Hong Kong - Day 12: Repulse Bay, Light Show, Night Market

We had a good, relaxing last day in Hong Kong.

We slept in and then went straight to lunch (well, I went to breakfast, and Chris went straight to lunch!). We went to the Italian restaurant in our hotel - it was delicious! They had an "appetizer" bar that would have been enough food for lunch - different types of fish, salads, meats and a chef was making fresh mozzarella right there. The mozzarella was awesome! I got lobster pasta and Chris got some sole. This video is terribly embarrassing, but I laughed hystarically when I just watched it, so I have to post it. Yes, they give you a bib to wear when you eat pasta! And, in my defense, I thought Chris was taking picture - I didn't realize this was a whole video!

This was dessert - apple fritters and ice cream. We each got this much! It was way too much, but you have to finish dessert! :)

We then hit the beach. We were there for about an hour - Chris swam the ENTIRE time! (Thanks to Mel again for the tripod - we got this picture!)

This is the whole beach at Repulse Bay. Chris swam the entire length of the beach. He told me he was going to swim along the shore, but I was in shock when I went to find him and he was at one end! For someone who claims to not know how to swim, he sure likes the water and can make it back and forth OK!

We had to go back and get foot massages one more time - it was another relaxing foot rub. Chris' lady was a little to fast and strong this time and he had to tell her to be more gentle! :) I think he relaxed after that!

We then headed to Indian food for dinner - it was a different restaurant than the first one, but same owners. It was very good! There was even live Indian music...eventually (they had a rough time getting started)!

Every night they have a 15 minute laser light show over the harbor. We hadn't seen that yet since the best viewing is on the opposite side of the harbor than our hotel. We were on the right side of the harbor tonight, so we checked it out.

We finished the night at the Temple Street Night Market. I got a bracelet and necklace, but no one else wanted to bargain much with me, so that was it. I laughed when I read the books and the descriptions of the markets always said they sold x, y, z and "junk". I now know what they mean by junk - stupid plastic trinkets, every type of key chain you can imagine, power strips, calculators, safety pins, super annoying door bells....It was fun to walk through, but not too much stuff that was interesting. I must have some sort of habit from work of attempting to speak Spanish when I hear a foreign language, because when I was talking to 2 different vendors and they asked me something I said "Si". The first guy had no idea, but I couldn't stop laughing after I said it!

Hong Kong - Day 11: Hong Kong Disneyland

M-I-C-K....
That's about how big Hong Kong Disneyland is!

They have their own line off one of the subway lines. We had to transfer 2 times to get there, so it took about 1 hour. Disneyland is quite a bit outside of the downtown city of Hong Kong.

On the Disneyland Line, they even had Mickey's as the holders if you're standing!

And Mickey shaped windows!

The entrance Mickey - it was cool because it is "Haunted Disneyland" right now and this Mickey's yellow/orange part of his face was out of mini-pumpkins!

OF COURSE we had to start off our day with Mickey waffles! I do think the pancakes are more fun, but maybe Disneyland Anaheim is the only place that has them???

I learned that Chris is a bad driver - very jerky and doesn't really drive straight (unfortunately, I chose to ride with him!) :)

He doesn't drive the UFO any better - still quite jerky!

They had a whole area where a bunch of characters were out and you could get pictures...

We felt bad for Goofy because no one was waiting to have their picture with him! I think Chris is trying to stick his teeth out like Goofy's...

This was probably the least tasty option for lunch, but I HAD to get it! Chris got sushi, noodles, soup and pork dumplings.

There was a lot to imitate today....He even got me in on it!

Chris is holding up all of tomorrow! He's strong!

We took a break mid-day from Disneyland and headed 1 stop further down the subway to Ngong Pong. They have a gondola that takes you 3 miles up the mountain. Chris was SO BRAVE riding in the gondola!

Besides the views, the main attraction at the top of the mountain was the huge Buddha statue that is at the top of these stairs.
Carrie - please tell Joyceee that there are 256 stairs!

I have never seen Chris want to leave somewhere as much as he did the top of this mountain. He was SO PARANOID from the ride up! This was the first smile out of him...when we paid for the roundtrip gondola ride, I'm fairly certain it didn't mean to take the bus back down the hill... :)

While on the bus, I had to question if the gondola took us to the top of the mountain or over to India! We had to stop for these cows!

