Christmas in Hong Kong - Day 3

With the stress of day 2 behind us, we were ready to conquer day 3! Having toured around the city for 2 days, we were finally learning how to push our way through crowds and do everything we could to make sure that we were always first. Hey, it's what you DO in China!...but we promise we'll go back to having good manners before we move back to America :) Our first plan for the day was to check out the Stanley Market and surrounding areas and we were thrilled when Jason and TJ offered to accompany us there. It's always good to be with people who actually know what they're doing! Stanley is located along the southern coast of HK and the ride over there was just fantastic - such awesome views! Anyway, we really enjoyed walking around Stanley Market...there were lots of stalls set up and it was fun to browse through all of the random items that were being sold. It reminded me a lot of shopping in Bangkok.

Standing at the entrance to Stanley Market

YES! We found our first purchase!! Ahh, just kidding, but this picture cracks me up and now that I'm looking at it,  I really think we SHOULD have bought it! Matt looks awesome with a braid ;)

After we finished shopping we walked along the waterfront and found a place to eat lunch.

Friends since college meeting up in Hong Kong...sooo cool!!

Along the waterfront

Couldn't pass up an opportunity to have our picture taken in front of these pretty flowers! :)

The 4 of us after lunch...and by this time the temperature started to drop. The cool weather we'd been hoping for finally made its way to us!

Matt and TJ making our plans for the next day. Again, there was no mistaking it...we were definitely tourists!

After lunch, it was time for us to say goodbye to Jason and TJ for the day and find our way around the city by ourselves. Naturally, we decided to continue being ultra-touristy so we made our way to the "Escalator." It's the world's longest covered escalator...a 2,598 ft long string of escalators (so its not truly ONE escalator, b/c there are stopping points for people to get on and off) that links all the roads between Queen's Road and Conduit Street (the districts of Central, Mid-Levels and SoHo). Basically, the roads are VERY steep and hilly in that area so the escalator is a great way for pedestrians to get around without having to walk everywhere. We didn't ride along the whole thing, but stayed on long enough to get the full experience :)

After we got off the escalator we made our way toward the Man Mo Temple, but couldn't resist passing through the markets that were set up along the steep side streets...

Warning...this is sort of gross, but hey, its part of what we saw so I'm just sharing the experience! ;)

Yeah, those are definitely pig intestines. I also got a very lovely picture of a platter of raw chicken feet, but that one is actually more gross than this one so I've decided to spare you the look and not post it here.

Anyway...on to something much better...

A street vendor was selling the most beautiful bright orange and pink flowers and I commented on how pretty they were. My sweet and wonderful husband insisted on buying them for me!

Feeling loved and blessed to have such a great husband!

Ok, continuing our journey to Man Mo Temple...

Matt showing that we are moving in the right direction.

The Man Mo Temple dates back to the 1840s

Entrance to the temple

The temple is dedicated to Man (the god of literature) and Mo (the god of war). I got out my trusty zoom lens, stood from a distance and grabbed a few shots of people worshipping...or at least I think that's what they were doing.

The temple was SO smoky inside from these giant incense spirals that hang overhead and take a couple of weeks to burn through!

Last on our list of things to do for the day was to ride the Peak Tram up to the famous Victoria Peak. The tram itself is pulled by a single steel cable up an INCREDIBLY steep track. It seriously feels like you're nearly vertical at some points! Although the safety record for the tram is spotless, we couldn't help but think "what if this is the ONE time that something goes wrong?" It was pretty scary! Thankfully the tram moves slowly and there really isn't anything to be worried about while on it. So as I mentioned in the previous blog, a huge part of the reason you would want to visit HK is for the views of the city...there are lights for miles! Where is the best place to see those lights? At Victoria Peak! Did we get to see those pretty lights? Of course not!! :(  Just like the day before, dense fog was out in full force and our "spectacular" view of Hong Kong failed to impress by a long shot.

This is what we SHOULD have seen from the peak:

(This is not our picture)

...and this is what we saw. We were SO disappointed!

Oh, and I just want to add that it was absolutely, ridicously cold and windy up at the peak. All this time that we've been in Singapore I've been missing cold weather, but after a few minutes up at the peak I started to question what it is exactly that I'm missing? Brrrrrrrr!!!

Not fully satisfied with our view of the peak, we decided to go back down to the harbor and try and take a few pictures of the Hong Kong side of the island. With the fog still obviously settled over the city, I'm not sure why we thought we might get a good picture...but its the effort that counts, right?

Again, what we SHOULD have seen:

...and this is what we saw. Oh well, we tried! You should at least be able to see the Christmas light designs that filled entire sides of the building..it was really cool!

So our views didn't give us much to write home about, but the rest of the day was fantastic! Day 3 in Hong Kong was officially a success and we were excited for our 4th and final day in Hong Kong :)

Christmas in Hong Kong - Day 2

Day # 2 in Hong Kong was THE big day...Christmas Day! We couldn't wait to get out and make special memories from our very first Christmas overseas. Well, I'm happy to report that we did succeed in making memories...just not the ones we had in mind ;) Our agenda for the day was as follows: enjoy a nice breakfast at the hotel , take the famous Star Ferry across Victoria Harbor to see fabulous views of the HK skyline, make our way to Statue Square, take a ferry over to Macau and explore the island, make our way to the Venetian Hotel & Casino to see Cirque du Soleil "Zaia", then catch the ferry back to HK in time to call our families by 11:30 p.m.  Unfortunately, the day didn't go quite as planned...

The morning started out great with a delicious breakfast at our hotel :)

All ready for our Hong Kong Christmas Day adventures! Feeling really happy as the day started...

