Hong Kong | Todd and Ziqin's Travels

I haven’t finished the Tibet ones, but tonight I feel like writing some other places instead. So Hong Kong it is.

We entered Hong Kong through Futian Port. The procedure was actually faster and easier than I thought, just go through a corridor and boom, you are in Hong Kong.

The terminal on the Hong Kong side is a subway/train station where we got our transportation card, the octopus card. It can be used for the entire public transportation system, and also be used to pay for the tickets of major tourist attractions. Transportation in Hong Kong is outrageously expensive! Believe it or not, the train/subway ride from the Port to our hotel in Sheung Wan took us 80 RMB (14 USD) each for only about 15 mins, tops. Taxi is even more expensive.

Soon as we got out of the subway station, my first impression on Hong Kong was “ah, now I understand why the China town in the San Francisco looks so different from the one I had in my mind.”

For I am from Beijing, northern China, where city planning is so different from it is here. We have much wider roads and more spacious alleys between the buildings, less LED billboards and more modern buildings. While here, crammed streets are filled with old fashioned buildings and LED signs. Since the land resources in Hong Kong are so scarce, the land cost is sky-high, consequently, hotels are normally insanely expensive. If you are not careful, you’ll leave here with an empty wallet. Because of the limited land resources, Hong Kong tends to expand vertically into the sky. Buildings over 50 stories are not rare.

We were there for the wedding ceremony of my dad’s friend’s daughter, which was on the third day of our Hong Kong trip. So we decided to take advantage of the first couple of days checking out the main scene of the city. Of course, one can not miss Yau-ma-Tee, Tsim Sha Tsui, Mong Kok and Causeway Bay, so we took the double deck bus to check out all the places.

If you are a shopping maniac, you’ll love these places. A superb collection of products from clothes to makeups and high-tech products. But as for a foodie like me, I only focused on finding all the time-honored local restaurants. We had some beef noodles, BBQ goose/pork rice and some local desserts. YUMMY!! However, my husband did not enjoy the local foods as much as I did. Hong Kong is a paradise for fresh seafood, but as you all know, Todd does not like seafood, not at all. The first meal we had with my dad’s local friends was in a seafood restaurant. They treated us with the best food they think they can offer, grouper fish, abalones, shrimps, and shark fin soup, which was said to be worth of 2,000 RMB (400 USD) per dish! That meal was a total disaster for Todd!! He did not want to be rude so had to wash down the mouthful of fish with another mouthful of shark fin soup. What’s worse, soon as he finished his serving of shark fin soup, the hospitable host filled up his bowl again, thinking he enjoyed it so much… I guess the host thought our foreign guest enjoyed the shark fin soup a lot and he probably would not have it anywhere else outside Hong Kong. So the second time we dined out with my dad’s friends, they served us the shark fin soup again. I was pretty sure that Todd wished very hard that the waiter would drop that dish before it was served. As it was not the case, Todd changed his strategy, he consumed his share of the shark fin soup as slowly as possible so that no one would feed him the same dish ever again, never. I felt sorry for him and I still do right now but I just couldn’t help laughing when I run it over again in my head….So when we had our choice on food, Todd picked up Mcdonald’s without any hesitation. (note from Todd: I find it funny to recall this as well, and I mainly picked McDonald’s because my stomach was bothering me and I just wanted some chicken nuggets! )

The first night upon arrival Todd and I strolled down to the waterfront not far from our hotel. We saw some LED signs on the top of a skyscraper saying that there would be a light show at 9 sharp. So we decided to by some snacks and came back later to check it out. Unfortunately, it started to rain as we stepped out of the supermarket with bags of snacks. We found a shelter by the river and started to nibble at our stocks. It was 8:55. We kinda engaged in some sort of debate on something and vaguely glanced at some light signs on the buildings, but neither of us really cared. The moment we realized what we were there for, we already finished a cheese cake, some chips and a drink, and it was already 5 mins past 9. Nothing happened, and the rain began to pour down. Only till then did we realize that the simple light signs we saw was the light show….

The second day we went to the Victoria Peak where one can have a panoramic view of the Victoria Harbor.

We took the taxi up to the peak and rode the cable car down. There is a park on the mountain top, several viewing decks, and a tree-lined path.

The Victoria Peak is a nice place for some mountain hike, unfortunately we did not wear our workout outfits.

Later that day we went out to meet my friend in Hong Kong, who is a Russian with permanent residence in Hong Kong. Thanks to my friend’s advice, we checked out the Walk of Fame, Harbor city (shopping mall) and took the star ferry.

After that we got so lost on our way back. We missed our stop and had to walk back to our hotel. All the narrow streets in Hong Kong looked exactly the same to me and the entire area we stayed at felt like a big maze. Out of option I asked a local girl passed by, in slow and clear mandarin. She was a bit nervous and answered “can you speak English, my English is actually much better than my mandarin.” So if you do not speak any Chinese, do not worry, as long as you speak English, you’ll be fine in Hong Kong.

Getting back to the wedding ceremony, it was great. Over a hundred people attended the ceremony, most are family members and friends from both the bride’s and groom’s sides. It was held in a grand restaurant in downtown Hong Kong. It’s Chinese tradition that during the wedding ceremony the bride will change several times and takes lots of pictures with the guests. Then the newly-wed will toast to each table of guests, thanking them for here to witness their happy marriage. Every guest will leave a red envelope with a certain amount of lucky money to the couple. The amount depends on your relationship with the couple and their families.

From Hong Kong, we took for 1-hour ferry ride to Macau. It is the most convenient and cost effective way to go between Hong Kong and Macau. But if you ask me how I felt about it…well, I can only say it depends. If you like riding roller coaster, you’ll like it a lot. I had a terrible experience with it.

It was rainy and windy the day we left Hong Kong and the waves were huge. I was excited at the first couple of minutes then I started to get sick and had to lay down the entire trip. On the other hand, Todd enjoyed the trip so much he said it was like riding a ride in an amusement park for an entire hour.  I’ll write more about our Macau trip soon, but for now, catch you all later!