After the fun of a rushed transfer in Beijing (for those of you who care, you do get a stamp in your passport when you transfer through mainland china, even if you’re not staying) we landed in hong kong after 2100…baggage claim was easy, as was just about everything else…while waiting in line for immigration both hana and I were given brochures with events happening in hong kong around that time…and a decent tourist map of the area as well…yay…
we wanted to take the train into the city, which was also easy…for some reason you can buy cheaper tickets one way if you get more than one at a time, but you can’t buy those discounted tickets round trip…I don’t get it, but whateva…we also bought octopus cards, which can be used for most hong kong public transport, as well as in 7-elevens and other various places…mom had a mixup with her airport express and octopus cards, but we still made it to our intended stop all right…we checked into our hotel and were a bit surprised at the smallness of the rooms…but it’s hong kong, and unless you’re paying through the nose, you’ll never have much space there…hana and I went to sleep straightaway…
the next morning we met up with mom, and figured out where to start our day…we all wanted breakfast…despite numerous trips to hong kong, I haven’t spent time in any restaurants save one, but I figured it couldn’t be too hard to find food…one of the areas on mom’s list of places was times square, and I figured there had to be food somewhere around there…I’m sortof ashamed to say it, but we ended up at a place that starts with mc and ends with donald’s…then we decided to split up and shop…we set a meeting point and time, and went our merry ways…
hana and I headed first to lululemon…it was originally a Canadian company, though I think it might be American owned by now? (Americans are taking over the world, you know)…it’s a yoga/workout sort of clothing company, and I love it…it’s a bit on the pricey side, but the quality of everything is absolutely fabulous, and well worth it…it would’ve been really really easy to spend a LOT of money in there…as it was, I came out with a tank top and jacket, hana got a jacket as well…I also pointed out what I’d love to have as a Christmas/birthday gift if I happen to end up in a place that has a winter season next…hee hee…I don’t really expect that to happen…that particular lululemon store isn’t easy to find, and operates by word of mouth…despite this, it’s a pretty busy place…one lady in there seemed to want to try on and discuss every bit of clothing in the store, which was annoying as there are only two dressing rooms, so a small queue formed, to which she was allegedly oblivious…oh well…that store has now moved though, so they were stamping the new address on the back of everyone’s receipts…
after lululemon I was happy, and didn’t really care what we did the rest of the day…so we meandered through a number of different places, just checking things out…it’s been quite a while since I’ve spent that much time shopping for nothing in particular…we met up with mom at the designated time, and had dinner at the spaghetti house…very western, but fine…none of us were really feeling the need to have Chinese food…and that was it for the day
the next day was mother’s day…so we started the day with a fight…argh…so we separated for the day…hana and I took the ferry to Kowloon…somehow, I’ve never taken the ferry before…crazy to think that before the subways went under the water, people had to take the ferry every single day to get back and forth…it’s not a long ride, and the ferries go regularly, but it would still be a huge pain…it was very warm and humid, especially in comparison to the weather we’d had in Korea, but the breeze felt good…we got off the ferry and the first place we visited was starbucks…I really ought to buy stock in that company…we wandered along the avenue of stars (I think that’s what it’s called) which is amusing more than anything else…just like in Hollywood, they have stars on the ground of famous Chinese actors, complete with handprints…there were very few whose names I recognized, but oh well…hana showed off her muscles in front of the statue of bruce lee…lol…
from there we took a footbridge over the road, and started walking up Nathan road…it’s the heart of tsim tsa tsui…sometimes referred to as TST…i probably don’t say it right…that’s the area I stayed in with ivan and layna, it’s full of tourists and touts and craziness in general…along the way we were offered copies of designer purses and tailored suits, but we weren’t interested…and do I really look like someone who wants or knows anything by prada or any other designer name? I briefly took hana through the chaos that is chungking mansions…one of the only good things about that place is all the Indian food you can find on the ground floor…we each got a piece of naan as a snack for later…we continued up the road and ended up on a bench in Kowloon park to eat our naan…since it was Sunday, the place was packed with Filipinas enjoying their day off…there are a lot of Filipinas domestic workers in hong kong, and the standard day off is Sunday…according to the paper, they don’t even get minimum wage!! The union is fighting for a pay increase, who knows if it will happen…hana listened a bit and enjoyed hearing the familiar sounds of tagalog…at some point, a guy from the ivory coast (was it the ivory coast? Maybe Ghana, or Kenya, I don’t remember for sure) stopped and talked to us…then we moved on, and ended up at a little plaza…
there was a sign put up that said this was the kung fu corner…according to the sign, there was a show every Sunday, from 1430-1630…it was 1400, so we grabbed seats and waited…it was fun…the first act was a dragon…one of the dragons where it takes 10 people to keep it going, and the choreography is pretty complicated…after the act was finished, they invited members of the crowd to stand inside the dragon to have pictures taken…I was going to stand inside, and have hana take the picture but a guy offered to take it for us, with both of us in the photo…yay!! After that little photo session was over, the next offer was for kids in the crowd to be part of the act…really cute to see some of the kids hold up parts of the dragon…the next few acts were various people demonstrating different types of kung fu…I know nothing about it, but it was neat to watch them…I liked the lady with the fans the best…
we didn’t stay for the entire show, but continued up Nathan road, just wandering…hana got a bit turned around and thought we were walking back toward the water, but I knew where we were…getting turned around in hk is very easy to do…we found a couple places to get food, and on the way back to the ferry, picked up Indian food for dinner back in the hotel…the ferry ride back was nice, though it was good to get back into air con…we were both sunburnt, but oh well…
the next day we split up as well…hana and I started our day by taking the subway to the bank of china tower…you can go up to the 43rd floor for free and have a great view over the city…while on our way to the tower, we met a dutch guy who had a long layover on his way from holland to new Zealand…he was using the time to wander around hong kong, though w/out a map he wasn’t really sure where he was going…or where he wanted to go…we ended up seeing him in the tower as well…from there hana and I went to the tea museum…it’s a free museum, one I hadn’t seen previously…all about tea in china…where it’s grown, how it’s served in different places, the importance of tea in society, etc…boring, but fascinating at the same time…and apparently there had been a contest of some sort, people entered ceramic tea pots and cups they’d made…I loved all the displays…
our next stop was a food court under a nearby building, where we had more starbucks and sandwiches from prêt a manger…(a chain I’ve also seen in the UK)…from there we walked out to st john’s cathedral…I can’t remember why, but hana wanted to see it…it’s a beautiful church, and still active…next on the list was the mid levels escalator…they say it’s the longest covered outdoor escalator…it’s not all in one stretch, there are a bunch of different bits…if you travel the whole thing you’ve gone about 800m…from 6-10am it goes down, but the rest of the day it goes up…after each section you can get off and take stairs down to street level…hana and I rode it all the way up, then walked back down…on the way up I’d spotted a salad shop, so on the way back down I got a salad for dinner…even though I’ve been out of Mongolia for a couple weeks, I still find myself craving veggies more than I ever did before…weird…
that was the end of that day…I don’t remember what time it was, but hana and I were both ready to be done with the day…
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