Hong Kong Day 3 and 4

Hong Kong is a big city and the number of stores, little shops, food stands, and people is just amazing. In some ways, I would want to spend enough time in this area to start making sense of it. Such as: how do people pick which stand to buy their snacks from; how do they pick this cell phone shop over another; how do they decide what they are having for dinner and where do they go to buy the ingredients? I mean, I know where they buy the ingredients… all of these little shops… but how do they find what they are looking for and know who has what. Because it is a big city, the way of life here is just so different than what we experience in Alaska; it is very intriguing to me. On the other hand, because it is so big and there are so many people going from place to place all the time, it easily becomes too much for me and I realize how lucky I am to be able to experience Alaska on a daily basis, with the wonderful people and peaceful nature.

Just a note that in Hong Kong, there are generally less pictures here because honestly, I’m not that good a photographer and many of them are snapshot quality and don’t have much notable value. I’ve also been trying to experiment more with my camera and that has actually made the number of even halfway decent photos fairly limited.

On to the log of our adventures. We decided to venture out to a couple quintessential Hong Kong attractions – Victoria Peak (via tram) and the Star Ferry. The tram is a cable car that goes up steeply to Victoria Peak, which has overlooks that provide magnificent views across all sides of Hong Kong. It was an absolutely gorgeous day at the peak; the skies were clear and there were white, puffy clouds floating in the air. As I looked out over the city, I tried to imagine what it was like here 50 or 100 years ago, and what a sailor must feel like coming into a large port like this, excited to have some leave and go venture into the city. Looking away from the city, you could see the islands and channels used by the ship traffic to approach the harbor. It reminded me a bit of Prince William Sound, and it looked very peaceful and inviting. I’m sure for those that can afford a private boat here, there is a lot of exploring to be done out there.

We came down from Victoria Peak and headed to the Star Ferry. These ferries have been transporting people back and forth from Hong Kong island for decades; it is just one of the things you must do when visiting Hong Kong. We walked the gang plank and took our seats, enjoying the short ride from Central to Kowloon. We spent a bit of time just looking around, and then took the ferry back to Wan Chai (where we’re staying). It is nothing remarkable, but you still get the experience of being on the water, watching the different cruise ships, private boats, and tugs bustle around the area.

By that time we were ready to wrap up our day. After resting for a bit back at our flat, the girls and I decided to venture out and try and find a better grocery store than what we’d seen so far. We had a great walk through some new streets of the area, and even stumbled across a few new finds. The first was a small sweet shop that we’d read about. In we went, and were able to score a couple gifts for friends. Next we wandered down to Queen’s Parkway and saw a couple car dealerships, including Tesla and Rolls Royce. There was also a McLaren dealership, which is the high-end sports car model that the boys and I race in a video game called Forza. I knew they’d be impressed, so I took a couple pictures and made a mental note of where the place was at so we could revisit it.

We found our grocery store, bought some goods for our breakfast and some snacks to share, and headed back to our flat. As is our new tradition, we watched a movie, ate some food, and spent some time just being together as a family.

Day 4

Our last full day here in Hong Kong; there isn’t anything significant we have left to do, so we decided to spend some time shopping. This isn’t really a thing for anyone in our family, but we had found a few good destinations in our research and thought if we had our shopping mindset on, we might be successful. Unfortunately, I must report that we weren’t. We didn’t find too many shops that were our style or price range and walking around in the heat tends to wear thin. We had lunch at a small, hole in the wall Japanese restaurant, which I thought was great. In these small restaurants, I always seat Amanda with her back to the kitchen so that she can’t watch the preparation. Having been trained in food safety and cleanliness, she has a hard time unseeing the many, many violations, which don’t cause a problem for me. Ignorance is bliss.

We decided that shopping was a bust and we needed some recuperation time. We went back to our flat (with a detour by the McLaren dealership so the boys could see them) to play games, get cool, and prepare for the evening. I know I’ve said this before, but it has been really nice being all together in this small apartment. For a couple hours, we all sat together in a 160 square foot room, enjoying the air conditioning, and playing games together. We all felt rejuvenated and decided to head out for the evening.

Each evening at 8pm in Hong Kong they do a symphony of lights laser show, with lasers emitting from many of the tall buildings around the city. We headed over to the Tsim Sha Tsui side to watch that and along the way, check out the Hong Kong Park.

The park is a serene oasis in the middle of the city. It has many different sections and we decided to check them all out. There were several fountains throughout the park, with the coolest being a large mushroom-shaped structure with water flowing over it. A couple breaks in the sheet of water allow people to go under it and get behind the water, which of course we did. The park has a large walk-through aviary and a kid’s park, also. Walking down from there, we passed a large artificial waterfall, which you walk behind, and an artificial lake filled with frogs that were making their evening calls to each other. As we completed our loop, we ended back at the other end of the fish pond and realized it was also full of turtles. These cute little guys of all sizes were relaxing on a bunch of the rocks, sprawled out in various ways.

We then made our way down to the subway. Though we’ve become experts at riding the MTR, this was rush hour, so a fully new experience. Amanda and I each grabbed a girl and told a boy to stick with us; Amanda and I devised multiple meeting place contingencies if we were to get separated. We loaded into a car, squeezing as tight as we could. As our stop approached, we had to make our way through the sea of people to get out. I had Carli with me and in addition to holding her hand, I had to provide a cage around her head so she didn’t get slammed with bags and elbows. She is one that doesn’t like people too close or being crowded in together, so the experience wasn’t that enjoyable for her.

As we walked to the promenade to secure our viewing spot for the light show, the boys and I kept our eye out for sports cars, which has been one of our past times here. Besides the dealerships, we’ve been spotting high end cars while driving. We’ve seen a couple Lamborghinis, 2 Ferraris, several Maserati’s, and multiple Tesla’s. One time we saw a Bentley behind a Ferrari behind a Maserati all waiting at a stop light. The number of high end BMW, Porsche, and Mercedes has been too numerous to count, also. To our disappointment, the light show turned out to be a bust. I’m not sure if they had technical difficulties or what, but there were only a few spotlights and a couple short bursts of laser lights. Everyone that was out to watch it, including a few tour groups, was disappointed. The couple standing next to me had last visited Hong Kong 30 years ago and it was interesting to hear him talk about how much has changed since then. We made our way back home, which was on a much less crowded subway, and had a meal of instant noodles and watched our nightly movie.

My next post will be from Anchorage as we are heading home. Hong Kong has been a nice transition as I’m ready to return home. (I wasn’t when we left Guangzhou.) We have had a wonderful trip and the kids have done fabulous. Tomorrow will be a long travel day, with some time spent bumming around the airport area until our flight leaves at 7pm. I know everyone will do great, though. See you soon, Alaska!