Hong Kong Day 4

This was the best day of my life - sushi brunch! I love sushi, and I love brunch, and I also love champagne which they served without limit at this brunch. It was a great way to spend a Sunday morning and early afternoon. The brunch was at a place called Zuma and I highly recommend partaking in this brunch if you're ever in Hong Kong (and if you can afford it - you pay for that bottomless champagne glass!).



This is the dessert tray. Green tea, sesame, and strawberry ice creams, fresh fruit, and assorted cakes and one of those dishes had mangoes with cream in it which was my favorite. It was all delicious.



After brunch we actually went and sat in a bar for a few hours to hang out with one of Matt's American friends. Then we went and got foot massages, which is a great thing to do after a boozy brunch. We all sat in really comfy chairs and had 60 minutes of foot and lower leg massages.



After the massages (and a little before them, too) we wandered through a really ritzy mall where we couldn't afford anything. We actually wandered around a lot of central Hong Kong, working off our brunch calories. Below are pictures from the mall and some of our wanderings. We also stopped to have a drink at the top of another skyscraper where we watched some fog roll in which was neat. I don't have any pictures of that though.



This is a bathtub we saw in a shop window.



Hong Kong is home to the world's longest covered escalator. We rode on this a lot in the evenings to get to the good restaurants and bars. It's very handy! It only runs uphill though - there's a downhill bit but it only runs during morning rush hour on weekdays.

Hong Kong Day 3

Even though we woke up to a cool, cloudy, and windy day on our third day in Hong Kong, we decided to hike Dragon's back. The weather was supposed to be worse the following day and we really wanted to do it. It's one of the main tourist attractions in Hong Kong! You wouldn't think so, but there's actually a good amount of decent hiking in the hills around Hong Kong.

Here's a cat we saw at the start of the hike:



The hike wasn't all that challenging, compared to hiking in the Alps, but it was a good few hours of exercise. The beginning consisted of a steady uphill climb with a good amount of stairs.



The guys, on a break.



Plaque at the top:



Some views at and from the top. It's called dragon's back because you kind of walk up and down the bumps along the ridge while you're at the top before you head back down.



After we finished we of course had to refuel with some food and wine:



Then we went to a restaurant called Bombay Dreams where we ate the spiciest Indian food, ever. Everything we ordered was too spicy for me to eat. Martin enjoys spicy food and even he admitted it was some of the hottest food he's eaten. We took a lot of breaks:



Then we hit the big bar street, lan kwai fong. We were there pretty early; later at night, this street is wall to wall people. We did some jello shots, seen in the last pic below. It was a fun night.

Hong Kong Day 2

We decided to walk through Kowloon on our second day in Hong Kong. While most of the modern and financial area of Hong Kong lies on Hong Kong island, the more locally-flavored and residential area is in mainland China, in Kowloon. We had a lonely planet guidebook with a walking tour through the markets of Kowloon so we set out to do that.

We started off with the bird market. This is just a small area filled with birds in cages for sale. There were also crickets and weird little white frogs for sale ... maybe the birds eat them?



The bird on the right in the first picture below was doing flips over his bar in his cage. I really wanted to buy him. If I lived here, my house would be filled with birds. Actually, I'd probably set them all free.



Next we wandered through the flower market. This was several streets lined with flower shops and with flowers spilling out onto the street from each of the shops. It smelled amazing. If I lived here I would be here every day buying flowers.



The shop here was selling orange trees. There were tons of orange trees all over Hong Kong. They stand for good luck, I think.



Next up we wandered through the streets a bit and just got a feel for life in Kowloon. There were some more street markets, there's practically one on every street. The really big market is called the Ladies' Market and is filled with purses, clothing, and assorted knick knacks and decorations. We got a lot of shopping done in all these markets - lots of fun ideas for gifts for friends and family plus some things to hang on our walls in our eclectic-themed home. We buy something for our walls in every country we go to and now our home is filled with too many different things. We think maybe we should just make one room our "international room" and hang everything from our travels in there. We haven't decided yet.



We stopped at a sushi place for lunch and the menus were on tablets. You just selected what you wanted on the tablet, hit "place order" and it came to your table when it was ready. No waiters necessary.



Some pictures of all the big signs that hang across the streets:



We took a boat back to Hong Kong island, to take a brief siesta before our evening activities.



Our evening activity was a boat trip on a traditional Chinese junk ship to see Hong Kong at night. There is a laser and light show every night but it's not that impressive. More impressive is just seeing a city with so many skyscrapers and lights at night.



This was a very busy day, but I think Hong Kong is definitely one of the most different and interesting places I've visited. If anybody has only one day in Hong Kong I would tell them to do exactly the itinerary that we did today.