I went to a Japanese restaurant for lunch this afternoon and I was sitting there sipping my green tea afterwards thinking: “Why do I have to go back to work?” It definitely feels like the world’s longest Friday.
This was only a half-day because our flight was at 1600 so we had to be at the airport by 1400 and of course, nothing in Hong Kong really opens before 1000.
0830 Hong Kong Park – We watched an early morning Tai Chi class at the observatory and then wandered through their indoor Arid (cactus), semi-arid, and humid gardens. It was an indoor paradise of totally free and well groomed flora and we had it totally to ourselves at this early hour.
Next was the Hong Kong Park Aviary which felt like it was an exhibit straight out of Jurassic Park. It is a enormous net dome with a raised boardwalk going through the trees. You look down on the birds swimming for their breakfast as you walk past the ones in the trees eye to eye a waterfall beats down the side of the enclosure on one side. Again, we had it totally to ourselves as it was so early and everyone else who was up that early must have thought the warm sprinkles were going to turn into something more sinister after looking at the clouds.
Walked past the Hong Kong wedding registry where a bunch of beautiful brides were having their photos taken after registering their marriages. It must have been an auspicious date to get married as we saw at least 5 couples. This was right next to the koi ponds and gardens which we wandered through on our way to the…
1000 Teaware Museum – The guidebook we read before going said we would spend 30 minutes tops here, but I read everything and watched all the movies for a full two hours. I thoroughly enjoyed learning everything there was to learn about the history of tea and the process of purple clay pot making and picked up a souvenir tea pot. Unfortunately no photos are allowed inside the museum.
1200 Lunch at cafe under the mall at the Admiralty MTR station. There is a cute little grocery store there where you can pick up cheap eats for a picnic as well as a cafe for those who need to take a load off.
1300 Back at the hotel for a quick shower and then off to the airport early. This gave me time to wander in the Muiji To Go store for travel accessories.
2100 Land in Singapore and super cheap taxi to the hotel, dinner at the hotel and then straight to bed
Hong Kong day 2 was actually July 14th, but hubby took me to dinner that night which lasted 3 hours so I didn’t have a chance to post this until I got back.
0930 Morning walk to East Tsim Shau Station and metro to Wong Tai Sin Temple. The best part of this temple is actually its garden the Garden of Wishes. The temple and its courtyard are full to the brim with bus loads of local tourists seeking Taoist guidance on their fates, but the garden costs HK$2/US$.25 and somehow that deters enough people to make it extremely quiet and peaceful. It also has insanely large Koi.
1100 MTR from temple to Prince Edward Station
Flower Market – The amount of flowers in quantity and variety were impressive.
Snack at Patissierie shop – These little fresh pastry shops are everywhere and make a great cheap and yummy lunch on the run when taking time for Dim Sum isn’t in the cards.
Bird Market – Right after the flower market we took our pastries and walked through the bird market, thousands of tiny birds singing their hearts out.
Royal Palace hotel for a break (this hotel is so posh), we wanted to get out of the heat and consult our map, turned out we didn’t want to keep walking down to the Jade market in the heat so we grabbed the metro again.
1300 MTR to East Tsim Shau Station
Walk to Avenue of Stars (Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Chow Yun Fat, etc), Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade by the shore for pictures of the skyline, Clock tower (last bit of old Army barracks)
The best part of this whole walk wass the Chinese Arts and Crafts store. The first floor of this store has HK$1,000,000 jade pieces and objects de art everywhere which we couldn’t even max out our credit cards to buy, it was better than most museums.
Upstairs were pricey, but high quality items that we could actually afford. Hubby picked up a lacquer box to store his nicknacks in and I glanced through the hand embroidered table linens. But I really started to enjoy myself when I got to the tea section full of hand painted teacups. I lingered so long that the department floor manager wandered over and sat us down for a tea ceremony. We had just had our tea appreciation course the day before so we totally knew what to do as far as drinking traditions, what to look for when we were smelling things and what pots are worth what. It was tons of fun and we walked out with a set of tea cups which I will always treasure.
1500 Walk to hotel passing Penninsula Hotel, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Shanghai Tang clothing store, and Nathan Road
1530 Shower, siesta
1600 Kowloon Park with Aviary (more flamingos), Sculpture garden, Hong Kong Heritage Discovery Center (tiny as it was under renovation and only part of it was only)
1800-2100 Anniversary Dinner @ Aspasia Restaurant in our hotel, absolutely amazing, although the formal service threw hubby off for awhile. Definitely the most expensive dinner we have ever had but the Master Chef was from Venice and his 3 Michelin stars look like they are well deserved, it was truly a unique culinary experience. My one regret is we missed the Symphony of Lights laser show both nights we were there as a result.
Flying home so its back to surfing the Internet. Did I get rid of my travel bug in Asia? No… Instead of Youtube travel channels today’s reading is: 10 Online Literary Magazine that Publish Great Travel writing
Today is my last free day before heading home tonight so I’m finally getting to use my Google maps walking tours of Singapore that I made. Like the one I did for Hong Kong I am basing it partially off of what the professionals did. For this one though I also have a friend who lives there who will be showing me around. I’m so excited to have a local guide, they are really the best.
