Our final day in Hong Kong was spent shopping near the Peninsula Hotel and the harbor front, with Gucci, Prada, Lancome, Louis Vitton and Tiffany getting the most attention. We also spent two hours in a huge mall that was just mainly to walk around since it was too expensive to buy anything!
We returned to the hotel and found the rooftop pool that was really beautiful. It had remarkable views and the warmest water I have ever been in not to mention the bar. We were sorry we had not tried the pool before.
We left on our final adventure at 5:30pm to catch the ferry back to Hong Kong Island. We hopped in a cab that might have been a mistake at rush hour traffic with a high bill but we found our location, a road called Staunton Road in the heart of SoHo. We found the Yorkshire Pudding restaurant, a well known British restaurant and bar and we had a memorable meal and a great talk with Peter and Maddie. The food was great and the atmosphere even better. We then set off on the return walk thru the wonderful shops, restaurants and bars of SoHo, the same look as the namesake in London. The neighborhood is filled with tiny hops, back alleys and an incredible vibe of prosperity combined with 1800's England. The bars and restaurants were teeming with business people and the people watching was fun! We actually found the subway and Maddie had her first ride on a subway ever. With Peter's guidance, we got on the correct train and found our way back to the shuttle bus for our hotel and another wonderful evening in Hong Kong. Although expensive, we would love to return some day to Hong Kong. More people speak English so it is easier to navigate but the atmosphere, culture extremes and beauty is hard to surpass. We are sad to leave after two wonderful weeks in China but our time has come to return home and get back to work. We have had an amazing two weeks, sightseing with friends and family, Billy and Jingyi's wedding and seeing new parts of China we had not experienced. We will have stories to tell forever and memories to fill our lifetimes.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Hong Kong Day 1- July 1, 2010
Well, we have found our favorite city. Combine San Francisco, New York and harbors and ocean fronts and you have Hong Kong. We were picked up by William at 10PM and walked to the harbor boarding dock and went across Hong Kong Harbor to Hong Kong Island to begin our adventure. We walked thru the city, which was relatively quiet in celebration of a vacation day celebrating Hong Kong's turn over day in 1997. One of the most interesting sites were the packs of women sitting around talking, playing cards and watching DVD's and we were told they are the Phillipine women who are hired maids who had the day off. There had to be thousands just sitting around! We then began the climb up Victoria Hill with a walk thru a local market and then were met again by the van that took us to the oldest tram in the world built by the British taking us to the top of Victoria Peak. The views were simply breathtaking and I hope I can send a photo. It shows immediately our feelings about Hong Kong if anyone asks if we liked Hong Kong. We had a good lunch and then met a local artist who signed a painting we bought and had our picture taken with who was on the path on the top of the mountain.
In the afternoon, we next went to the Peak Ferry dock to ride a sampam thru the harbor, This is a bot you would recognize as the local fishing boat seen in Chinses movies. It was actually depressing seeing all of the garbage and the boats people actually live on, but then the harbor also had fabulous yachts you would see in San Diego or Florida, so that was neat. We then continued to Repulse Beach, the most beautiful beach on Hong Kong Island and it was jammed since it was the holiday. The water is supposed to make you live past 100 so we took our shoes of to walk the beach. Next stop was the Stanley Market, a crazy narrow street of vendors like a street version of the silk and pearl markets combined. We found a few items that were reasonable to add to our "stuff" and returned to the hotel.
We picked up the free shuttle bus from the hotel to the Promenade area at the Star Ferry Harbour docks for the Symphony of Lights laser light show. For 15 minutes, accompanied by music, the skyscapers on Hong Kong Harbour are synchronized with lights for a fun show. The dock was packed with people since this a very popular show and it was a vacation day. It's a rare show that we would never see in Minnesota. We then took off on an adventurous walk with Peter leading by map. It turned out to be a one mile search for a restaurant. We were told by William that there was a street that contained a variety of European style restaurants and we finally found the street with Italian, Australian, Moroccan, French and English restaurants and we settled on Wildfire, an English bar restaurant where we split a pizza, chicken ceasar salad and chicken pasta and it was actually pretty good. We topped the evening off with a Ben & Jerry's ice cream cone just a block away, managed to find the bus again by the Peninsula Hotel (yikes! what a hotel) and returned back for the evening.
In the afternoon, we next went to the Peak Ferry dock to ride a sampam thru the harbor, This is a bot you would recognize as the local fishing boat seen in Chinses movies. It was actually depressing seeing all of the garbage and the boats people actually live on, but then the harbor also had fabulous yachts you would see in San Diego or Florida, so that was neat. We then continued to Repulse Beach, the most beautiful beach on Hong Kong Island and it was jammed since it was the holiday. The water is supposed to make you live past 100 so we took our shoes of to walk the beach. Next stop was the Stanley Market, a crazy narrow street of vendors like a street version of the silk and pearl markets combined. We found a few items that were reasonable to add to our "stuff" and returned to the hotel.
We picked up the free shuttle bus from the hotel to the Promenade area at the Star Ferry Harbour docks for the Symphony of Lights laser light show. For 15 minutes, accompanied by music, the skyscapers on Hong Kong Harbour are synchronized with lights for a fun show. The dock was packed with people since this a very popular show and it was a vacation day. It's a rare show that we would never see in Minnesota. We then took off on an adventurous walk with Peter leading by map. It turned out to be a one mile search for a restaurant. We were told by William that there was a street that contained a variety of European style restaurants and we finally found the street with Italian, Australian, Moroccan, French and English restaurants and we settled on Wildfire, an English bar restaurant where we split a pizza, chicken ceasar salad and chicken pasta and it was actually pretty good. We topped the evening off with a Ben & Jerry's ice cream cone just a block away, managed to find the bus again by the Peninsula Hotel (yikes! what a hotel) and returned back for the evening.
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