Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately, we were forced to take an unexpected "vacation." It's a long story but I will try to give a brief explanation. We have been living in Taiwan with a work sponsored visa. We thought we would be able to switch our work visa to a student visa when school started. However, due to the rules, we were required to leave the country and apply for a resident visa to be switched to a student visa at a Taiwan Embassy. The closest Taiwan embassy to Taiwan is located in Hong Kong. Well, we quickly planned a trip, bought plane tickets, and headed to Hong Kong last weekend.
We had heard mixed reviews about Hong Kong from friends. Most westerners enjoy Hong Kong for the shopping. They carry western brands and sell clothes that actually fit the western body shape (unlike Taiwan). However, we aren't big shoppers and we just completed a shopping spree in the USA. Despite the mixed reviews, travel agent James did some research and planned a fabulous trip for us in Hong Kong!
We finally rode the High Speed Rail (HSR) in Taiwan. We took the cheapest route to the airport which included an 11 minute ride on the HSR as well as a few buses. It was speedy!
The sign say "Taiwan High Speed Rail" and James is happy to have a 7 Eleven coffee in his hand!
It looks like a bullet!
This was our first time in the domestic terminal in Taiwan airport. There is a gym!
There is also a library. I don't know if you can check out the book but you can read them while you wait at the airport.
The books are organized by language. I looked at a "Harry Potter" book for a few minutes.
After arriving in Hong Kong, we took a bus to get to our "apartment" for the weekend. We hopped off the bus at Times Square. It was exactly like New York City except a lot of the signs were in Chinese!
The next morning after dealing with our visa stuff, we went to Hong Kong Park. I am hiding in the fountain!
From Hong Kong Park, we hiked up to "The Peak." At the top there was a mall and some great views. I can't imagine who thought it was a good idea to put a mall on the peak of a mountain but it worked out well in Hong Kong.
We enjoyed the rest of Hong Kong Park on our way back to the Taiwan Embassy to pick up our new visa (which thankfully went smoothly). Hong Kong Park had a large aviary among some other neat things.
Hungry Bird
The Taiwan Embassy was in one of the matching towers.
The sign reads "James Fish" so a picture was a necessity!
We enjoyed the Hong Kong light-show that evening. We took a ferry to another island. From the viewing spot, the light-show played music. Participating skyscrapers would light up in sync with the music. It was quite the impressive skyline especially with the reflections on the water!
The next day, Saturday, we hiked the Dragon Back's Trail. It is a part of the Hong Kong Trail system which includes over 50 km (31 miles) of trail! The views of the ocean, mountains and city were quite breathtaking! James would have loved to play the golf course in the picture :-)
The portion of the trail we completed ended at this beach with turquoise, clear water! It was a fantastic way to end a hike. We came prepared with our swimsuits. Surprisingly, the beach was not crowded.
On Sunday, we did the Mclaehose trail. We hiked 25 km (15 miles) of the trail! The whole trail system includes 100 km (62 miles) of trails. Hong Kong is truly a trail runners' and hikers' paradise. All of the trails are VERY easily accessible by public transportation. Also, the majority of people speak English in Hong Kong. In fact, most of the time we were in Hong Kong, we forgot we were in China. We were always surrounded by a variety of nationalities and heard many different languages. It reminded me of being at Disney World :) And the picture above...for some reason the trail had cows on it.
James and I are always making new friends! This couple is training for a race in November which includes the full 100k of trails. Eek!
The views of the beaches on the hike never got old. In fact, each beach looked more beautiful than the one before. We felt like we were in the Caribbean or Hawaii. Once again, none of the beaches were crowded in this city of 7 million people. It's a mystery to us! Our only theory is that there are so many beaches to choose from that everyone is well-spread out. In fact only 7% of Hong Kong is urbanized. The urbanized areas are some of the most densely populated spots in the world. You would believe it if you ever travel to Hong Kong!!
The trail was LONG and SUNNY and HOT! It was an intense day of hiking but enjoyable in the end. The trail took us over 8 hours to hike. I think we each put on about 10 layers of sunscreen and drank 4 liters of water.
On our last morning in Hong Kong, we awoke for a quick jog to stretch our tired legs before our flight. We were surprised to find the protesters had expanded to the Causeway Bay area (where we were staying). The night before we heard one of the tear gas bomb explosions. It was quite scary. The explosion was followed by several fire trucks and sirens. We quickly left the streets and went to our apartment in hopes of finding safety! If you haven't seen the news about the protests, just go to the CNN website and it will be the headlines. Praise God we went to Hong Kong the first weekend possible or else the protests would have prevented us from getting our visa. The public transportation to the Taiwan Embassy building was closed starting on the Sunday we were in Hong Kong since the building was surrounded by protesters. Since leaving Hong Kong, we have been keeping up with news and we are concerned about the current situation.
Many of the city parks had special areas for the dogs to use the bathroom. So odd!
It's like the Incline Railway in Chattanooga but in Hong Kong!
An umbrella vending machine. James is holding his invisible umbrella.
So...the place we stayed. James used an online room rental service called "AirBnB" which a few friends had recommended. He found a place close to the Taiwan Embassy for a good price. This place was seriously the size of most peoples' closets or bathrooms! Literally, only one person could stand up at a time. Wow! That's city living! We also found the food to be quite expensive (San Francisco prices). The first grocery store we found, we loaded up on oatmeal, bananas, apples, peanut butter crackers, soy milk, ramen noodles and frozen vegetables. That's all we ate for the rest of the trip. I haven't been able to even look at ramen noodles since then...
The sink was literally in the shower!
I can't believe this place managed to squeeze a kitchenette in this room. It served us well!
Good-bye Hong Kong! We hope to see you again! Our review of Hong Kong - INCREDIBLE!!!!!
