Hong Kong!!

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I LOVE HONG KONG!! Sorry that this blog is so long. I won’t get my feelings hurt if you don’t read the whole thing. This past weekend was definitely the coolest place I have been in China so far (Hong Kong has been a part of China since 1997). We left on Thursday afternoon and we came back to Shanghai on Monday afternoon. We had to miss some classes, but it was definitely worth it.

Thursday afternoon we spent at the Shanghai Museum, which was the best museum I have been to in China thus far. It had four different levels, and there were 3-4 exhibition halls for each floor. There was a coin exhibition hall, a furniture exhibition hall, calligraphy, painting, Chinese minorities, and some other cool exhibition halls. It really helped me to see how deep and rich the traditions and history of the Chinese are. There was pottery that dated back to 5000 BC!! I never realized that we actually had man made objects that dated back that far. The paintings, calligraphy and furniture were all really ornate and it was cool to see what the different symbols of the Chinese culture are.

After the museum we went to the airport to catch our flight to Hong Kong! It was a really nice flight, actually, and they gave us an entire meal including ice cream for a 2 hour flight. I am convinced that American airline companies just don’t compare to Chinese/Japanese airlines. It was also the first time that I came down stairs from off the plane instead of a jetway that connects to the terminal. It was raining when we got there, and it was raining just about the whole trip on and off until Sunday, which was a clear day.

We got to our hotel late that night, and walked around Hong Kong for a little bit, where we found a McDonalds and a 7-Eleven. Throughout the weekend I probably saw 12-14 McDonalds and 9-10 7-Elevens; Hong Kong people love these two places. They also have a card that you can recharge that works at both places as well as all of the forms of transportation, which is called an Octopus card. Because people don’t use credit cards or check cards very much around here, they use these rechargeable cards instead for more secure transactions. My wallet size has almost doubled since I have been here from all of the random rechargeable cards. Shanghai has a similar card, but it only works at transportation places. It is very convenient to have, though. Our hotel was called Pacific Island Hotel, and it was REALLY nice for the price we paid, so we were really happy with it.

So, we woke up Friday morning with plans to go to Lantau Island and see the beach and hike the mountains and see the buffalo, but it was raining on and off, so we decided to postpone the beach and just see the big sights in Hong Kong. First, we went to this place called Tsim Sha Tsui, which is a big shopping and tourist place. We took some pictures and went to go check out the hostel we would be staying at the next two nights. It was in a place called Mirador Mansion, but don’t let the name fool you. This is basically a big run down building with tons of tiny shops and trashy hostels. We went up to look at the rooms we would be staying at. After seeing the rooms, three of the people in our group refused to stay there, and so we had to book a hotel when we got back to the room that night which was a lot more expensive, but also a lot safer. I guess you can’t please everyone, right? Anyway, that was the biggest snag of the weekend, which turned out to be an expensive snag, but we found another place to stay Saturday and Sunday night - the YMCA international House. Once we got our hotel situation figured out, we walked around downtown Hong Kong for a while looking around, and we went to the Avenue of the Stars, where we saw Jackie Chan’s star, and a spectacular view of Hong Kong Island during the day, even though it was raining on and off. I was just really glad that it wasn’t 90 degrees outside. After eating lunch at a nearby mall, we walked through Kowloon Park, which was really a pretty park with a great pool, a countdown to the Olympics (which is the same countdown as the Wedding Day), and an aviary among other things.

After the park, we went to the Hong Kong History museum where we learned more about how the Hong Kong Islands were formed by volcanos, and the people that lived here, and how it came to be a British colony. There was also a year and three months that it was occupied by the Japanese. We learned more about the wildlife there, and the four different tribes that lived there. It was a really well done museum (as I have become very familiar with Chinese museums lately), and it was only $10HK (which is about $1.25 US).

The sun was about to set around this time, and we headed back to the Avenue of the Stars to get some good pictures of the skyline at night, and we were not disappointed. it was so fabulous. The thing that makes the skyline so cool is that every single spit of land that Hong Kong has is built on, and every building is at least 30-40 stories high. The rest of the island is mountain, and so it is very hard to build on it. The density population here is about 10 times more than New York City! For dinner we went to this place called Sammy’s Kitchen, which was really wonderful. The food in Hong Kong was one of my favorite parts. Everything was just so good, and the seafood was extra good because it was so fresh. After Sammy’s kitchen, we called it a night and we walked back to our hotel to sleep.

