Hong Kong Adventure

Giant Panda eating!!

Rhino bird in Kowloon Park

down town Hong Kong

riding the sampan through the fishing village



Captain Morgan?!?! or Scott?!



vegetarian lunch in monastery



South China Sea

Big Buddha statue

drying shark at the market

flying over Australia

DAY 1  After a slight delay in flights to Vancouver we made it to our destination, Hong Kong, with all 9 pieces of luggage.  13.5 hours plus 1.5 hours of flying is a long time, so once we got our room at BP International Hotel, we were off to bed.  Good thing it was early evening in HK.  Those interested, BP stands for Lord Baden Powell, the scouting head quarters were right in the hotel with a history display and a shop.  Very neat!  The kids traveled excellent and were well entertained by the individual entertainment centers they each had to watch movies, TV, listen to music or play games.

DAY 2  We took 2 tours, one of the city and the other of Lantau Island.  We rode the tram up to Victoria Peak, wow what a view of the city!  We could see where the old airport was, termed the crazy airport, and where the new one was built on reclaimed land in 1998.  Recycling at it's finest I'd say! 7 million people in only 400,000 sq. km., they use every inch of space, and then some, way too full for me to ever live!  We shopped at Stanley Market (yes named after Lord Stanley), touched the South China Sea and took a Sampan boat through the floating community in Aberdeen Fishing Village. 

DAY 3 The next tour started with taking the ferry through Sulpher Channel to Lantau Island.  We stopped and played at Cheung Sha Beach, running from the waves of the South China Sea.  We took a small tour boat through Tai O Village, another fishing village, this time houses were on stilts.  They still live and work from here, they prefer their peaceful life compared to the city!  Don't blame them.  We walked around the market and saw all the drying fish, oysters,shark, puffer fish, fish bladders, shrimp and much more.  There were lots of live seafood, such as eel and squid.  Scott was in heaven!  We made our way up to the Po Lin Monastery and went inside the Big Buddha Statue.  We had a very delicious vegetarian lunch in the monastery with the monks.  We took the Ngong Ping Cable Car down 5.7 km across the terrain of Lantau.  Beautiful!

DAY 4  We had a free day to explore on our own.  We stopped at Kowloon Park which is just beside our hotel.  A huge park with gardens, playground, beautiful cockatoos, & parrots, floral and fauna, and stage areas for performances.  We found our way to the MTV (subway) and figured out how to get tickets out of the machine to the correct destination.  We made our way across and then found a connecting double decker bus to Ocean Park.  Our main focus at the park was to see the Giant Pandas, so we headed there first.  Perfect timing as they were putting out fresh food for Jia Jia.  It was amazing to watch her eat and SO close!  We saw other Asian animals and enjoyed a few rides.  A beautiful day about 12-15 degrees.  Brody & Darby loved the Dragon and Mine Train roller coasters.  Hailey enjoyed the Ferris wheel and we all took the cable car back to the waterfront side.  This amusement park is on 2 sides of a mountain, very steep, so lots of escalators up and down to different rides, crazy!  We made the return trip back on the bus and on the subway.  Brody & I were very proud of our accomplishments riding the local transit and coming out exactly where we wanted to!  We went for supper at Ming Garden, and selected 5 dishes to share, everyone tried each dish and used their chopsticks.  Not much was left when we finished!

DAY 5 One thing we noticed is that most of the people were staring at us.  There were three reasons, one we were wearing t-shirts and capri's (not Scott & Brody) while everyone else were wearing winter coats, boots and toques!  Second, our blond hair, especially Darby's long hair!  Thirdly happened more in the elevator, as they stared at the kids long eye lashes!  Anyways we spent our last day shopping in the local streets, playing at the playground in Kowloon park, watching a short dragon dance performance and a few more demonstrations on martial arts, and vegging before our flight out at 11:50 pm.  Got to the airport with lots of time, had a bite to eat and relaxed.  Fell asleep right away on the plane and woke up a few hours before we were to land in Brisbane.