Hong Kong

We have arrived in India! But first, a little about our day trip into Hong Kong:

Airika and I had a long layover in Hong Kong, and we took the opportunity to get out and see a bit of the city. We had about 15 hours, and I wish our stay could have been longer. We spent the first part of the day trekking to the temple of 10,000 Buddha’s. I spent much of the climb up the steep, lush, hillside wondering if there really were 10,000 Buddha’s, or if it was just an expression. I assure you, it’s no expression—there really were 10,000, if not more. In fact, the number of Buddha’s may even rival the number of 7-11’s we saw in Hong Kong. Seriously, Hong Kong has more 7-11’s than Seattle has Starbucks.

We also wanted to see the city’s open air markets, and on the way there (or more likely on one of our many detours b/c I got us lost quite a bit) we came across the goldfish markets. It was actually pretty amazing to see—in addition to all kinds of goldfish and exotic fish, we also saw more turtle species than I knew existed.

One of the highlights of the day was actually while we were walking around in one of the high end shopping districts called 1881 Heritage. Now, high-end shopping isn’t really at the top our must-do travel list, but while we were passing through, we spotted a bride across the courtyard with her photographers in tow. Of course, we thought it would be fun to try and grab a quick photo, and by the time I got the camera out we had spotted 3 other brides, along with their entourage of wedding party, family and photographers! It was pretty humorous watching each little group rotate through the courtyard, waiting their turn for photos in the next spot. In the end, we counted at least 12 wedding couples, and that was all within a 20 minute time period! Apparently, it is THE place to get your wedding photos taken in Hong Kong.

At the end of the day, we took a ride from Kowloon to downtown Hong Kong on the famous Star Ferry. Back in 1996, Airika spent about a month in Hong Kong, and even though much has changed since then, the Ferry and the view it afforded us was one of the few things that was still exactly as she remembered it. In particular, I found the nighttime view of the downtown skyline to be pretty incredible.

We hope to update with more about our time in India soon. But for now, we hope you enjoyed this little collection of photos from Hong Kong.