Hong Kong

I think of our Hong Kong trip as "Planes, Trains, Buses, and Boats"! It was certainly an experience of public transportation at its best.

On the first day alone: Car to the airport, bus from the airport terminal out to the plane, plane, bus from airport to downtown, 2 metro trains to get to Disneyland.

Add to that: Ferries to get across the bay between islands, taxis, a funicular train (a cable train up a steep hill pulled by a cable), the longest string of escalators in the world, and more metro trains.

Hong Kong is a beautiful big city. We stayed in Kowloon (upper red), the main downtown area is on Hong Kong Island (lower red. Disneyland (dark yellow spot) is on Lantau Island (blue). And we flew into Shenzhen (top light yellow), which is in mainland China. Flying into Shenzhen was much cheaper because we were coming from mainland China so it was a domestic flight. Most people fly into Hong Kong International Airport which is on Lantau Island (the dark yellow strip).



Because it's hard to find rooms for 4 people in Asia, we ended up booking a suite (king bed plus a sofa bed). This worked out great for us for two reasons. First, we had more room to spread out and also because our room had floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the downtown area (all this for about the same amount that 2 rooms would cost in other hotels). We stayed at the YMCA...seriously...(got the song stuck in your head now?). When Mike suggested the YMCA, I thought he was joking. But it turns out that the YMCA runs regular hotels. Here is our view.



Hong Kong presents a 13 minute light show every night at 8 pm, so we had front row seats in the comfort of our room. Forty-four buildings participate!

We also enjoyed the Hong Kong science museum. The kids really miss OMSI, so they were super excited to go there. And guess what we found...an OMSI exhibit on loan to the museum!



We had great fun going up the longest outdoor covered escalator system in the world. The escalators take people from the sea level downtown area up to "mid-level" Hong Kong (midway up the mountain). The mid-level is a place where people live and there looked to be lots of good restaurants (we had Subway - it smelled too much like "home" to pass up). In the morning until 10:00am, the escalators run down the hill, then they reverse and run up the hill until midnight. They cover a distance of one-half mile and elevation of about 450 feet. It takes about 20 minutes to get up the hill.

At the top, we had our picnic lunch in a city park. The kids miss playgrounds too :)

Then we walked to the funicular to ride to the gap between the two peaks in the mountains behind the city. Awesome view.



We took ferries, enjoyed some good food, did a little shopping, and walked about the city.

Hong Kong is an interesting mix of China and western influences. On some streets you feel like you are in China (small indoor malls with individual small stores and other small stores opening out to the street) and in some areas you feel like you are in a modern city (elevated walkways and the fanciest, nicest malls I've ever been in). As an American living in China, it was a little strange to feel like I was traveling back and forth between China and the Western world in a instant.

We definitely could have spent more time in Hong Kong. So much traveling to do and too little time off work and school!

Here are more pictures.

Hong Kong City

And, I will admit publicly that Mike was right. Traveling light is better. Only two small suitcases meant that packing up was much quicker and public transportation was much easier. We limited the souvenirs we brought home, so unpacking was easier too!
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