I figured out that I have been to Hong Kong every 13 years. The first time was at the age of two, the second was at fifteen (we also visited Beijing, Xi’an, Shenzhen and Macau) and now at 28. If this is right, then I won’t have an opportunity to visit again till I’m 41, which seems pretty old and awhile away. Ok, back to the trip I took at the age of 28. I was there for 11 days, but we arrived in the evening for the first day, so Day 1 is the day after we arrived. But we did do some sightseeing that evening. We walked around Tsim Sha Tsui where we were staying with Uncle Peter. We walked around Nathan Road and did some window shopping.
The first day in Hong Kong was about running errands. There were two things I wanted to accomplish while in Hong Kong, 1) get tailored suits and shirts made and 2) help Nora and Alan getting wedding invitations printed. I ordered two tailored suits and we ordered wedding invitations for Nora and Alan. The wedding invitations were so adorable and instead of buying prepaid designed ones like I had to do from Chinatown, we were able to custom make the invitations. They had a binder with clip art and we were able to pick them out and say I want this one on the front, this one on the back, this one inside in the upper right hand corner or anything else we wanted. And it was cheaper than printing it in the US.
We went to Hong Kong Island, saw the Hong Kong Central Library in Causeway Bay, went to the International Finance Centre, visited the HSBC Headquarters Building, took an electric bus, ferry, taxis and subways. I was able to get some nice pictures of Hong Kong from the top of the IFC building, though I am reflected in some of the pictures. I also tried to get some night time shots from around where Uncle Peter’s hotel was in Harbour City.
When traveling in Hong Kong, you should get an Octopus card. You can use it to pay for most of the railways, buses, ferries and taxis. It can also be used in grocery stores and McDonalds. It’s like a Metrocard, but it uses RFID (radio frequency identification), so you can use it without taking it out of your bag or wallet.
We visited Stanley Market and went to the Peak and got some nice evening shots of Hong Kong. It was raining on and off for most of today.
If you take a bus to Stanley Market, it should be a double decker bus. You can ride on the top to get a better view of the coastline. Stanley Market mostly had stores to sell souvenirs to tourists. There were also a lot of restuarants catering towards foreigners. There was a lot of development happening when we were visiting. Other attractions were an ancient well, a beach and a temple. There is also a semi-new building that only has restuarants.
We went to Victoria Peak to get great views of Hong Kong. You get views of the city and the harbor. When I visited 13 years ago, we took the Peak Tram so this time we took a bus to the Peak. I tried to get some shots of the skyline, but it’s hard taking pictures at night on a windy day. A lot of my pictures came out very blurry since my hands are not steady at all, my Uncle got a lot of better shots.
We took the ferry service by hydrofoil to Macau. It took about an hour to get there, not too bad. It took a lot longer the first time I visited. When we got there, the first thing I noticed was that it has changed so much in 13 years. I’m going to have to dig up my old pictures to compare the differences. We got on a hotel/casino shuttle and ended at some casino, but I don’t remember which one it was. We were going to go in but there were metal detectors so we left. We got onto another shuttle but it ended up bringing us to the place where immigrants come in from, not where we really wanted to be. Then we got on a bus and eventually ended up at the Mandarin Oriental for some dim sum. The food was pretty good and the service was good too. We went into their casino (had to go through metal detectors) and it was pretty empty in there. I’ve never seen a casino that empty and with that little cigarette smoke in the air. We walked over to Sands, which is HUGE in comparison and it was packed and was filled with cigarette smoke.
Next to Sands was the Macau Fisherman’s Wharf. It is the first theme park in Macau. I think it opened recently because there are parts of it that was still under construction. We caught the jet-ski stunt show while we were there. I felt bad for the three performers, there was under 20 people watching and one of the guys was actually sleeping, across the seats. It was only 20 minutes long! There were minature versions of the Roman Ampitheatre, Aladdin’s Fort and Vulcania. I t looked like it could be a fun place for families, once it is all built and ready to go.
We walked around Macau and visited parts of Macau that reminded me of what I saw the first time I visited. We also did some clothes shopping and food shopping. We got some jerky and cookies from some famous bakery. And of course, I had a Portuguese egg tart, similiar to the Chinese egg tarts, but they look a little singed on top and tasted more buttery.
One of the historic stops we made was to the Saint Paul’s Cathedral (or officially called the Cathedral of Saint Paul). It was a 16th-century cathedral, built from 1582 to 1602. In 1835, it was destroyed by a fire during a typhoon, only the facade remains. I took a few pictures of it, but (again), it was nightime and windy and I have very unsteady hands. Some of my pictures made it look very ghostly and kind of scary.
The last stop on our Macau tour was to see the Casino Lisboa. It was built in the late 1960s. There kind of have their own mini museum inside the hotel where there are a lot of historic artifacts that were very interesting to see.
We also saw Wynn Macau, but it wasn’t open yet. It looked a lot like the Vegas Wynn. It is scheduled to open in September.
It was another muggy and hazy morning. Dad arrived today, around 6AM, about an hour earlier than planned. We went for dim sum at Whampoa Gardens. It was pretty good, but since it’s a holiday, they were packed and service was kind of slow.
