Part II: Hong Kong

Victoria Harbor from the Ferry

January 26th
Our flight to Manila from Bohol was delayed and hour so we had a more relaxing morning. We arrived at the Tag airport at about 10:45am for our 12:15am flight. The two check in counters were so dang slow that we waited in line for about 45 min with maybe ten people in front of us, seriously a joke. We boarded on time and we were up in the air for a quick hour before landing in Manila. We took a cab to terminal three, ate lunch and only had to sit for 30 min before we boarded the plane destined for Hong Kong!

Hong Kong was one place that I was really sad we didn't get the chance to visit the first time we were in Asia so I was super pumped to be going. We landed on time at 6:30pm, but it was dark and rainy so unfortunately we didn't get to see anything flying in. Hong Kong International was really nice and extremely easy to get around so we had no problem finding the bus we needed to wait for that would take us to Hong Kong Island, the area where our hotel is.

After waiting about 20 min, bus A11 pulled up. I handed the driver $100 HK dollars and politely said " for two," (it was $40 HKD each). He looked at me and said "Sorry, no change." So confused, how can the driver not have any change. Everyone knows that at airport currency exchanges they ONLY give you big bills, how could he not have change?! He pointed to a ticket window about 50 yards away so Andrew took of running to try to break the bill before the bus left. Honestly, I was fully prepared to stand in front of the bus to make him wait so we didn't have to stand there for 30 more minutes until the next one came. Andrew came running back a bit out of breath. After going to three different ticket windows, he was able to buy two bus tickets because no one would break the $100 HK bill...so annoying.

We rode the bus for about 40 min before taking a gamble on which stop to get off on. Well, we bet wrong and ended up walking up and down the street, looking at two different maps, trying to find Morrison Street. After a few backtracking turns and a little assistance we found our hotel! The Butterfly Boutique on Morrison. It's a small room, but large by Asian standards. It's really modern and in a great location. We grabbed a quick bite to eat before turning into our hotel to plan our first day adventures!

January 27th
I woke up like a little kid on Christmas; so giddy with excitement about what our first day in Hong Kong had in store for us. We prepared our oatmeal and discussed the days activities. Yes, we bring our own oatmeal when we travel. As long as the place we are staying has a hot water kettle, we are good to go for breakfast! It's filling, and free :) Hey, don't judge, we are on a budget.

We decided to visit Lantau Island. It took about 45 minutes to get to via the MTR, Hong Kong's subway system. Getting around Hong Kong is super easy, very similar to that of Seoul; really traveler friendly. We left our hotel at 10am and headed to the closest MTR station, Causeway Bay. It also happens to be in the center of their "Times Square" which is filled with tons of high-end stores, Andrew and I had fun window shopping. Your inner glutenous pig can really get the better of you in a place like that!

We arrived on the island, saw a Subway sandwich restaurant, and decided it was lunch time! It had been five months since I had eaten a turkey sandwich...and those of you that know me well know that I LOVE turkey sandwiches! After lunch we walked around their "outlet" mall a bit. I quote outlet, because their definition and mine are different. I hear outlet and think big discount prices on last seasons designs. And I was super excited to see a Kate Spade outlet! I have a weakness for all things Kate Spade. When I went in and looked at their prices I was shocked. Their discounted prices are more than full priced items in the US. I wanted to tell everyone, "You're getting ripped off" but I held my tongue, shrugged my shoulders and walked out disappointed.

Self-timer picture after we climbed the stairs to Buddha

We headed over to the reason we came to the island in the first place, the famous Big Buddha. It's the worlds tallest, outdoor seated bronze Buddha and sits a top a hill with some truly spectacular views. We stood in line for about 40 min to take a cable car 5.7 km to the top. When we arrived it wasn't what I had expected, there was a whole little tourist village up there complete with restaurants, a hotel and a dozen souvenir shops. We walked around a bit, taking tons of pictures and then embarking on the 278 step journey to see Buddha. The steps sucked, but at least they were even and nothing like the tortuous "Great Wall of China" stairs. The view from up there was worth it, so pretty!

Blooming Chinese Tea

At 4pm there was a free tea demonstration at an adorable tea shop, Li Nong Tea. She showed us this new kind of tea, blooming tea, where the tea wraps around a real flower, and after adding hot water, it literally blooms in the cup! It was delicious and one of the coolest things so of course I had to buy some as a souvenir  We left about 5pm and waited 30 in a line to take the cable car back down. Lantau Island was a really neat place and I'm so glad we made it our first Hong Kong adventure!

We dropped our stuff back off at the hotel and then walked around for an hour, lost and trying to find a place to eat. Overall, it was a really great day!

January 28th
We woke up bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and with sore legs from a full day of being on our feet yesterday. Again, we started our morning with some oatmeal before taking off for our first destination, the World Trade Center. Luckily it was very close to our hotel so we had a short walk. And we were grateful for the short walk because the site was a bust. Just a tall building with a few unopened shops. I'm not sure what I expected but that was not it.

