Ok well I clearly have not been updating this blog very often, despite having a obscene amount of free time... But thanks to that unlimited free time, I was able to accompany Yoav on a work trip, which basically became one long, extended trip. Between Nov. 8 when we left for Hong Kong and Jan. 5 when we finally got home from San Diego, we only stayed in our apartment for 8 nights! So even though I don't have any exciting job news or work updates, I do have some pretty sweet travel updates!!!
Yoav had to go to Hong Kong for 2 weeks for work, so I decided to tag along! Neither of us had ever been anywhere in Asia before so we were pretty excited for the trip! Obviously he had to work most of the time, only getting to do fun stuff on the weekends, but I got to have fun adventures every day! I was pretty proud of myself for getting around Hong Kong all alone, but after 2 weeks it got kind of lonely doing everything by myself. But on the bright side, I did get to do everything I wanted to do, instead of having to decide with other people. ;)
Two weeks is a long time to recap and since I basically did everything in the guidebook and then some, I'll just give you the highlights!
The Hong Kong skyline is one of the major famous spots to see. Our hotel was located just across the street from the Victoria Harbor, so we could see the skyline from our room. Every night all the sky scrapers participate in a light show! These were traditional boats in Hong Kong and now they are pretty much just for tourists haha but they still look super cool.
One of the first places I went was Disneyland Hong Kong. I love Disney parks and am used to walking around Disney World alone, so I figured I would go spend the day at Disneyland! It was pretty fun and mostly the same as the other parks, but a little smaller and with a few different lands. Here I am literally getting molested by Goofy and Pluto...even with a disturbing leg hitch from Goofy hahaha And one negative of traveling alone is having to take lots of embarrassing selfies if you want a proof that you were there haha
One day I took a tram up to the top of a mountain to Victoria Peak, which overlooks all of Hong Kong and Victoria Harbor! It was a beautiful day so the view was amazing! Yoav and I went back up a few days later after he got off work to have dinner and the view was amazing at night too!
One day I visited the Chi Lin Nunnery which was a beautiful Buddhist temple right in the middle of the city! Next door to the temple was a lovely park as well!
One place I found really interesting/amusing was the Goldfish Market. Hong Kong has all these different market districts, just like in most major cities, and I found a map that showed a good path for a walking tour, so I did that one day. The Goldfish Market had stores that sold everything for fish tanks and aquariums as well as other animals, so it was pretty much like a pet store district. The stores just put all these bags of goldfish hanging up along the walls!
I also visited Hong Kong Ocean Park, which is a huge theme park, aquarium and zoo. The IMATA conference was held here in 2012, so I was pretty interested to see the park. I didn't really go on a lot of the rides, but spent most of my time checking out all the animals.
The last thing Yoav and I did on the trip was take the sky rail to the Big Buddha! It is one of the major Hong Kong sites so I wanted to go with him on one of his days off. I didn't want to have to see EVERYTHING alone! :)
Overall, Hong Kong was awesome! I didn't want to bore everyone with a zillion pictures (I literally took almost 2000 in 2 weeks), so these are only a few of the stops I made in Hong Kong! I'd definitely recommend a trip here for everyone! It was super easy to get around on all the public transit-subways, buses, trolley cars and ferries! And since it used to be a British colony, mostly every sign is in English!
Up next on my trip blog: Our Hong Kong side trips to China and Macau!