We did some shopping at Ladies’ Market in Mong Kok. It was packed and since it’s an outdoor area, you would get squished by people walking by and unfortunately, not everybody wears deodorant! I was able to pick up God of Gamblers, Treasure Hunt and Hard Boiled for under $9 US a piece, though now I find out that Henry already has Treasure Hunt and didn’t really like Hard Boiled, I guess I’ll sell them on ebay when I get back. Now I’m still trying to find The Killer, Better Tomorrow 2 and 3 and Slam Dunk for Henry.
We had dinner with some of my mom and Uncle Peter’s relatives. The husband is cousin’s with my grandmother and he brought his two sons and wife. My mom’s uncle was probably about 5′7″ and his wife is tiny, probably 5′2″ at most and their two sons are both well over 6′ tall. It gives me hope that my kids are not destined to be short.
My parents and I went on a tour to Shanghai, Wuzhen, Suzhou, Wuxi and Hangzhou. It was a five day tour and we stayed in a different city (and hotel) every night. We went with Sunflower Travel Service. There were fourteen people on our tour plus our rep from Sunflower and our tour guide from Shanghai. The tour was pretty busy and the only time we had to rest was when we were traveling to another city/province/area. The first stop on the tour was Shanghai. We visited a shopping plaza that was packed. I have a few pictures. One weird site I saw was a mother holding her son over a garbage can to let him do his business. I caught a photo of that, because that’s not something I see every day living in NYC. We walked along the Bund, the stores along Nanjing Road (perhaps the busiest street in Shanghai) as well as Peace Hotel (a Chow Yun Fat movie was filled here). We walked along the Huangpu River. It was pretty cloudy and we couldn’t see Pudong too well.
After dinner, we went on a cruise on the Huangpu River. It was nightime and windy so it was hard getting good photos, but I still tried. I didn’t get to really see any of Pudong first hand, it was all from the cruise ship/boat, which kind of really sucked. I would have liked to see the Oriental Pearl Tower and the Jin Mao Tower. I did get some decent pictures of Pudong and some very blurry ones. We ended with more shopping on Nanjing Road, which was very busy and very brightly lit. We stayed at the Marriott Shanghai Hongquiao on our first night, it was a pretty nice hotel.
Our wake up call was at 6:45, breakfast (continental buffet) was at 7:30 and we left the hotel at 8am. We first visited some place that sold these things that kind of looked like liions but I think they are mythical creatures that are supposedly lucky, especially if you buy pairs and the bigger the more luck, as long as you rub it the right way. It all sounded like rubbish to me and the rest of the tour. Our tour guide was not too happy that no one bought anything, he gets a cut of all the sales. Next we went to a place that sells chrysantheum tea. Most of the tour people bought some, our tour guide was happy. These tours are mostly to promote buying stuff. There are a lot more stops like this on the trip. Our next stop is to Wuzhen. We get there in time for lunch, then go to visit water village. It shows what rural China was like with water canals, overhead bridges and can get a glimpse of how the Chinese used to live. We ended with a gondola ride down the canal.
Our next stop is to Suzhou. We started off at the Panmen Gate. You can get the sense of what it was like when Suzhou had to worry about defending its city. I am pretty sure the next place I went was the North Temple Pagoda. It’s hard to tell because on the tour they only speak Chinese and there is rarely any English. My parents and I have a picture together in front of the pagoda. I think the garden there is from the Tang Dynasty. Most of the time there, most of my tour bought fish feed and we were feeding the fish. There was such enjoyment from an older couple that was on the tour when they were feeding the fish. It was nice.
We stayed at the Chunshenhu Resort Hotel Suzhou. I would not recommend staying there if you do not speak Mandarin. Don’t be fooled by their brochures in English and Chinese, the staff does not speak any English. They are pretty rude and just walk away or ignore you instead of helping, they also are not familiar with their facilities. I was trying to find the business center, I had to open one of their brochures and point the Chinese words to communicate with them. But I was sent to the third floor and then first when their business center is on the second floor. I also noticed that the restrooms they have around the hotel are not the regular toilets we are used to here, they are the ones that are in the ground. I avoid those toilets like the plague, they smell and are often very dirty.
We started off our day at the Hanshen Temple/Pagoda. I know this is the correct name because I took a picture of the charaters in Chinese caligraphy and was able to match it to a picture I found online with a name in English. There was a bell tower there that you could pay to go up and ring, probably for luck. My parents and I all went up and rang it, you can only ring it three times. Next we went to the Suzhou Kaidi Silk Co. Ltd to see how silk is made, but they really want to force you to buy silk blankets, covers, pillow cases and clothes. The sellers there were pretty aggressive, before you made your final decision, they were already packing the stuff up. I had to stop one woman because my mom was still looking around. There was also a silk fashion show, but of course they didn’t sell any of the clothes being modeled, it didn’t make any sense to me.