The 32 cent Star Ferry

Our next must-see was the Star Ferry. An old ferry boat with its principal routes carrying passengers across Victoria Harbour, between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. Of course we have the MTR but this is so much more fun! So for .32 cents each we took the short six min ride. It was much shorter than expected, but it gave us a totally different view of the city which I very much enjoyed!

Wedding Dress Replica

After disembarking we decided to head to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. For two hours we took a journey from 400,000,000 million years ago, the Natural Environment land formation to the Modern Metropolis. The six other in-between exhibits were: Prehistoric Hong Kong, The Dynasties, Folk Culture,The Opium War and the Cession of Hong Kong, Birth and Early Growth of the City, and The Japanese Occupation. It was a great, interactive way to learn about the evolution of this amazing city. A must see for all visitors in my opinion.

Following our two hour history lesson, it was time we made our way to "The Peak," a sky high, 360 degree view if the whole city. I read that the best time to go is about 5pm so that you can see the skyline both during the day and at night. We arrived at the tram that would take us there at about 4:15pm and waited in an hour long line before taking the steep incline tram to the top. It was seriously steeper than a roller coaster. There are only two trams running at a time, a ridiculous ratio to the amount if tourists. Once at the top we rode four more flights of escalators before reaching the observation deck.

However, among the excitement of the amazing views it never occurred to us that we could only enter one time. Once you're on deck, you can stay until midnight if you want or you can leave and not return. Our plan was to take some fun day pictures, eat at one of the restaurants with a view and then return to take night pictures. Well it wasn't until we were already on the deck that we learned you couldn't return. Ugh, we had an hour to wait until it got dark. Normally it wouldn't have been so bad except we were really high and it was cold and windy as heck with no place to take refuge. We came to The Peak for the night photo and dangit, we were going to get it! So we waited, as long as we could, took a few photos and went for our "Six month wedding anniversary" dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp because it had the BEST view and REAL cheeseburgers! We waited 45 min for the return tram, found the MTR and returned to the hotel absolutely exhausted!! AMAZING day!

Stunning View of Hong Kong

January 29th
We got an earlier start this Tuesday morning because we thought it was going to be a long day. We ventured over to the ferry terminal to take the quick hour jot over to Macau. It is one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China, the other being Hong Kong. Macau's economy is mostly dependent on tourism and gambling which is obvious when you get off the ferry. A former Portuguese colony, Macau was administered by Portugal from the mid-16th century until 1999. Sovereignty over Macau was transferred back to China on Dec 20th 1999. Due to the fact that it is separate from Hong Kong, we had to bring our passports and go through immigration leaving Hong Kong and arriving in Macau then vice versa when we returned. I have to start out by saying that I didn't quite know what to expect when we we arrived. Usually I read up extensively about the places we visit, however with Macau, I didn't read all that much except that its architecture is a strange mix between Portugese and Chinese. Oh, and that you have to try the famous Portugese Egg Tart!

Laughing at how worthless our map was

Well, after waiting in a forever customs line, we walked out to a bunch of buses  We grabbed a map and decided to head to city center as a starting point. Well, being that most of their economy is tourism you would think things would be labeled better. It was such a cluster! We stood is the buses line for way to long trying to decide which bus to take. There were about 20 buses and their descriptions were terrible and no one spoke ANY English. We picked a bus to what we thought would be the city center. We boarded and the bus driver kept waving us off. I had no idea why, but he kept shooing us out. Finally I figured out that he was trying to tell us that his bus didn't go to the museum that was on the front of one of the pamphlets I was holding. I tried to tell him we didn't want to go there. He didn't understand, so I crumpled it up and put it in my back pocket, paid and we got on. This should have been a sign...

Little Vegas

Well, as the bus was stopping, none of the stops that we read it was supposed to stop at were appearing. The city center was supposed to be the second stop...and it wasn't. Oh, great, here we go. So we rode a little while longer before getting off randomly and trying again. We looked like two fish out of water. We were definitely not in a tourist district. The map we had was so unbelievably terrible that and we couldn't find a reference point ANYWHERE. We decided to go sit in a McDonald's to see if we could get some wifi. To add to our bad luck, they had none. Andrew asked two middle school aged boys to point on the map where we were, they just laughed and turned away. Perfect.

Egg Tart!

We left and got on a different bus. This time, we could tell we were headed to the more touristy area. It had now been two hours since we had gotten off the ferry and walking around aimlessly.  We got off, walked a little ways and found ourselves in the gambling district. Score! Tourists! We made our way to the city center and just walked around really having no idea what we were looking at because nothing was labeled and our map sucked. Honestly there wasn't a whole lot to see. It was beautifully decorated for the upcoming Lunar New Year festivities and there were so many people it was insane. I did buy an egg tart and it was as delicious as the hype! We had a late lunch (2:30pm), since we were lost for so long, walked around some more and then decided to head back.

Again, no idea which bus to get on, we wandered around some more. So, ten hours after we left our hotel, we made it safely back to Hong Kong and I could not have been more excited! Sadly for us, Macau was a bust but that was partly our fault for not really having a plan. Sometimes the best travel memories happen when days are unplanned, but in this case, it just caused a lot of frustration and achy feet. We are always learning.

