Hong Kong Phooey

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Arrival in Hong Kong by boat is quite a spectacular sight. What an amazing introduction to this unbelievable city.
As soon as our ship was cleared by customs at 7pm we headed out on the subway to one of our most anticipated stops. The highest bar in the world, called Ozone, located on the 118th floor of the Ritz Carleton hotel.
We arrived to delicious (but pricey) cocktails. While enjoying our first drink we were given two drink tickets from guests of The Ritz Carleton who couldn’t use them. We decided to give the drink tickets a try and when Chris got to the bar the bartender took them, poured one drink and while he was making the other he gave Chris a sheet where he was asked to indicate his guest information. Chris is horrible at lying so he wrote down his actual name and then put a fake room number of "1310". The bartender looked at the sheet, looked at Chris and then said "Is that your room number sir?". To which Chris replied "Yes". The bartender looked at Chris again and then said "are you sure sir? Maybe you meant 11310?"...eeeeeeeeeeeeekkk.... Chris said "Oh yes, of course" and corrected it on the sheet. The bartender then told Chris he could return to his seat and he’d bring over the second drink once it was made. We waited 4 very long minutes as we watched him type things in the computer... We were well into our bail money back-up plan when the drink arrived without incident; we toasted to another caper well executed (sorta).

The views from this bar are outstanding. We towered over the city with unbelievable views of the harbour and the glowing buildings far below us. The bar had an open roof and felt like a location out of a movie. We set a "high" bar for our start to our Hong Kong visit.

Hong Kong is one of the few cities we're visiting that we didn’t book an organized tour. So we got up early the next morning and headed off the boat with a very loose itinerary. First stop was the harbour ferry, which cost us a whopping $0.50 each! The views on the ferry were worth the cost of a tour! When we landed on the other side we started making our way to the Victoria Peak tram (takes you to the top of a "mountain" for panoramic views of the harbour - or so we’re told). We messed up this part of the plan; it took us far too long to get to the tram line (Hong Kong construction is brutal). The line looked to be over an hour long and with only a few hours available to us we decide to bail on this part of the plan. We were feeling a little defeated by the city and thought we botched this stop, but we soldierd on: we jumped on the subway and headed to The Goldfish Market. Wow wow weewu! What an amazing stop! If you have any interest in exoctic fish you NEED to go here. If you have a "Chinatown" in your city then this is that Chinatown filled with aquarium stores instead of restaurants. There are hundreds of cluttered colourful live fish stores, some with bags out front filled with exotic fish, crabs, turtles, you name it! When you reach the end of the Goldfish market you head into the "Ladies Market". The Ladies Market is basically a crowded flea market on steroids. It’s called "The Ladies Market" cuz many of the stalls sell handbags and dresses... But don’t worry all genders are welcome and prices are crazy cheap.
After the Ladies Market we walked around more of the Kawloon neighborhood of Hong Kong before making our way to the Sik Sik Yuen Tai Sin Temple. This was a last minute stop idea for us and we’re glad we made it. An epic Chinese Temple in the heart of the city where Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism are all practiced. It was iconic, picturesque, fragrant and was a superb final stop before returning to the ship.
The Hong Kong departure on the boat was just as spectacular as the arrival. Gorgeous views of the harbour as we pulled away, and we were chased by a few personal sized drones that were taking a few shots of us as we parted.

Despite our earlier concerns of a botched stop, Hong Kong was a hugely successful visit!
This post is dedicated to Chris’ Nan who always wanted to visit China! #InheritedDreamFulfilled #ThinkingAboutHerLotsOnThisTrip

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