Hong Kong, Part Two

On our first full day in Hong Kong, we woke up a bit early to have DIM SUM, mmmmmmm! Fortunately Cindy’s cousin, Winsome, volunteered to be our dim sum guide, as we don’t know the kanji for dim sum words! It was my first time having REAL Hong Kong dim sum, as I had only had it in Taiwan before. Oh my god, it was so good! Um, Winsome MAY have been scared by how much we could eat! Hong Kong people just go there for the tea and to relax while they eat a bit. Us hungry gaijin, on the other hand, came for the food and ate EVERYTHING! She kept suggesting things and we were like, “Sure!” She soon learned to just order anything she could think of, as she knew we would eat it! One time she called the waiter by saying, “Come here, the table with the biggest eaters…” Haha, sad. MMMM, it was good! I finally had fresh chicken feet, as the ones I had in Taiwan were like a day old. They sound nasty but they are yummy! We also had this YUMMY dessert that looked like some sort of pineapple thing, but was made of horse feet. Holy crap, it was good. EVERYTHING was good. We ate so much!

After that we walked off our calories by shopping. Well, more like walking around and window shopping. Hong Kong was a waste on us in that way, as we didn’t really have anything we needed to buy, and pretty much all you can do there is shop! Hehe. I did get some DVDs, though (um, Aaron Kwok up in here!!!!!). We walked around enough until we could get desserts from the street vendors, mmm!

After that we walked ALL OVER Hong Kong. We went to the Avenue of the Stars, which is kind of like a boardwalk on the bay dedicated to Hong Kong stars. Aaron didn’t have a star there and it was sad! Sniff. Fortunately it was a lot clearer than the day before, so we could finally take pictures of the Hong Kong skyline!

Oh, I forgot to mention three things! One, it was damn warm in Hong Kong! It got up to about 25 degrees or so during the day! That is much different from Gunma, which is about 10 degrees during the day, and MUCH different than Hokkaido the week before, which was 0 degrees!
Second, Hong Kong totally feels like NYC at times! I think it is a mix of humidity, heat, the big city feel, and the sorta-dirty-ness without being really dirty. I dunno, it is hard to describe, but it felt like I was in NYC a lot of the time!

Three, I am secretly fluent in Cantonese! Well, I cant speak it, but I can somehow understand it! Like, I totally knew what people were saying most of the time before Cindy would translate it! It was weird! But like, people are pretty much the same in any language, so I just imagined what the person would say in whatever situation, I guess. Still, it was weird, I am so secretly Chinese! Hehe.

Oh, also, HK is TOTALLY like in movies. I always thought they exaggerated the streets with tons of bright signs advertising everything, but it really is that way! I felt like I was in the second season finale of Alias! Yes, I am a nerd.

Anyway, yeah. After walking we were EXHAUSTED and needed a place to sit, so we MAY have gone to McDonald’s! Hehehe. Oh my god, their McD’s rocks! First of all, they have breakfast ALL DAY LONG! It is like heaven! They also have jo-jos! Might I add that apparently jo-jos (I don’t know how to spell it) are only an Oregonian word, as no one had any idea what I was talking about. They are like the big potato fry-like things with seasoning on them. And they have chocolate-dipped cones, etc. Mmmm!

After that we wandered some more, then went to see the Hong Kong light show. Every night at 8 PM they have a light show using the buildings on Hong Kong Island. You can see it from the Kowloon side, and it is a big deal and is one of the top 10 something something. In other words, they make a big deal of it, so we expected a lot. Um, it was FREAKING BORING! It was the crappiest show ever! The lights barely matched with the music and it was just random and BORING! It was only ten minutes but we were waiting for it to finish! Haha. Sad.

After that we met up with Winsome for dinner at a Macau restaurant. Because of our HUGE breakfast we barely ate there (for us) and it was a little worrisome!

We then made our way to Victoria Peak. Victoria Peak is THE place to go to if you go to Hong Kong. Like, it is the only thing on list of things to do there, hehe. It is a 552-meter tall mountain on Hong Kong Island, and it has an amazing view! You are like RIGHT above the skyscrapers, and can see the water and Kowloon from it. It is really beautiful. We went up there at night so we could see the skyscrapers all lit up, and I am really glad we went. Unfortunately we didn’t go again during the daytime, as you can hike around there and get really close to the buildings, but that will be next time, if I ever go back!

After taking about 7 million pictures, none of which turned out because digital cameras suck at night time, we went back to the hotel and slept!

One more part coming tomorrow and then I am caught up on travel-related blogs! Oh, except for Shanghai, but I dont want to finish that, haha.