Saturday we spent the day in Macau, which is a lot like Vegas, but with a much more interesting history and some cool European areas. Macau was a Portugese colony until 1999! Now, it is also a part of China, although it is not controlled by the Chinese government completely. We took a ferry from the Hong Kong Central Station (which is a HUGE transportation hub in Hong Kong) to the Macau ferry station. First, we went to this one casino/hotel called the Grand Lisboa. It was really spectacular. The building was a big globe on bottom, and then there was this huge flower looking top which composed most of the building. It stood out a lot compared to the rest of the buildings in Macau. After this, we went to some historic Macau sites including the City Planning Bureau, the Ruins of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Senato Square, and along a lot of the back roads in Macau. While we were in these historic parts, it felt like we were in a European city with the very European architecture and the random Portuguese people mixed in with all of the Chinese. Most of the signs were in Portuguese, English, and Chinese, and that was a pretty odd mix.

For lunch, we went to a place called Margaret’s Nata e Cafe. We had some great sandwiches, and some REALLY good portuguese egg tarts. They were perfectly flaky and sweet and warm...mmm. It is the most famous food in Macau, and this was the best place to get it, so they were absolutely delicious.

Once it got dark, we went around to look at all of the casinos, which were really pretty. They had a really cool water fountain show in front of the Wynn, and there were some great rooms at the MGM Grand. The Venetian was also really great because they had all of these Italian canals in the middle of the building. We ran out of time to really enjoy the Venetian, as it was about 2 AM, and we still had to get back to our hotel in Hong Kong, which was an hour long ferry ride away.

When we got to the ferry ticket counter, they only had the expensive tickets for the 3:00 AM boat that we could get on, and so we had to buy them. Then, one of the girls in our group, Liang, talked with the ticket lady, and she called someone, and she was able to get us on the 2:30 boat. They hadn’t sold the VIP tickets yet, and so we were able to get them for the Deluxe price instead. The VIP tickets turned out to be a separate room, with food, a great view, and really cushy seats for all of us. It was a huge surprise for us, and REALLY nice to get that kind of treatment for a cheaper price.

Once we got back, we went to bed pretty quickly. I fell asleep around 5 AM, and I woke up at 7:30 to go to church. It was frustrating to not get the sleep I wanted, but our hotel was really close to the Hong Kong Temple, and I knew that there was a service at 9 AM, so I got to go! It was really cool to see the temple. it is a small building in a nice neighborhood. It has 5-6 stories, and on one of the floors is a meetinghouse. Hong Kong is different from China in that the church is allowed to have missionaries there. I actually saw two missionaries as I was walking around Hong Kong that weekend as well, so that was really neat to stop and talk to them. Church was really great, and I met some cool people. There was this one old lady who came up to me and talked to me for a while in Cantonese even though I tried to tell her that I didn’t understand what she was saying. She gave me a huge smile and a great hug, and it made me feel so good! They also had translation into English, and that was really nice.

After church, I rode the metro back to the hotel and slept a few more hours as the people in my group were still asleep. We woke up around 2 PM again, and headed out to Lantau Island to see the beach and the mountains. The whole weekend it had been raining and people were telling us that the roads were closed because of landslides, but we found out that there was a bus that was going down to the beach that we wanted to visit, and so we took the metro to Lantau, and then we took a bus down to Pui O, which is a small beach town on the coast of Lantau. The bus ride there was a little bit nerve wracking because we were driving through these beat up roads in the mountains, and we went pretty high up. The clouds were low, so there were times where we looked down at the clouds in the valley. It was so green there, too. We finally got to the beach and we were able to enjoy that for a while. There were hardly any people at the beach, and it was the most relaxing thing! I felt like I was in Hawaii! The mountains were right next to the beach, and there was this little American restaurant right on the water where we had a great meal and just adored the view and the atmosphere.

After dinner, we were walking back to the bus stop when we saw a water buffalo chewing on some plants on the path back to the main road! We were really surprised, and we were able to get really close to it. Apparently the buffalo are just another animal that roams around the island, eating peoples plants. Seeing the buffalo and being at this remote beach with such a great view was definitely my favorite part of Hong Kong.

We took a ferry back from Mui Wo to Hong Kong Island, and then we went to Victoria’s Peak, which is a big tourist spot on top of one of the highest mountain. They built a tram that goes up to the top of the mountain, and you can see all of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon (which is part of Hong Kong). It is just amazing to see all of the buildings at once, with the bay in between them, and the mountains behind them. I have never seen anything like it.

We went back to the hotel after Victoria’s peak, and I went to bed around 1:30 AM. We woke up at 7:30 so that we could catch our flight back at 11:15. It was a pretty easy trip over there, and we got back to our hotel in Shanghai around 4:00. We sat on the runway for almost an hour, and that was probably the only tie up. Now, I am back in my room, and I will probably go to bed early tonight so that I can get a decent night’s rest. Hong Kong was absolutely spectacular. I loved the mountains and the beach. I loved the huge variety in what we saw. I loved the huge buildings. I loved their transportation system, even though it can be very expensive. Hong Kong is just a great place to visit, and I’m so grateful that I got to go!

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Photos

Mirador Mansion
This is where we were going to stay. The hostel is on the 13th floor