It's been a bit since we've checked in. October has just flown by, and boy has it been choke full of awesomeness. We started out with a trip to Hong Kong during Chinese national week. I started teaching 3 days a week, Eric got quite a few new projects at work, and we both received challenging callings for our church. In addition, every single electronic device in our home broke within a 10 day period and many needed replacing. To complete our month, we took a short jaunt up to Xiamen to visit Matt and Caroline before their China send-off. Part of me looks back at our time here in china and thinks, Wow, I can't believe we've been here only 2 months! The other part says, Dude, have we really only been here 2 months!?! It feels like so much has happened in such a short period of time. It might take me a couple days, but I'm going to post our pictures from the big events over the past few weeks. I think that Hong Kong is a good place to start.
Chinese national week is a beloved event where all 1.3 billion asians eat dense cakes of bean paste while simultaneously leaving town. A future note to tuck away in your brain: never travel in Asia during this holiday. Just keep this in mind next time you consider vacationing in our neck of the woods during the fall. A prime example of this was our border crossing wait time. From door to door, it took about 5 hrs to get to our hotel in Kowloon, it really should have only taken about 2. We got to spend an entire afternoon being shoved and cut in line by old chinese ladies with bags of lettuce. Nevertheless, despite the rough start to our first-ever departure from the mother country, we were excited to be in Hong Kong. For those that haven't been there, an adequate comparison might be an Asian New York. It's a beautiful, modern melting pot of nationalities and ethnicities. Because of its British colonization and major international business influence, menus, street signs, subway stops, etc are all in English. For American's living in manadarin-only China, going to Hong Kong is literally like an oasis in the desert. It's so nice to be in a place where English is spoken and understood. As a result, the city is very easy to navigate and enjoy. We had a beautiful hotel with a fantastic Victoria Harbor view and the best orange juice I've ever had. There was a subway stop right next to the hotel, and we used it to go pretty much everywhere. We could have easily spent another week in Hong Kong, and still not checked everything off our to-do list. I guess that's the benefit of living next door to a really cool city: you can go back whenever you want! I'm very much used to international vacations that involve no less than 24 hrs of travel and major jet lag. I must admit, it was sure nice to have the same experience without the travel hassle and subsequent insomnia. Enjoy the pictures.
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| Our first night in Hong Kong, we went to the best american restaurant we could find! |
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| Best BBQ burger I've ever had ;) |
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| Beautiful skyline at night from our hotel |
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| the elevated moving sidewalks in Central, they go for blocks and blocks up the hill at 2nd story level |
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| self portrait |
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| Downtown Hong Kong (Central) |
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| The Big Buddah on Lantau Island |
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| Tram ride to the Big Buddah. Line for this ride: 1.5 hrs (holiday week crowds!) |
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| It was a really long ride, it was cool to travel over the water. Note the sky quality, probably the worst we've ever seen |
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| It's a pretty large Buddah |
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| On the trolley to Victoria Peak, the tram was at a 45 degree angle for some of the ride! The camera was held at the actual angle of the ground, Eric was standing vertical. |
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| The Peak shopping center |
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| The view from the Peak circle walk, yeah, we hate the air quality too. A fun hike otherwise. |
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| The Dragon's back hike on Hong Kong Island. Blue water, white beaches, scrub brush, what more can you ask for? |
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| A beach we found, lovely white sand. |
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| Question: Where do you bury the deceased when there isn't any flat land left? Answer: on the hillside |
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| From the TST promenade, last night in town. |
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| A cemetery of Hong Kong. These stair were really steep and narrow. |
Thanks for the post. Looks like lots of fun. One year one of my Chinese students gave me a moonpie (think that's what it was called) for the holiday. I loved it...but it was certainly different and I could only eat a few bites, it was sooooo dense!
ReplyDeleteThis looks like such a fun vacation! So interesting! What are you teaching? English? Thanks for updating!
ReplyDeleteWow, thanks for sharing! What are your callings and what ages are you teaching? :-)
ReplyDeleteBeautiful!! And hooray for HRC! :)
ReplyDelete