Back at Disneyland, we went to the SCARIEST place ever! The Disneyland haunted house. I didn't quite understand what it meant by haunted house. I thought it was the ride at Disneyland/Disney World through the haunted mansion. No, this was a HAUNTED HOUSE where the people jump out and scare you!!! I HATE THOSE THINGS!!!!!!!!! Chris and I discovered that as scared and paranoid as he is about heights, I am at haunted houses!

James - I have nominated you and Chris to take any kids that want to go to a haunted house. I am fairly certain that if I even dropped them off that they would come out and find me in my car and scare the crap out of me! Have I mentioned that I HATE HAUNTED HOUSES??? It was awful! What made it worse was that it was so dark and Chris couldn't really see, so I could only partially hide behind him because I had to tell him how to go!

Disney's margarita - a Lime Freeze. It was needed after the gondola and the haunted house! They were super good! There wasn't anything "Mickey" at dinner, so I wasn't able to made a day out of it - we did have some very good soup, fried rice and beef and noodles!

Apparently Chris passed some bad gas?

The Halloween Haunted parade. A couple of times they turned the lights off and the floats glowed - that was the best part of the parade!

We did find some Mickey desserts. Dessert was VERY difficult to find, if you can believe it! There was 1 ice cream stand we saw early in the day and it was closed at 8 pm! All Chris wanted was ice cream and/or french fries and this is what he came up with after an extensive search: cheesecake and tiramisu!

Disneyland was fun - it's hard to not have fun there! Although, they make it pretty difficult at this one. It is SO SMALL! They sell 2 day passes and I can't imagine going back for a 2nd day. The only "grown-up" ride was Space Mountain. Even for kids, there were very few rides. Chris read that they were running short on money or something when they were building it (in 2005) and the decided to downsize. I think it was a very bad idea - there is no reason to come here multiple times! And, I imagine there are very few people with annual passes - especially since it is out of the way to get to! It was Disneyland and I can't complain - there is something about it that always makes it happy and fun!

PS - Happy Birthday, Pops!

Hong Kong - Day 10: History Museum, High Tea, Foot Massages and Happy Valley

We started out the day at the Hong Kong Museum of History. I'm so glad my husband doesn't like museums as much as I do! All the museums are free in Hong Kong on Wednesdays, so we figured we could just go and not feel bad leaving quickly! :) Many of the books and internet sites we've looked at had this at the top of their lists of things to do in Hong Kong. I guess when you're not a museum person, you don't understand why! We did the museum in 30 - 45 minutes which was PLENTY of time, if you ask me (some say you could spend at least 4 hours there!)! This boat was cool - it showed how they had fishing nets off the side.

After the museum, we went to a foot reflexology place to get foot and calf massages. We'd read a bunch of people say how they loved them, so we had to try them. They were awesome! She started in right on my arch, which was a little painful, but once she started rubbing the rest of my feet, I pretty much fell asleep and the arch on my other foot didn't hurt so bad. It was sort of like getting a pedicure without getting your toe nails clipped and painted and getting the nice foot and leg rub for much longer! If there is time on Friday, we may have to go back once more! :)

We then went to The Peninsula Hotel for High Tea. I guess this is still around from when the British owned Hong Kong and has turned into a real tourist attraction. We ate the finger sandwiches (which were SO good!) off the middle plate before I remembered to take a picture. The tea was good, as were most of the treats (does anyone really need fruit cake?), but I don't really get the point of High Tea!

We took the Star Ferry back across the harbor (the white and green boat). They run every 5 minutes and are a cool way to get a mini-harbor tour while also getting to where you need to be.

