Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Asia Trip Continued....Hong Kong

When we arrived in Hong Kong we just saw sky scrapers everywhere wow! I think this might be the biggest most compact city I have ever been in. We found a taxi to take us to our hotel, this was the smallest room we have stayed in, I guess space is a premium here in Hong Kong. We walked down to the port and enjoyed the beautiful views across the bay at Hong Kong Island, all the skyscrapers looked pretty cool at night. We walked along the "boardwalk" where they have lots of the famous Asian actors and their handprints, Jackie Chan was one of the ones we recognized. Then we headed to the night market and walked around. There are people out until midnight and the streets were just packed with people.This place was crazy! I could never enjoy living in a big city like this, there are people everywhere! Neon Chinese signs hanging everywhere, interesting sights and smells, people it was like nothing I had ever seen.


Saturday was the last day of our trip. We enjoyed a nice buffet breakfast at the hotel and then headed to the Ferry to Hong Kong Island. It takes about 10 minutes to cross to the other side from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island. It’s only about 50 cents to cross and it’s fun to see the skyscrapers. It was a very cloudy and rainy day but we still had fun. We took the tram to the top of Victoria Peak, from here you have a great view of the Hong Kong skyline. There are restaurants and shops at the top so we walked around for a bit. It’s very pretty and green up here, very nice. While we waited in line for the tram down Allden enjoyed running up and down the ramp and making the people smile. We took some nice pictures and had lunch then headed down. We walked through the Hong Kong Park, it was a nice getaway from the hubbub of the city. Allden enjoyed looking at the fish and turtles in the pond and the sound of the waterfall.Then took the ferry back and headed out to the market for some more shopping. It started pouring but we ducked under a store overhang until it slowed down. We shopped and bartered a lot, the prices here are not always cheaper than the U.S. For example Brett asked the price of a camera the one that he liked was $200 in the U.S . and here they wanted $400 for it! So it’s not a good place to buy electronics. I’m a bargain shopper at home as it is, so I was hoping for some really good bargains here but there weren’t as many as I had hoped for. They always throw out a really high price and then we throw a low price and then they get out their calculator and we haggle the price until we either walk away or we settle. Brett got some ties, shirts and a belt and we got the girls a couple little Chinese outfits. Then we found a Pizza Hut, that sounded so good after seeing nothing but Chinese food but the line is out the door and down the street, so we passed on that one. We found a California Pizza kitchen with a huge line of people so we ordered some pizza to go. We enjoyed it in our hotel room with our own music and no crowds. I really hate all the crowds of people everywhere and would never enjoy living in a big city like this. We didn’t get our fill of shopping yet so we headed out again for a bit more shopping to end the night in Hong Kong. We really had an enjoyable trip and lots of memorable experiences.

Sunday morning we headed to the airport for a very long long flight home. Luckily this time I had Brett here to help. We were excited to get home and see the girls, we did miss them but this trip would not have been too much fun for them, I’m sure they would have got a lot of attention just like Allden. I think the people must have thought it was good luck to touch him or something because hundreds of people must have touched him! We couldn’t hardly walk down the street without someone stopping to touch him or smile at him or ask how old he was. It was a fun trip!

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Asia Trip Continued....Macau

We arrived in Macau via a 4 hour flight from Kuala Lumpur on Thursday night.
Brett had already been to Macau about a year and a half ago and he was excited to bring me back here and show me the sights. It was a Portuguese colony in the past but it seems like nobody really speaks Portuguese here anymore. Although you can see the Portuguese influence because all the signs are in Portuguese, English and Chinese. We checked into the hotel and then found dinner at a little Portuguese restaurant. We then went to the old part of town to see some of the sights. We saw the old church and the fort and the old Portuguese archetechture. It was neat to see all this, Brett wanted to take me down to the new part of town it’s like the Las Vegas strip but I was so tired so we headed back to the hotel.
Friday we walked around the new area of town it is very much like Las Vegas. They have the MGM Grand and some big fancy hotels and casinos. They have a mount Vesuvius volcano like the one in Italy, we saw the real one, but I guess it erupts at night and it’s pretty cool. There is a replica of the coliseum in Rome and a replica of the Forbidden City in China, it was neat to see and it was all overlooking the ocean. We walked through some of the shops where they have different architecture to look like different places around the world. We ate at the most interesting one called Africana. Brett really enjoys trying new foods. After lunch we checked out of the hotel and went to the port to take a boat to Hong Kong, the boat ride was a little over 1 hour.