Next, we made our way to the Star Ferry Terminal. The Ferry crosses Victoria Harbor going back and forth between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island and offers a beautiful view of the towering skyscapers and hills of HK Island.

Just outside the terminal  is a landmark clocktower. Its the last remnant of the old Kowlooon railway terminal.

Matt buying our tickets for the Star Ferry...ohhh yeah, there was no mistaking us for locals!

Another really crowded line. We didn't do a good job of pushing our way through the crowd...by the time we got on the ferry, there was standing room only. Oops!

Now as I mentioned above, a ride on the Star Ferry gives you fabulous views of the skyline. Or should give you fabulous views...but not if its foggy...and foggy it was! So while we should have seen something like this:

(This is not our picture)

We could only see this:

What a total bummer! A huge part of the reason you would want to go to HK is for the views...and this just didn't cut it. At least it was only day 2, right? We figured we would have other opportunities to see it on a more clear day :)

Me on the ferry with another Star Ferry in the background (that one was headed back to the Kowloon side)

A foggy look at the Kowloon side of HK taken from Hong Kong Island.

As we walked toward Statue Square, we found this park with poinsettias planted ALL over the place. What a perfect picture opportunity for Christmas Day! :)

After getting a bit turned around and walking much further than we thought we would (on a very warm day...another thing that didn't work out in our favor as we were expecting much cooler weather) we arrived at Statue Square in the Central District. The area was filled with hundreds of domestic helpers enjoying their day off. They occupied nearly every bit of space in the area!

Domestic helpers eating, laughing and enjoying their day off

Statue Square was all decorated for Christmas. In fact, there were very few parts of HK that weren't decorated for Christmas! The whole city was decked out!

Seen from Statue Square is the Bank of China Tower. Famous for being designed by I M Pei (he's designed a very similar building in Singaore which I've blogged about here and of course, the Lourve in France).

The Thomas Jackson statue, a 19th century banker, is one of HK's few remaining statues.

The Legislative Council Building, one of HK's last remaining colonial buildings

At the entrance of the HSBC Bank Headquarters (the most expensive building ever built upon its completion in 1985) are two lions. There to protect the building, rubbing their paws is said to bring good luck...but we didn't do it so I can't say if that's accurate or not ;)

When in southeast Asia, its important to give the peace sign in at least 2/3 of your pictures!

So after we left Statue Square, it was time to head over to our next ferry terminal to catch our ferry over to Macau. It takes about 60-70 minutes to get there by ferry (or you can take a helicopter for $1200!). Today, Macau is a gambler's paradise...you could say its a "little Vegas", but there was a time when it was a Portuguese colony so the island is still rich with Portuguese history (400 years worth!). Our plan was to spend the rest of the day exploring the island before heading to the Venetian to see Cirque du Soleil. Unfortunately, as I said earlier, things did not go as planned. When we arrived at the ferry terminal, we encountered this crowd:

There were hundereds of people were waiting to enter the ferry terminal. Due to the dense fog, all early morning ferries to Macau had been cancelled and there were plenty of angry and frustrated people waiting to get in and try and claim their place on the next departing ferry. They kept us all waiting in a big open area and then finally opened one tiny door for everyone to squeeze through. WHOA it was madness! People pushing, kicking, and yelling! There were policemen shouting at everyone (though we couldn't understand a word that was being spoken) and news crews filming the whole thing! I was completely overwhelmed and all but ready to turn around and skip going to Macau altogether...but, we pressed on. Thankful that we finally made it into the actual terminal, we breathed a sigh of relief when we saw that our ferry was still scheduled to depart. To make a very long story short, because of the morning delays, they were sticking people on random ferries and we did not get on a ferry until 3 hours after we were scheduled to depart. So we spent 4 long hours on Christmas day hanging out in a ferry terminal, unable to understand a single word being spoken! If that's not a special memory, I don't know what is! By the time we made it to Macau, Cirque du Soleil had already started and we weren't even at the Venetian yet....yikes! We rushed over and begged them to let us into a later show. Thankfully, they did! However, we were still bummed that we didn't get to see anything in Macau except the Venetian. So much for a day of being immersed in Portuguese history...

So now that we had a little time before the late show started, we decided to check out the casino. Neither Matt nor I had ever been in a casino and we were amazed with how big it was and how many people were in there. I had to keep reminding myself that it was Christmas Day because it certainly didn't feel like it! While we're not usually in favor of gambling, we couldn't resist spending $100 HK (that's about $13 USD) on slot machines. First up was Matt...

Concentrating hard on his first pull. No pictures allowed in the casino, but we took our chances and snapped a few!

Next it was my turn...

Ready for my one and only pull...

That right there is my winnings...$470 HK dollars which equals $60 USD! Score!! We quickly cashed out. Things were finally looking up!

Look at all those people at the casino! Yep, this was definitely a unique Christmas!

Another forbidden picture taken in the casino. I'm so daring ;)

The Venetian had an amazing lobby in the casino, complete with curved escalators (we'd never seen any before), a beautiful ceiling and a HUGE Christmas tree!

Just as we expected it to be, Zaia was awesome! It was a great way to end a semi-stressful day.

After we left the Venetian, we headed back to the ferry terminal and begged our way onto a midnight ferry (they didn't want to let us due to the earlier time we were supposed to go back). We arrived back at the hotel around 2 a.m. and made sleepy phone calls to our families on Christmas day. Though the day didn't turn out exactly like we wanted it to, we still got a lot accomplished...and regardless of the stress and disappointments, we still made LOTS of memories just like we set out to do!

We hope everyone had a GREAT Christmas filled with lots of fun and special memories of your own :)