Hong Kong

We flew from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur and from KL to Hong Kong. Flying over the islands was beautiful, but just made me want to be back on one again. And I have to say that after all of that snorkeling I think I may be ready to attempt scubadiving again. Some of you may know that I tried scubadiving in a pool and it didn't go so well so I never made it to the ocean. But now that I've got the hang of snorkeling I think I'm ready to move on.

Flying into HK late at night and in the middle of a thunderstorm was not exactly what I was hoping for. Lightning was all around us or so it seemed. The pilot said that we were flying around the storm to avoid it, but he certainly wasn't seeing all of the lightning right outside my window. I had one hand gripping Mark's and the other on my life jacket just in case.

HK was as I expected, crowded and expensive, but still neat to see nonetheless. We only spent about a day and a half, but we covered a lot of ground. We staying in North Point which is on Hong Kong island. This is where the main business district is located. On the way to the hotel we passed many of the famous buildings in the skyline. Mark was even surprised to see new buildings that have been added since he was here 13 years ago. We stayed at the Ibis North Point hotel. Ibis is a European chain of 2 or 3 star hotels. We discovered them in Morocco and have been big fans ever since. They tend to place themselves convienently near public transport. (In Morocco, most Ibis' are right next to the train station.) And they can be counted on for clean, simple accomodation. Ibis North Point was no different, except that with space being a precious commodity in HK the rooms are very small. How small you ask? Well, there's not much else besides a bed and they utilize every imaginable space. It wasn't so bad and we fit all of our stuff with no problem and had room to move. Mark says that the small guesthouses will have rooms that are 1/3 the size of our room. I'm guessing that those roomse fit only a single bed...and let me tell you they aren't that cheap!

We took the Star Ferry and wandered around the shopping district in Kowloon. Mark was looking for some electronics, but it seems that HK is not longer the place to get the best deal. The U.S. now has the best deal on electronics and computer supplies, at least the online stores do anyways.

Changing money in HK was quite the ordeal. Most banks charge outrageous service fees and offer down right lousy exchage rates. (50 to 100 HK dollars...divide that by 3 and you have the CDN dollar equivilant!)

On Sunday, we found ourselves at a very busy dim sum restaurant and I ordered my favourite dish (si lo bao) pork filled dumplings, all by myself in Chinese!

Well, that's about it for HK. We are currently in China and I'll have a blog up as soon as I can.

Take care,

Nicole