Kayla in Korea: Hong Kong

Wow, Hong Kong was amazing! I had such a wonderful time.

The trip started early Saturday morning, when I met my friends Marie and Sarah at the airport. I have never traveled with them before so I didn't exactly know how it was going to go. Just because you're friends with people doesn't mean they are necessarily good travel buddies - you might have different tastes, schedules, and priorities on the trip which could get messy. Thankfully, the girls were really easy going about everything and we all had the same basic idea of what we wanted to see and do on the trip.

The flight to Hong Kong from Seoul took about 3 1/2 hours. We arrived in Hong Kong at around 2pm and got to the hotel around 4. We took a bus from the airport to our hotel. We stayed in an area called Wan Chai which was a really central location. Hong Kong's main areas are Hong Kong Island, Kowloon Peninsula, Lantau Island, and the New Territories. We didn't visit any of the New Territories as they are farther north, closer to China, and there was nothing of interest to us there.

So, we stayed on Hong Kong Island, right in the middle of everything. The first thing we did was settle into our hotel which was really really nice. It was less than $100 a night per room (we got 2 rooms for the 3 of us and took turns having our own room) and it had a lot more than I expected which was great. After we got settled we went and bought Octopus Cards which are the transportation cards for the city. They're called Octopus cards because you can use them for so many different things which we quickly found out was no exaggeration. The money you put on them can be used for the subway, bus, ferries, trams, boats, and even at some tourist attractions throughout the city. You can even use them at convenience stores to make purchases.

We quickly found out the public transportation system in Hong Kong was incredible. The subway systems in Hong Kong were so clean - even cleaner than Korea which is impressive and they were significantly easier to navigate than they are here as well. I have to say, Asian public transportation systems put Western ones to shame. They are so much cleaner, easier to use, and more logically laid out from what I've seen. You'd really have to work at it to get lost in Hong Kong, I think.

The first thing we did was a bit of exploring. We took the ferry to Kowloon and saw some of the buildings over there like the Hong Kong cultural center. We walked along the bottom of the peninsula which is where the Avenue of the Stars is. The entire walk affords you a spectacular, panoramic view of the Hong Kong Island skyline. On the Avenue of the Stars we saw lots of Hong Kong actors and actress's names including Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Bruce Lee, and Chow Yun Fat.

We were there during the Mid-Autumn Lantern Festival so we saw some giant displays of lanterns in all shapes and sizes. In Kowloon there was an ocean display with lanterns in the shape of sea animals, kelp, bubbles, etc. It was really beautiful. We walked a long way north in Kowloon, taking in the city and scouting out potential restaurants. After months of Korean food and limited choice of Western fare, the one thing we knew on this trip was that everything we ate would be something we couldn't get (at least not easily) in Korea. We discovered an outside night market in Kowloon which took us hours to walk through and contained tons of local people selling literally all kinds of things: from art and clothing, to DVDs and toys. It was very busy and very hot - we decided to come back the next day to do our shopping.

That night we went back to Hong Kong Island and ate a delicious Thai dinner at a restaurant close to our hotel. It was amazing - they even had my favorite type of Thai curry. We called it a night early, planning to get a good start the following day to do some shopping. The next day we went from mall to market to market stopping for a smoothie or cold coffee drink here and there, in between. The outside markets were my favorite, they took hours to walk through, were full of sweaty people haggling for goods and we found lots of great deals. I got presents for my family which I had a lot of fun picking out and haggling for. My haggling skills have improved significantly since I first came to Korea - I had a hard time at first because I kept thinking I was doing something wrong, or ripping them off, but now I realize it's all part of the business and people aren't going to sell things to you at a price they're not making a profit on so I don't worry anymore.

That night we ate at an amazing Italian restaurant in an area called SoHo which is where a lot of the good restaurants and nightlife are. It was so nice to have real Italian food. There are some mediocre Italian chains in Korea but the food is "Koreanized" and not authentic which is disappointing. After dinner we went up the peak on Victoria Mountain which is a big tourist attraction in Hong Kong because you can see the entire skyline on both sides of the water from the top. We took a taxi up and a tram down, both of which were terrifying experiences. After the peak we went to Causeway Bay, an area West of Wan Chai where they had a Lantern Festival Carnival. We saw a variety of impressive lantern displays in the park there.

The next day we found a place that made real breakfast. Eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, omelets. There is no place in Korea that serves anything like that except maybe right in Central Seoul which would be over an hour away, a ridiculous trip to make for breakfast. We really enjoyed that meal!

After breakfast Sarah and I went to Lantau Island to see the Big Buddha there. It took us an hour on the ferry and then 30 minutes on a bus going up a windy, bumpy road to reach the monastery which was up in the mountains. Once there we climbed 268 steps to go up to the largest Bronze Buddha in the world. It was huge and the views from the top were breathtaking.

That night we ate at a wonderful Egyptian restaurant that had the most amazing falafel and I ordered the grilled lamb which was cooked so well it practically melted in my mouth. Just thinking about that meal is making me hungry again! After dinner we took the hour ferry right over to Macau to experience the casino scene there.

Macau brings in more revenue than Vegas and has 28 casinos including The Venetian which is the biggest casino in the world and the third largest building (sq. ft.) in the world. We mainly just wanted to experience the scene and walk through the Venetian - it is an incredible building, renaissance themed, and indescribably luxurious. It has actual canals running through it with gondola rides. The total size of The Venetian in Macau is equivalent to 56 football fields. It's big enough to park 100 Boeing 747 jumbo jets. Anyway it was incredible to see and we got the last gondola ride of the day. Our guide was from Northern Italy and he sang songs to us in Italian. It was lovely. We visited a few other casinos before heading back on the ferry. The next day we just finished up some last minute shopping and headed to the airport. It was a really fun, relaxing trip and I'm so glad I went. Hong Kong was such a fun place!