Hong Kong

Spring Festival, Chinese New Year, in Hong Kong. We were under the impression we were heading south to and some warm weather. Aahh. We arrive to a cloudy and cold Hong Kong. In the 70's the week before, in the 70's the week after, but we got the 50's and 60's! Oh well. A wonderful city nonetheless.


The view across the Bay to Kowloon from our hotel room. The various ferries to many ports were right below us. It was fun watching all the activity coming and going on the water.The cruise ship port is across the way on the right. We saw a constant flow of ships making their way to Kowloon harbor and then taking off again. It didn't seem as though anyone got much time here. A day, maybe two.
Tricky to see, but the boats in the distance were mini cargo ships. They were little and had cranes on them and went back and forth carrying containers - where to we weren't exactly sure. Other ports, other ships?
Storey needed to keep swimming for swim team, so here we are, on our way to the pool, supporting Storey's swimming desires and needs!
An infinity pool heated just enough to be able to get in (for me - the girls didn't notice). The outdoor temperature had me wanting to spend the entire time in the hot pool, but I sacrificed and swam laps with Storey as much as I could. She, of course, would soundly beat me every time. Paige lapped us, however, on the breast stroke. Good swimmers.

My favorite place!
We were usually at the pool for hours while Ridley worked away. We would watch the city lights begin their illumination. It was beautiful.
I think we only missed one day at the pool out of our six days in HK.
Looking for lunch the first day. We were in a wonderful area of town, Central. In order to get to the streets, we crossed all kinds of elevated walkways, went through a mall and would land in these wonderfully small, crowded streets of Lan Kwai Fong.
It was very quiet, comparatively speaking, because of the New Year break, but we found one market still underway. You can't really tell from the photo, but all the streets are fairly well pitched, as HK is built on large hills. The small stair steps are visible in this photo.



Most of this market was closed down. This lone vendor was hoping for some business.
The trams were everywhere. It was so tall and so narrow. Of course we saw the red double decker buses in use all over town as well.
HK has such a different feeling to it, with so much of its English heritage still alive. Almost everyone spoke English, which was a huge change from our daily lives here. Very easy to communicate. The international aspect of the city was overwhelming. Different languages everywhere. A lot of westerners all around, which made us feel so normal!
The concierge told us we would be seeing groups of Phillipinos gathering during the holiday. We were a bit amazed when we saw how many were out. Women were gathered in groups, sitting on cardboard, eating packed picnics, playing card games, giving manicures and pedicures to each other, and just chatting and laughing. They must have been off work because of the holiday, and these covered walkways were their meeting places. Afterwards cleaners would come and pick up all the cardboard and refuse from these get togethers.
We were by the Central - Mid-levels escalators that helped ferry us up the hill to other eating and shopping establishments.
You get to ride up, but have to walk down. Not a problem.
What did we spy as we were heading up the escalator but a sign for our favorite London eatery, Pizza Express! We hopped right off that escalator and headed down the stairs to the street, back up the stairs to the 2nd floor and gorged on our beloved pizza and pasta!
There was an outrageously delicious gelato store across the street that we went to more than once. And on every corner, I am not kidding, every corner, there was a 7-11 to be found. I have never seen so many. They were even installed in some of the amusement parks! They were in the metro tunnels, malls, every imaginable corner held a 7-11! We were grateful to use it for our water supply, paying 3 HK dollars for a bottle of water rather than the 35 HK dollars the hotel wanted to charge us!
We were hoping to find some English movies while in HK, and Bolt in 3-D was there. What a treat. Waiting in the hallway of the theatre while they cleaned it. No need to get there too early as all seats are assigned. Our concierge got them for us the day before and we got about the last 4 seats available! Movie watching is a big New Year's activity, we discovered. The movies the day before had all been sold out.
Everyone feeling a little cool with their 3-D glasses on!
Ridley spelling it out for you!
What is a movie without popcorn? They even had the salted variety! The mainland Chinese love sweet popcorn and it is often impossible to find the salty version.
More to come later!