We then finished the day at the Happy Valley racecourse to see the horse races. I swore after taking dad to the race's for father's day once I'd never go to another horse race. But, this was another item that was on everyone's top things to do in Hong Kong, so we had to go see what the excitement was about! We never did figure out what it was about....for how easy it has been to get around and figure things out here, this was the complete opposite. We couldn't figure out where we were allowed to sit, we couldn't figure out what horses were racing, we couldn't figure out how to bet.....and no one was that helpful. You'd think they'd gladly show us how they could take our money! We finally found some brochures on what we needed to do. We got all set to bet on the 3rd race (we missed the 1st one and couldn't figure anything out for the 2nd one). Chris went up to put our bet in and we just missed it! And, the horse Chris picked to win, won! We ended up betting on the next 3 races - we spent $280 HKD and won $79.80 HKD (that's a net loss of about $50 USD including cost of admission). The other strange thing was that there was 30 minutes between each race - this is FOREVER! 4 races was all we could handle, so we left. We have decided it should be called Crappy Valley! We were happy going in and we were in a valley....

Additions to Day 9 (thanks to Chris):
1. We were way better jumping on the bungee trampoline thing than the people in my video.
2. We ate McDonald's for lunch and Chris was beside himself because he got a double cheeseburger because they didn't have any single cheeseburgers and it would have taken 5 minutes to get one! I think this made the trip to Ocean Park completely worthwhile! :)

Hong Kong - Day 9: Ocean Park

Today we went to Ocean Park. When we read about it, it sounded like an Asian Busch Gardens. However, there is much to be desired at Ocean Park!

The panda exhibit was the coolest part of the whole park. Dad Berg, you could have easily sat in the exhibit the whole day and watched the panda (there were 3 different areas, but only 1 panda out when we went in there).

Did you know there are such things as red pandas?

I guess since he likes to swim so much, it is only fitting that he tried to fit in at the goldfish exhibit! :)

The park is built into the side of a mountain. It is not, at all, a good design for the park. They had two "lowlands" (that weren't connected to each other) and the "summit". The highlands had excellent views since they were on the top of a mountain! The rides and exhibits were spread out all over the place - Disney would have made much better use of the land, at least putting in shops and food in the space between the areas!

Swings - they had potential for awesome views because they were towards the edge but they didn't go high enough/they planted too tall of trees around them, so we only got dizzy!

My stomach was already un-easy (I think I'm getting old!!!!) so Chris had to be brave and go on this ride by himself - it took you all the way to the top and then dropped you down and bounced...

Chris is the one on whose feet are sticking out on the left.

Maybe one day on this trip I'll remember that you can't take vertical video...Please tip your head to the left. :)


This was a fun bungee/trampoline thing. You got strapped in to a bungee and then could bounce super high on the trampoline - these are other people doing it! :)


One of the two roller coasters - the other roller coaster was too painful because it bounced too much and it made you head and ears hit the padding around your head!

For some reason, Chris can be so scared of heights, yet not at all when it comes to roller coasters! He took this video while we were going!


Mom Berg - this is what ducks in China look like. :)

The saddest part was that all the animals looked like they were crammed into very small spaces - these flamingos had only the space you see behind the row of rocks. The aquariums looked like they had way too many fish in them, the seals and sea lions had tiny pools, and the aviary was PACKED with birds! My wishful thinking hopes that they get to go somewhere at night to get some more space!

This was the sight at most of the park - lots of construction and lots of things under "maintenance" repairs....maybe someday it will be that much better! :)

It was a nice cool, frigid day which made it nice to be at the park (by cool I mean the humidity was probably only about 80% today and by frigid I mean the temperature was only in the upper 70's - low 80's)! We're hoping for the same weather on Thursday when we head to Disneyland - it is supposed to be quite a bit warmer!

Hong Kong - Day 8: Lamma Island

Today we headed out to Lamma island for a little hiking, some swimming, and some seafood. It is the 3rd largest island in Hong Kong and supposedly is very popular in the summer with the locals for a get-away from the city. It isn't very populated and is very different than the main city of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong island has been slowing growing through land reclamation. It seems they are filling in more and more of the harbor and then putting up more skyscrapers. I read something that it has grown out by about 4 city blocks in recent years. This is near the piers where we caught the ferry.
Our ferry to Lamma.

There are no cars on the island. These are all the bikes lining both sides of the ferry dock.

Yung Shue Wan - one of the two main "cities" on the island. From here, we set out on a 90 minute hike across the island with a stop near the end at a beach for relaxing and swimming.

Hung Shing Yeh Beach - the first beach we came to - it is the more popular beach, probably because it is closer to the houses. We just admired it and kept walking...