Our next stop was Wuxi. We visited a garden, a former temple and a movie studio place. The movie studio place was like a Universal Studios. Studios could rent out parts of the park to film movies or TV shows. We went on a three minute boat ride in one of their boats used for filming. We visited the Purple Sand Teapot Museum. The teapots were pretty cool. Most of them had automatic stopping, there would be a hole somewhere for you to put your thumb on and it would stop the tea flow instead of having to lift the pot. My dad really wanted to pick one up but my mom wouldn’t let him. Spoil sport! Nora and I tried to find the one he wanted online, but I think they are the only place that sells it. If you haven’t realized, this was another stop to push us to buy things. They follow you like hounds. Our tour guide also started pissing me off because he kept on making speeches to the tour group specifically addressing people from the US (3 of us) and Canada (4 of us) to buy things because it was so cheap for us. I don’t like feeling like I’m forced to have to buy things, just so he gets more of a commission. If you do not like your trips geared around shopping excursions, avoid the ones that are in Hong Kong and China. Look for ones where you specifically visit spots and are not pushed to buy, buy and buy. We next went to a pearl factory where we were once again forced to buy things like pearl necklaces, earrings, rings and creams. I actually had to start giving people the hand because they would not leave me alone. If I glanced toward a pearl necklace, the next thing I know, it’s on and around my neck and the woman is shoving a mirror in my face. They are very very aggressive. And they do not always have the best prices. We saw cheaper prices in Hangzhou for the exact same product.
I don’t remember the name of the hotel we stayed at, but it was horrible. The air conditioning was very low, if it was even on. There were mosquitos everywhere and I get horrible allergic reactions when I get bit. I went into their business center and sat there in my hoodie with the hood on and tied very closely to my face, no matter how hot it got. They have a pool, but you need to give them two days notice to clean the pool. All the other facilites they had were closed (bowling lanes, karoke). The only floors with lights on was in the lobby, but only over the front desk and the floor our rooms were on. The rest of the hotel was pitch black. I had a horrible time sleeping because it was very very hot and there was at least one mosquito in the room. I had to cover myself from head to toe with blanket and everytime the mosquito flew by me and I would sit up straight in my bed, turn on the light and look for the mosquito. I never found it, but when I woke up, it bit me on my forearm and my upper lip. I have pictures, the lip one is pretty gross.
We spent most of our day in Hangzhou. We visited the Leifeng Pagoda. It was renovated because the original pagoda has almost been completely destoryed. I think it was because people kept on taking parts of the pagoda for use in other things. They rebuilt it but left what was left of the original foundation in the base of the building. There was also an escalator to bring you up to the pagoda and an elevator that brings you up the pagoda. It’s the lazy mans way to see theh pagoda. When you go all the wya up to the top you can get nice scenic shots of Hangzhou. The ceiling of the pagoda is all gold. On one of the lower floors there is a story etched in ivory. Our next stop was another shopping excursion. It was an herbal place. They had a guy talking about all these different herbal medicine/creams/patches that are good for almost anything. They also had “specialists” come in to look at you and tell you what’s wrong with you and what you can buy to fix it. I actually did buy a cream, for my mosquito bite. We next went to West Lake, but it started raining and no one was really into it. I’m not sure why but there is a statue of a water buffalo coming out of the Lake. We went for an early dinner and then saw an acrobatic show performed by young children-teens. It was pretty entertaining but you gotta wonder how those kids are harming themselves by doing the acrobatics.
For our final night, we stayed at Sofitel Xanadu Resort Hangzhou. It was a very new hotel, it has only been opened for four months. When I went to the business center, they had little offices for people to use and while in there you could still smell the paint. The facilities were very nice and I was much much happier than I was the previous night.
We spent our final day on boat ride around West Lake and then one last shopping excursion to buy tea leaves. We saw a guy making the tea leaves by hand. He fried the tea leaves in a 120 degree pan, it looked painful, but he has been doing it forever. The tea that is their specialty is longjiang tea. It’s supposed to be vitamin C and is good for high blood pressure and some other stuff. I don’t know if it’s true, but I did buy some tea leaves. On the way to the airport, I saw some very interesting looking houses along the highway. They look like they belong in story books and looked very out of place in Hangzhou.
We made it back to Hong Kong in time to have dinner with my dad’s sister’s family, the Kams. And I tried to get some last minute shopping done.
Mom went with me to the airport. We took a hotel shuttle to the Airport express. It’s pretty cool because you can check-in and get your boarding pass at the train station and not have to worry about anything, except if you’re flying to the US. So I had to lug my bags with me onto the train and to the airport. Mom and I had dim sum at the airport since we were early, I also did some last minute shopping while in the airport and found the snow globe for Ming. We couldn’t find one for her when we were in Tokyo. The plane was pretty packed so I had someone sitting next to me, but at least I had the window seat. I had a really hard time sleeping and the whole flight back only slept for two half-hour intervals. The rest of the time was spent watching Friends, Will & Grace, CSI, House, Without a Trace and That ’70s Show over and over again and some reading. I also took some pictures from the plane, actually a lot of photos. I wish I had a better view of the sunrise. Every picture I tried to get of the sunrise had a wing of the plane in the middle of it.
According to TVGuide.com, Futurama is returning to TV and not just the reruns on Adult Swim. It is going to be on Comedy Central with 13 or 16 new episodes.
