Hong Kong

Port #6: Hong Kong Feb. 21-23

Day 1

     Today was pretty relaxing.  I got into port early in the morning but all of my friends who I travel with were still on their Beijing trip. So I went to the mall in the terminal and used the FREE WIFI!!!! J I was so happy.  I was able to talk to my family on skype.  And I even skyped with Woofy and Annie.  It was so nice seeing and chatting with all of them.  God bless the people who made skype! Then I got to skype with Lisa, my best friend of 21 years who is in Portland right now.  So that was also a nice treat. Then I met up with some friends for dinner.  Five of us girls went out around downtown Hong Kong.  (My friend Victoria, the one on Semester at Sea from Hong Kong practically showed us around the entire time we were in Hong Kong.) So she suggested a Thai restaurant which is supposedly the best Thai restaurant in Hong Kong.  Victoria ordered for us to share, and everything she ordered was sooo good!!!! –Steven, I realized I don’t hate all curry.  Have you had green curry? Its now officially my favorite. I’ve been craving it for the last 5 days! It is made with Coconut milk and has a bit of a spicy kick to it. Its amazing! – Anyway, from there we walked to a few places around the city.  It was really nice, and pretty calm out considering it was a Sunday night.  We retired fairly early that night because all the other girls were exhausted from their Great Wall trips.  (As a reminder, I didn’t go to the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, or The Forbidden City because I saw all of that in 2005.)

     The next day Victoria showed us around. We saw both the city life and the rural life.  She took us to a “wet market” which had fish, seafood, vegetables, etc.  I saw so much butchering of fish and pigs, it almost made me turn vegetarian.  I videotaped a live fish as it was killed and cut a part and right after they put it on the ice to be sold and you could still see the heart beating.  (I wasn’t watching the process, but I filmed it, so hopefully I didn’t film the floor or wall on accident….not that anyone will want to see that video anyways.) From there we went to the fish market.  This time these were live fish, actually pet fish. So I enjoyed this street much more! There were millions of fish in aquariums and plastic baggies waiting to be sold.  I wanted to buy one and sneak it on the ship, but I didn’t.  Then we went past the flower market which was an entire street of florists selling beautiful flowers.  After that we got to a park where older Chinese men bring their pet birds and socialize with other bird owners.  Here you can also buy pet birds.  It was so noisy and dirty along this road, but very interesting as well. 

    That night we celebrated Victoria’s birthday.  We went to Dragon-i which is a popular club which on the weekends are very classy and only for celebrities and models.  We saw a few models while we were there.  Made us feel like celebrities too.  Victoria’s sister bought her a huge bottle of champagne for her birthday for all of us to share. 

      The last day in Hong Kong Becca, Toree, Sally and I traveled on our own. We went to four different cities around Hong Kong looking for certain things they needed to buy.  That was fun. And a great way to see Hong Kong. 

Sorry I have been rushing through this blog because I am meeting right now to go with a group to the airport where I will catch my plane to CAMBODIA!!!! J I have 3 days in Cambodia and then 2 in VietNam!!!!