Hong Kong, China

Hong Kong is totally awesome! We got into Hong Kong at night and because we were all so tired from the previous days' journeys we just crashed in our hotel room. However, the drive from the airport to our hotel was great. Hong Kong has a beautiful skyline and seeing it at night is really cool.

Our first, and only, toured day in Hong Kong started at Stanley Market. Stanley Market is the Caucasian district in Hong Kong. It has a neat little bazaar that we toured as well as nice parks and condo towers. On the drive from our hotel in the heart of Hong Kong to Stanley Market, on the side of Hong Kong Island, we passed by awesome looking buildings. It makes you wonder why we don't make buildings that nice in America.

After Stanley Market we were taken to the obligatory tourist shop. This time it was a jewellery store/factory. Like all the other tourist traps we've been taken to, this jewelry shop has the small factory that we tour followed by the massive showroom where we can buy all sorts of goods that are of "great quality and discounted prices". It was mildly interesting to see the factory floor and see how jewelry is made. I know the factory we saw is really just a model to make it look like we are buying it directly from the factory, but it was still interesting.

Following the jewelry shop tour we went to Victoria Peak. Victoria Peak is at the top of a mountain overlooking most of Hong Kong. Unfortunately, when we were there it was overcast and we couldn't see more than 2 miles, but the sight was still amazing. Our official Hong Kong tour ended at Victoria Peak at 1pm on our first day and we were free for the next day and a half. Our first matter of business after being set free was to get a different meal from the one we've been getting from our tour the past week. Tim, Chloe, Lara and I all grabbed a sandwich and took in the view from Victoria Peak one last time.

From Victoria Peak we took the cable car down to the center of Hong Kong. The cable car was another memorable experience. Hong Kong's cable car is a lot like Istanbul's funicular. It is just one car that goes up and down the track. Hong Kong's cable car, however, is on a much grander scale. The view on the cable car is great and the steepness is on par with San Francisco's cable cars. Very cool. From the center of Hong Kong we took the subway to Lantau Island. Hong Kong's subway is by far the best mass transit I've ever ridden; clean, quick, timely, very impressive.

At the subway station at Lantau Island we got on a gondola to go to the Tian Tan Buddha Statue. The Tian Tan Buddha Statue is a massive statue of Buddha that overlooks a huge area of Hong Kong. The best way to get to the statue, as we found out, is to take the gondola. The coolest part of the gondola, its glass bottom! For the entire length of the gondola, about 5 miles, we looked down on people hiking through the mountain and checking out the sweeping views. The weather was still really overcast, so we didn't get nearly as good of a view as we could have, but it was still great. Hong Kong is one of the best designed cities in my opinion. On Lantau Island for example the subway station is in the heart of a shopping mall and surrounded by a cluster of high rise condos. But outside of this little cluster is miles and miles of beautiful green hills. Nearly the entire length of our gondola ride was above a park with really nice walking trails.

We arrived at the peak and proceeded to freeze our asses off, or at least I did. The Buddha statue is very impressive. The statue is only 20 years old and they built really well. Like most of Hong Kong, it's clean and very well maintained. After the Buddha statue we got back on the gondola to the subway station on Lantau Island. Since we were starving we grabbed a bite in the mall attached to the subway station. We had a quick, cheap tepanyaki grilled meal; like Benihana, but simpler. It was great! Why can't we have this in malls in America?

Of course, one thing you have to do in Hong Kong is party like a rockstar. After making ourselves presentable the four of us hit up Lan Kwai Fong. When we got there (11pm 'ish) the place was hopping. The entire street was filled with people, the bars were overflowing, and the weather was perfect. There was also no police presence at all and everyone was completely enjoying themselves. We did a bar hop for an hour or so and then settled on a dance club somewhere. At 3am Lara and I threw in the towel. Tim and Chloe, the veteran partiers, stayed out until 5am. They reported back that when they left the bars were still hopping and people were still out in the street, although less than at 11pm.

It should go without saying that the next morning didn't start too early, 11:30 to be exact. The four of us had the whole day to explore Hong Kong. We breezed through one of Hong Kong's dozens of high end malls, stumbled on a motorcycle street show, rode through the SoHo district on the world's longest escalator, and took one of Hong Kong's unique double decker trams, all in the first two hours. Then we got on a ferry to Kowloon. I'd compare Kowloon to Brooklyn. It is still part of Hong Kong, but not nearly as big and nice. We walked around the major shopping streets in Kowloon and were amazed time and again at how much high-end shopping there is. We passed no fewer than three Tiffany's stores and we literally stumbled into four high-end shopping malls that day. One thing we hadn't done much of was sample street food. While walking down the main drag of Kowloon we saw a long line of people for a hole in the wall food place that was serving waffles. We tried a waffle and what appeared to be doughnut holes. The waffle was great. The doughnut holes turned out to be fishballs, they were not great.

As we walked along the main drag, Nathan Road, we stopped to look into a small tailor shop. We had heard that Hong Kong is a great place to buy suits so we decided to take a looksee. We walked out 2 hours later with 2 suits, 2 skirts, 2 shirts, and a tie, all custom fit. Tim and Chloe ended up getting 2 suits as well. The experience was memorable as well. The shop is no larger than 12' x 10' and is manned by a locally famous tailor and his wife. The tailor doesn't speak a word of English and his wife speaks OK English. So the communication of telling us to what to do and asking us how we would like our clothes to fit was kind of a struggle. It was also a little awkward when the tailor pointed out that my right arm is longer than my left. That awkwardness was nothing compared to getting flossed though. The clothes are being shipped to us right now, cross your fingers.

With our wallets MUCH lighter we decided to walk around the Night Market. The Night Market is a street bazaar in Kowloon that has really cheap goods. I bought 5 ties for $5 to complement my new suit. As the night went on the rain got heavier (it rained lightly most of the afternoon) and we decided to head back. The following morning we went straight to the ferry terminal to go to Guangzhou. Like so many other places we visited, we definitely did not get to spend enough time in Hong Kong. We'll come back to Hong Kong for sure.