Category: Hong Kong

We slept until 6:00.  I think we are over the worst of our jet lag.

After breakfast in the hotel restaurant, we walked through the garden and the Soho district, which had lots of interesting looking shops and restaurants, toward the Man Mo Temple.  The temple was built between 1847 and 1862 by wealthy Chinese merchants, primarily for the worship of Man Cheong (God of Literature) and Mo Tai (God of Martial Arts).  We really needed a guide to explain what we were seeing.  There were lots and lots of incense, candles, and offerings.  It was hard to capture the feel of the place in pictures but . . .

From there, we walked around Soho looking at the amazing antique shops.  In one window we saw a pair of statues from the Tang Dynasty which were for sale for a mere  $500k.  We considered it but thought  they might not fit in our suitcase.

We started to get hungry so we figured that we should have dim sum while in Hong Kong. We checked TripAdvisor and found a restaurant that was highly rated for dim sum and headed in that direction.  It turned out it was in the Mandarin Hotel — very fancy.  Unfortunately they were full with reservations and couldn’t take us, so we walked back the way we came and went to a noodle place with lots of locals.

After lunch we went over to the Star Ferry and bought tickets for a harbor tour.  It was a little foggy and a bit chilly but it was nice to see the city from the water.

Back on dry land, we got a taxi back to the hotel and relaxed for a couple of hours before having a “picnic” dinner.  Tomorrow we are off to Bangkok!

We slept pretty well considering we are trying to adjust to a 13 hour time change.  Rick slept from 7:30 until 3 and I slept from 8 until 4, was up for awhile and then went back to sleep from 5:30 until 8.

We met Ann in the lobby at walked across the street to the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens, a beautiful and serene park in the middle of the city.  We wandered around, looking at the plants, birds, and animals.  Here are a few pictures.

We stopped at the grocery store to get water on the way back to hotel.  After safely storing our water we took a taxi up to the peak.  We had a coffee and admired the view.  It was a perfect day to be up there.  Not a cloud in the sky and in the upper 60’s.  The view was magnificent!  We hadn’t realized how big Hong Kong is.  Walking along some of the paths we were able to see the other side of the island.  Here  are some pictures.

We had lunch at Wildfire, a excellent pizza place at the peak.  From there we took a taxi back to the hotel where we regrouped.

Next stop the Star Ferry which travels between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.  It’s been running since 1888.  Here’s a picture of the ferry.

The Kowloon side felt much more chaotic and had lots of very high end shopping.  We planned to go to the flower market and the bird market.  We started walking but weren’t completely sure where we were going so we asked a hotel doorman.  He told us it was a pretty long walk and suggested that we take a cab or the subway.  We tried to get a cab but no one wanted to take us, so we decided to try to subway.  A gentleman at the subway’s customer service desk sold us the tickets and told us how to get to the markets.  Ann and I got on the train  and the doors started to close.  Rick almost didn’t get on the train, but being the New Yorker that he is, he held the doors open and made it through.  Yikes that was close!

We got off the train and walked to the flower market.  It was store after store of beautiful flowers.

We walked a little further to the bird market.

We didn’t buy any flowers or birds, just took the subway back to the pier area.  We ended up going into a hotel to have a glass of wine and some appetizers.  We wanted to stay on the Kowloon side to see the light show.  After dinner we walked to the harbor and found a good spot to watch it.  The light show was cool.

After the light show we took a taxi to the hotel.  We stayed up until 9:30.   We’re making progress!

Our flight from Boston to Hong Kong was fine, but very long — 15 1/2 hrs.  We went up and over the North Pole. Rick slept pretty well but Ann and I didn’t.  There were a number of kids on the plane including 7 year old, Ella, and her 3 year old brother, Alex.  Ella asked me about my favorite color as she walked by.  We proceeded to play pretend with her dolls and play games on her iPad.  Eventually Alex got in on the fun.  We helped each other pass the time.

We were easily able to get a cab from the airport to our hotel.  Our cab driver told us all about Hong Kong and entertained us the whole way.  His English was stilted, but still very good  he ha d great sence of humor.

We are staying at the Garden View Hotel in Central which I highly recommend.  (Thanks Doug and Nancy for the recommendation).  It’s a great location at a great price.  The rooms aren’t fancy but they are very nice and very clean.  To top it off there is a top notch grocery store around the corner, great bread, good sliced meats and cheese from  all over the world .

We got checked in and relaxed for a couple of hours.  I took a short nap.  We agreed the next three days we want to see some of the city, but not try to see everything — we want to give ourselves the time we needed to get through our jet lag.  We left the hotel around 11 and walked towards the water.  We went to lunch at a restuarant which serves Hong Kong style Chinese food, recommended by the hotel and Fodor’s as authentic.  Lots of locals, really different and very good.

After lunch we had a coffee (we desperately needed the caffeine) and walked around the harbor, exploring some of our options for the rest of our time here.  We walked over to the convention center which is architecturally interesting and entirely enormous.   Here are pictures from our walk.

Caffiene jolt fading we way back toward the hotel.  En route we stopped at a grocery store and got some food for a picnic dinner (we didn’t think we would be very hungry after our big lunch) and for breakfast tomorrow morning.  We bought several bottles of water as well as two bottles of wine. The groceries were quite heavy and the return route to our hotel quite steep, so we took a cab back to the hotel — best $3 US we could have spent!

We relaxed for a couple of hours but we didn’t allow ourselves to nap.  We had our picnic dinner in Ann’s room and planned our itinerary for the next day.  We were in bed and snoring 💤 by 8.  Let’s hope we can sleep until 4 or 5 o’clock!