Singapore Walking Tour: Little India Temples from National Geographic
Singapore Walking Tour: The Padang from National Geographic
Singapore Itineraries for 1day-1 week from Frommers
Today being my last day it is also my last chance for some authentic shopping. I didn’t lighten my bag to just save my shoulders, but to save room for souvenirs. My friend should take me shopping, but I do have one must stop at store that I have on my list so far:
Tea Bone Zen Mind
A small shop specializing in custom Chinese teapots, cups, and accessories. Will design to suit. 3 Seah Street #01-02; tel. +65 6334 4212
Today we walked around Hong Kong. Weather was in the 90s with high humidity. I made my own walking tour with Google maps, but I found it useful to look at some others done by professionals while putting mine together. Mine is customized for what is open on this day of the week and our taste. Here’s what we did today:
1000 Hong Kong Museum of History – takes about 2 hrs
1200 Snack at a local pastry shop, yum
12:30 Star Ferry to Central, Only an 8 minute ferry, but great views
12:45 Central Walking Tour including: Legislative building, St Johns Cathedral, garden, Court of Final Appeals, Bank of China building, HSBC, statue park, Battery road
1:45 Trolley to the Peak
1400-1515 Lunch @ Pearl on the Peak (Australian restaurant with great views, save the cost of a trip to the Peak Tower and put it towards your lunch, you get a discount here if you show them your trolley ticket)
1515-1530 Observation deck of Peak Tower
1530-1545 Trolley back down
1545-1600 Walk through Hong Kong Park- I wish we had more time to go to the Aviary here, but we did see a lot of greenery as we walked down the path on the elevated sidewalks. it felt like we were going on a sidewalk between tree houses to:
1600-1700 Tea appreciation class next to Teaware Museum – It was a real shame we missed the tea ware museum itself. The plan was to go there before our class, but lunch took forever. From our quick glance through it looks like this free museum would take less than 30 minutes. The tea appreciation class was awesome though. We learned how to make and serve 6 different varieties of tea. I never knew there was so much involved and what variety there was. I told hubby they were making me a tea snob. This class is free through the Hong Kong tourism bureau.
1700-1800 Biological and Zoological Garden. since the aviary in Hong Kong Park was closed by the time our tea appreciation class was over we went over to the free Biological and Zoological Garden next to the trolley entrance. While it didn’t have the 600 varieties of birds that the aviary has, it did have a ton of American flamingos which I always enjoy along with a lot of other unidentifiable birds. Unforunately the botanical gardens themselves closed at 1700 so we missed that.
MRT metro back to Kowloon – rush hour fun
1900 Sam’s Tailors on Nathan Road, famous for clients like Margaret Thatcher, US presidents and celebrities, Hubby will have 2 custom tailored shirts by 5pm tomorrow, sweet, an for less than the cost of 1 regular non-tailored one from JC Penneys.
1930 dinner at a little cafe
Hong Kong Walking Tour, complete with maps from Frommers
Hong Kong Walking Tour: The Heart of Central from National Geographic
Hong Kong Walking Tour: From Wan Chai to Happy Valley from National Geographic
Hong Kong Walking Tour: Sheung Wan Area from National Geographic
The things you discover while flying 26 hours with free wifi and in-seat power adapters. Ah the joys of not sleeping on planes. inLike this list of Youtube travel channels. A good way to kill a few hours if you don’t sleep on planes. My favorite is the one from Lonely Planet, well edited and inspiring.
I’m woefully bad about blogging my trips after they occur, posting photos and descriptions of the places I go and things I see. Last years Europe trip was supposed to be my first attempt at trip blogging which ended badly when my phone gave me grief and my lightweight lack of a laptop killed that dream. This year I will try and do better. But really, don’t live vicariously through me, you can travel yourself. One of the blogs I still follow from the days I thought I was going to be a law student just planned and went to California. She even posted photos.
If you say, but I have no money, go here. There are tons of sites which tell you how to travel cheap and I’m a firm believer that anyone can make it happen. I just get lucky and belong to organizations which pay for me to travel a lot. We still have to save for hubby to come with me. This yaycations calculator tells you how much you can save, by cutting out ordinary things from your budget and then calculates where in the world you can go with the money. Of course the idea is to sell you travel to that destination in the end, but I like the idea of knowing what giving up a morning latte gives me in exact terms. Latte or trip to Barcelona, hmm…not really a tough choice.
Leaving tonight for Asia and you can tell I’ve got travel on the brain from all of my recent posts. Today even my tea post is going global. I enjoyed this article on 6 tea cultures around the world. The conference I am attending this week is definitely in a part of the world with tea culture. Instead of coffee breaks, all the breaks are labeled tea instead.
Today’s photo is from photography Corrie Bond. This is what I wish I’ll feel like tomorrow morning sipping my tea in comfy jammies, when instead it will be in the San Francisco airport at Starbucks.
This packing list from the One Bag One World forums has me wondering if this woman is packing for Sudan or Europe and 6 months or 18 days. Really, does she think you can’t buy feminine hygiene products there if she needs them? Very survivalist in my opinion. I’m more of the type where I say: “Pack it if you absolutely know you’ll need it, otherwise buy it there.” Unless she’s hiking in Europe and not going to any cities she is going to stick out so much its not funny. Oh well, to each their own. 18 days in Europe will be wonderful no matter what you bring or look like, I’m jealous.
