Monday, June 21, 2010

Hong Kong

Jacque, Cassandra, and I took a trip to Hong Kong for the weekend. Looooooved it! Wow, Hong Kong is incredible. Everything is so close and big and beautiful with the islands, tall buildings, mountains, and ocean all within such a small space. We flew in late Friday night, went to our hotel, and slept.

Then Saturday we got up and found a little restaurant down the street for Dim Sum (Brunch time Chinese snacks). While we were there we decided to have some fun with the camera and take some Taiwan style pictures. We always see girls at restaurants, on the MRT, shopping, wherever, holding the camera above their head taking pictures of themselves or of whatever food they're eating. We see it ALL THE TIME! They document every little detail of some uninteresting event like eating dinner. So these are our Taiwanese pictures.






After Dim Sum we went to took a tram up to The Peak. It's a great little shopping area up in the mountain with a fantastic view of the city.

We attempted to do the famous escalators after that. They are these outdoor escalators that go for miles, but we didn't realize they only go "up" which is actually South. We tried to start at the south end and make our way "down" or North toward the Pier but after the taxi dropped us off we realized our mistake. So, we just walked down the stairs next to the escalators and checked out the various streets, markets, shops, and restaurants.


We finally made it to the Pier and took a ferry over to Kowloon where Cassandra had a reservation on this really old style boat.


While she took her sunset boat ride Jacque and I walked around Kowloon and checked out places for dinner. We ended up all meeting back and having dinner at this Irish pub, delicious!


After dinner we hit up H & M, something we don't have the luxury of in Taiwan and I spent waaay too much money... yikes...but I got some great clothes =) We were way too exhausted to go out and see the HK nightlife so we just went back to the hotel for the night.



Sunday we checked out and then grabbed a taxi to Stanley street as our last stop on the way to the airport. Adoooooored Stanley Market. Such a fantastic mix of traditional Chinese culture and trendy worldly fashion. You can find everything there! I got a "Dolce & Gabbana" purse that's suuuper sweet aside from the tiny tiny tiny "Dolge" instead of Dolce hahaha. We also all got some paintings of Hong Kong. They're these really vibrant colors on Canvas and I can't wait to frame and hang them when I get home!

Somehow this is the only picture I took in Stanley Market lol...the guy wouldn't let me take a picture of my Croque Monsieur through the Deli window with the sign so I made my own =)

After Stanley Market it was off to the airport and time to say goodbye to HK =(

Jacque makes a friend wherever she goes, she's just that bubbly, friendly sort of person and this was her new bff from the train ride home hahaha, so cute!

Miscellaneous HK pics (mostly from or in the cab)



Red Eye To Taipei

The last weekend in May I was excited to host my second and final Taiwan visitor, Sara! She flew in from Cali on Friday evening and we were able to spend the weekend with Karin and Eileen in the big city. Sunday afternoon we took the train back to Hualien and I had until Thursday to try and show her all of the wonders of my Hualien County. Unfortunately I had to go to school everyday so we only had the evenings to site-see but I think we pretty much covered everything. We were able to do quite a bit of shopping (something we both enjoy, haha) and spend some time eating and drinking with the locals which is always a great time.