Hong Kong

Our 2 week trip to Hong Kong was really awesome. It can be summarized with: lots of food, tons of shopping, seeing relatives and visiting tourist sites. This was Matt's first time ever to Hong Kong---Asia even---so we knew we wanted to squeeze in some touristy visits in addition to showing him all the food and shopping that there is. Here are some of the highlights from the trip:

Food
We had a lot of food--mostly Chinese with the exception of 2 Japanese dinners and a random Italian lunch. Matt was exposed to eating things he'd never eaten---and, as he would say now "if you're ever thinking twice about becoming a vegetarian, come to Hong Kong and it'll almost make you be one!". Some samples of things we ate: pig lung, beef tongue, duck feet, chicken feet, congee every morning with chinese doughnuts, suckling pig (i love the skin), steamed fish, fresh shrimp, dim sum, shark's fin, turtle soup (tho' Matt refused to eat the actual turtle), pigeon...

One of the more memorable dinners in terms of a great view was when Matt and I ate at the Peak at a Japanese restaurant called Kyo Hachi. Not only was the food great but we had one of the best views in the city---here's a picture where the restaurant is reflected in the glass with the vista we had while dining:

Shopping
Hong Kong is a shopper's paradise, whether you want some Chanel or a $10 knockoff Manchester United soccer jersey. We went there with 2 suitcases that were each only barely packed. We came back with 4 suitcases fully packed full of knockoff shoes (i.e. Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton) and sample clothing (i.e. Burberry). We also got Matt's wedding tux, a suit and two cheongsams for me to wear for the wedding. Knockoff DVDs were everywhere and we snatched up titles like Babel, Pursuit of Happyness, Blood Diamond, Good Shepherd and Curse of the Golden Flower. We visited practically every street market: Ladies Market, Temple Street Market and Bowring St. Market which stay open til 11pm or midnight. There, we bargained for cheap clothing and tchotskys. Some of the knockoffs there were obvious (i.e. Matt got some Calvin Klein knockoff boxers that said "GK - Galvin Kravinthy").

Touristy sites

Although I go back every two years, I still enjoy going to a lot of the touristy sites because of how beautiful it is. Of course, no trip to Hong Kong should be without visiting the harbor:

And the views from the Peak are breathtaking:

We also took a visit to see the Big Buddha (official name: Tian Tan Buddha), which I personally hadn't seen in many years. The last time I went, the only way to get there was via a torturous ferry ride so I was pleased to see that we could hop onto the subway and then take the newly opened Ngong Ping cable cars over the mountains to get there:

The area around the Big Buddha has been really built up to cater to tourists. It used to be that the only food you could eat was the vegetarian meal provided at the Po Lin Monastery---now there's a Starbucks, ice cream store and a bunch of restaurants.

After we ate our vegetarian meal at the Monastery, we saw an interesting ceremony being performed by all the monks.

Macau
Since Matt is part Portuguese, we had to visit Macau, a former Portuguese colony. It's a really interesting mix of Portuguese and Chinese culture---you can see reflections of Portugal in the religion (huge population of Catholics), the architecture, the food and the street signs (which are all in Portuguese, Chinese and English). We took a day trip there via ferry and toured the small island in 4 hours (it's small enough to really get around and see everything that amount of time).

A lot of the Vegas casinos are starting to move in and change the overall casino landscape there---when my family last visited, the main casino was the Casino Lisboa, which is this smokey, tiny, sketchy casino full of prostitutes and smells of the Triad (and it's still like this today). Now, the Wynn just opened (and looks like a miniature version of the Vegas one with all the same restaurants and clubs) with MGM Grand and the Venetian coming soon. Casino Lisboa is in fact building a new location to compete with all the new ones coming into town.

 

New Year's
Lastly, for New Year's, Matt and I went out and decided to check out the infamous Lan Kwai Fong. We'd already been there for a drink the week before but I heard it was a crazy scene on New Year's. Indeed, there were just thousands and thousands of people out on the street. A total mob scene. There was even directed traffic to get into Lan Kwai Fong for crowd control purposes (which is good since this area was made famous in 1993 when 21 people died from the rush of huge crowds celebrating New Years). All in all, very fun New Year's.