Fall break! 11 full days with no kids – it’s the longest break besides Christmas. We crammed a whole lot of relaxation into our time away: 7 days in Bali, Indonesia with a 20-hour layover in Hong Kong on the way. And we still had a couple days on Jeju at the end to put ourselves back together.
So step one: flight from Jeju – Seoul – Hong Kong.
We’re in Hong Kong! On the top of a very British-looking double-decker bus.
Our bus passed the protest areas. Looked a lot like Occupy sites. People hanging out. Then dropped us in the heart of busy downtown. Our hostel was on floor 13 of a huge and packed skyscraper with two floors of indian food stalls and sim card sellers at the base. We waited in line for the world’s slowest elevator, that fit about 6 VERY cozily.
The hallway of our hostel, after we enter the secure area. So skinny!
Look – Patrick can stand (barely!) between bed and wall.
The en suite was only accessible with the room door closed. It was lucky the airline checked our luggage all the way to Bali so we didn’t have anything to store.
We headed out to explore and make the best of our ~10 waking hours in town.
Our neighborhood. Buildings! Cars! People! Signs! So much happening in so little space.
Our Hong Kong/Macau lunch – spicy macaroni soup, flaky roll, and fried rice. Yum!
We stumbled onto the Catholic cathedral on our walk. Beauty between skyscrapers.
Our goal: Victoria Peak and park. A highlight of British colonial life ~100 years ago, people took the tram up with picnics to escape the heat and filth of the city below.
Our cable car to take us up Victoria’s Peak.
City view from the peak. Foggy, but lovely.
We took a couple km walk around the peak enjoying the trees and gardens, and an ice cream snack to beat the heat.
An overlook on our walk.
In case I haven’t mentioned this before, east Asians have VERY small personal “bubbles”. They stand very close together and don’t find it odd. Maybe because they live in such densely populated cities. So rather than wait in the long, cramped line for the cable car down, we walked. The steep, long way.
It was a LONG walk down the mountain, but we rewarded ourselves with hot dumplings in a TINY shop. Delish.
Not sure what this was, but train stations, sidewalks and squares were full of families eating picnics and take-out on cardboard boxes. Maybe the only space big enough to gather?
Our ferry back to the peninsula from HK island. Fun skyline with moving building lights.
We happened to cross at just the right time. On Sunday nights, Hong Kong islands do a laser light show with music. Not just lasers, but incorporating the moving lights on the side of every building on the skyline. So cool!
Final stop of the night: an Australian pub with pints and live jazz!
It was a a flurry of a day and I feel like we got a pretty good flavor of Hong Kong.
Thanks for reading this long post! – There’s an even longer one coming about adventures in Bali!