A nice view part way up the mountain and a good pit-stop! Thanks to Mel for the camera tri-pod that you can wrap around trees and such! It's the first time I've remembered to take it hiking (or anywhere else useful!). There's a second picture later!

There wasn't really anything for Chris to imitate today, so this is what he came up with...

I've no clue what this one is....

The hillside was very rocky. The only trees were closer to the bottom of the hill.

Sok Kwu Wan - our eventual destination. What you see is the whole "town". There are a bunch of fish breeding rafts that float out in the harbor - I think these somehow have tank areas under them where they raise fish???

Lo So Shing Beach - a very welcome stop and cool down. Even though today was one of the coolest days, it was still in the low 80's and super humid. The water is about the same temperature as the air, but it still felt nice to take a break and cool down. We were the only ones on the beach, so we had a very personalized lifeguard service!

The first vegetable garden I've seen!

On the home stretch into Sok Kwu Wan.

Our eventual lunch - all of it caught in local waters (so the book says!).

What Chris made us order for lunch....(if you click the picture you can actually read it)

What I required to eat this for lunch....she asked "small or big", I was very clear I wanted the big! :)

Lunch turned out to be very good. You would all be so proud of what we ate - everything! We had a very nice waiter who showed us how to eat everything - luckily he could demonstrate because he didn't speak much English.
If we hadn't eaten all this with our fingers, it would have been hilarious to get pictures or video of it all!
1. Boiled Shrimp - you have to yank the tail off, peel it back the shell? skin?, then, without looking (since gross stuff comes out), pull the head off. They had a tasty soy sauce something to dip them in. They were quite good, but way to hard for Chris to figure out - I peeled most of them Chris had the luxury of just eating.
2. Steamed Scallops - this was, by far, the tastiest. The scallop was still stuck to the shell, so you had to somehow figure out how to wrestle it loose. The tiny fork helped, but so did your fingers! It came with some sort of clear noodle and lots of garlic.
3. Spicy Sea Snails - this was my most least favorite, but I ate my half!! The spicy sauce that it came in certainly helped a lot. For these, you hold the shell in your hand, take a long, think toothpick and you stab the end of the snail and pull it out of its shell. This is also best done without looking - stab, then look at the beautiful scenery and stuff it in your mouth. :) Thank goodness there were only 6 of these I had to eat! It was mostly the tough texture that I disliked.
4. Fried Clams - These were not fried - let's say they were sauteed with the black bean and chili sauce. These were tasty. These were funny because Chris couldn't tell what was carrot, onion and spicy peppers. Somehow, he got a large pepper with nearly every bite. He had a good case of the hicups! After a few of these, I picked them out for him. These were probably the easiest thing to eat, but since we were so dirty from everything else, we ended up eating most of these with our fingers!
5. Noodles - these were so good, yet all it was was noodles, mushrooms and green onions with some sort of light sauce. Our waiter helped us wash our hands before getting to the noodles, as we were suppose to use our chopsticks for this item - an always entertaining experience. The waiter was standing and watching us and he was so amused (or was it disgusted?) by Chris' use of the chopsticks that he made Chris stop eating and tried to teach him to use the chopsticks properly. After several tries, he just gave up and shoved the mini-fork at Chris to tell him to use that instead! I mean, Chris manages to get the food off his plate and into his mouth with the things, so who cares how he does it? :) The guy found it funny, as did I, so it was worth it! The funniest thing is, before we came here, I couldn't use chopsticks for anything and Chris seemed to be able to. Under the pressure of only having chopsticks at some of these restaurants, I have actually figured it out. I am definitely no pro and have shot and dropped my share of things, but I am actually surviving! I forgot all about practicing before we got here!
6. Fresh Fruit - this was some of the best watermelon and pineapple we've had here. I don't really even like pineapple, but I had a couple bites of it!
All in all, I am very glad we chose what we did for lunch. I would have never tried any of it anywhere else. They had everything seasoned so good that it was hard to not like it! We were very proud of ourselves for finishing every last bite and enjoying it!

Our ride home - the restaurant had a free boat shuttle back to Hong Kong. It didn't go nearly as fast as the ferry, but it did have a nice open air deck we could sit on and enjoy the ride back.