We just returned from a trip to Hong Kong and Thailand. Our friend Matt lives in HK and Martin was really excited to go there while we had a free place to stay so I finally gave in and said we could go. HK turned out to be a really fun and interesting place - different from anyplace we'd been before plus it had great restaurants and nightlife.
We started out our trip with a wander around Matt's neighborhood, Wan Chai. There are many street markets there. Below is a picture of me on Matt's balcony; he lives on the 36th floor of an apartment building that's surrounded by lots of other tall buildings (and more are being built!). I would expect no less in HK - the city houses 7 million people in just 1,100 square kilometers.
A blurry-ish picture of one of the markets by Matt's apartment:
After wandering around a bit and having dinner at a nice tapas place we went to the top of one of the skyscrapers for a drink. You can have a drink at the top of almost every building in HK and get a great view. Even Matt's apartment building had a bar on its top floor. Here's a pic of the view:
The next morning we got up and went to Victoria Peak which is the highest point on Hong Kong island at 552 meters. HK is surrounded by lush green hills so it's relatively easy to get away from the city and into nature. And you get great views from the top of the hills too. Victoria Peak is a huge tourist trap where you get a great view of the city. Our original plan was to take an old tram up to the Peak but when we got to the tram station the wait was 2 hours long. So many tourists! So, we took a bus instead. The buses run very frequently and there are like a million bus routes in HK so it's easy to get wherever you need to. On our way to the bus stop, we wandered through Hong Kong Park where there's an aviary, butterfly house, and lots of turtles. This was also during Chinese New Year so there were decorations everywhere.
Some views from Victoria Peak, once we finally got there:
That night we went out for drinks at a wine bar that served only California wines (my favorite!) so I was pretty happy there. Then we went to a great Italian restaurant, Il Posto. Matt and his girlfriend are regulars at this restaurant so they ordered all of our food and it was all amazing. Below is a picture of the delicious mozzarella and tomato dish (before they drizzled balsamic vinegar on it). Yum. The nicest surprise about HK was all the delicious (international, not all Chinese) food we ate while we were there.
No comments:
Post a Comment