January 30th
Relaxation. We actually let ourselves sleep in. We had been going non-stop and it was catching up with us. Mentally we were tired and physically our bodies felt like we had done a three day workout. We decided to take an easy day without much of a plan. So at about 11:00am, we ventured out to Times Square for a little shopping! After a few hours of window shopping we decided to go back to the hotel for an hour or so to rest our feet. I had read online that one of the top things to do in Hong Kong is to have a drink at one of the bars atop the IFC mall. So Andrew and I decided to venture over there and check it out. We paid way too much for two glasses of wine; so we toasted to an amazing and blessed adventure in Hong Kong at the Red Bar overlooking the lights of Victoria Harbor. It felt a little like a dream.

Enjoying our wine and the view

After leaving IFC, we went to hit up another top attraction, Temple Street Night Market. It was exactly like it sounds. A really long street filled with vendor after vendor selling virtually all the same knockoff goods like handbags, phone cases, t-shirts, Hong Kong souvenirs etc. We decided one some street food for dinner before trying our hand a little haggling fun. Temple Street isn't quite as overwhelming as the Silk Market in Beijing, so we felt much more prepared and had more restraint. After a few hours of walking around and bargaining, we left with two canvas paintings for my collection, a phone case, and some really really good knockoff Beats headphones for Andrew.  It was a fun and more relaxing day.

January 31st

Our last day in Hong Kong :( We knew we had a long day ahead of us. We checked out of the hotel as late as we could, at 1pm because our flight didn't actually leave until 2:10am on the first. We decided in another light day because we didn't want to just exhaust ourselves going into a sleepless night. The last attraction must-see we ventured to was the Ladies Market. Similar to Temple Street, I'm not actually sure why they call it a Ladies Market. We killed some time walking up and down the aisles and just people watching. When we felt like our legs could give out, we searched EVERYWHERE for a place to sit down. One major thing about this country that I can't stand, is that there are no benches anywhere. We decided to go to McDonald's to get a drink and rest our feet, but guess what, NO SEATS! We have yet to go into a McDonald's or ANY restaurant for that matter, where it's not completely packed no matter what time. I've never seen anything like it...so many people just everywhere. And ladies, if you ever plan to visit Hong Kong, do not wait until the last minute to use the restroom. Very few public restrooms and if there is one, the lines are seriously insane...again, so many people!

We decided to venture back towards Causeway Bay, the area where our hotel to grab some dinner before we headed to the airport. We passed a "famous" dim sum placed earlier in the day so we thought we'd give it a shot. Not really knowing what anything was on the menu we chose what we thought were safe bets. Hahaha...could not have been more wrong. We weren't sure what we were eating, the beef was more of a gelatin and one of the nastiest things I have ever eaten. We both tried so hard to eat it but just couldn't. For whatever reason, while we both had our mouths full, we busted out in one of those laugh fits where you cry and can't stop. And the more inappropriate the time and place the more you can't stop laughing. After paying the $9 and feeling a little uneasy about what we just ate, we stopped at a bakery for a piece of bread to get rid of the horrible taste.

We went to the hotel, collected our stored baggage and headed for the airport. Leaving at 2:10am and arriving back in Korea at 6:40am was not optimal. Exhausted, we walked into our freezing apartment with a plan to shower and sleep at about 9:00am. We were happy to have made it home safe and sound, and then realized our heat was not turning on. Either was our gas or our Internet! I was not about to take a freezing cold shower and we could not figure out the problem with our heater. We decided to knock on a few neighbors doors for help since it's all in Korean. One woman yelled something at us through her door but never opened it. A few minutes later we heard someone in the hallway so we asked her to come help. She pressed a few buttons and then just ran out...it never came on.

As a last resort we called Belle. I knew calling her would be difficult because she is not able to see anything. I read her the notice that was on our door and entirely in Korean. Somehow through my horrendous Korean pronunciation she was able to decipher that they cut off our gas because we hadn't paid our bill for four months! Whoops.... To our defense, our electric and gas were on the same bill in Ulsan so we thought we were paying it here. We had seen some of the bills come to our apartment, but it didn't have our names on it and it said SK Telecom. I thought that was the Internet bill which our landlord actually pays, so we sorta just ignored the bill. Big oops. Belle told me what I read said it was a federal offense and we could go to jail. But no worries. She called to explain our ignorance I'm sure, got the amount we owed, about $165, and the transfer number so we could pay right away.

Well, since our Internet was also conveniently out, instead of an online transfer we had to go and find an ATM. We ended up having to walk to two different ones but we got it accomplished. It took a few hours for the heat to actually come on and the Internet guy came at about 1pm to check out the problem. We had been up for about 28 hours at this point and running on fumes. It was not quite the welcome back situation we envisioned.

Andrew and I initially came back to Korea because there were so many places we still wanted to travel to. These past two weeks in the Philippines, Macau, and Hong Kong have been nothing short of amazing. We thank God everyday for this path that he has carved for us and the lives we have been so graciously given. 

Ephesians 5:15-17: Be very careful, then, how you live —not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.

Times Square

Lantau Island

Somewhere in Macau

Being a tourist