence left in the city which I quite like. Driving on the left hand side, some of the cars also look straight from Britain. There's a lot of British still left - at points we had to remind ourselves that we were still in Asia!

We loved Hong Kong, and I can't wait to go back again soon 😊

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