Hong Kong - Day 1

Hong Kong.  

As I said in my short post a few weeks ago, I loved this city!

I'll start with some background information.  I really knew nothing about the city until I started doing research for our trip.  Hong Kong was a British Colony until 1997, when the British handed it back to China as a special administrative region.  Britain invaded Hong Kong during the Opium War in 1839 and it became a British colony when the war ended in 1842.  Hong Kong has it has it's own flag, currency, political system and legal system but is technically a part of mainland China.  

It's one of the most densely populated areas in the world with a population of seven million people on a piece of land the size of Rhode Island.  I have to say that I didn't feel overcrowded while I was there, so don't let this discourage you from visiting!

The city is divided into 18 administrative districts (neighborhoods) over four geographic regions.  There is Hong Kong Island, the Kowloon Peninsula, the New Territories and the outlying islands.  We stayed in Kowloon and spent all of our time in Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.

Mrs. A. driving to Narita!

(I was navigating!)

The ladies in the back!

Welcome to Narita!

The double decker plane that we flew on to Taipei, Taiwan

We flew from Narita to Taipei, Taiwan and then on to Hong Kong.  Neither flight was too bad ... we were served meals and they played movies on both legs of the journey.  It also gave me some much needed time to really read the guidebook I had purchased for the trip!

We arrived in Hong Kong the night before the carrier pulled into port.  We checked into our hotel and then headed downstairs to the Waterfront Bar & Terrace to grab a late dinner and enjoy the view!  

The next morning, Mrs. S. and I went for a jog along the waterfront and then headed over to Starbucks with Mrs. A. and Mrs. D.  We enjoyed a refreshing iced coffee and the free wi-fi in Starbucks before heading back to the hotel to get ready for the boys arrival.

I hadn't thought about the fact that we were traveling internationally and our hair dryers, hair straighteners and electronics might not work.  The hotel did provide us with a converter, which was nice.  However, I plugged my hair dryer in and, before turning it on, it made a huge popping noise and all of the lights in our room went out!  We called down to the front desk to tell them that we thought we had blown a fuse.  They didn't take us very seriously but sent someone up to look at things.  It took them thirty minutes to fix the issue!  And I was in the middle of blow drying my hair (with the hair dryer provided by the hotel!) when J. arrived.

We hadn't made plans for our first day since we didn't know what time J. would make it to the hotel.  We decided to head up to the hotel's pool for the afternoon. 

The view from our pool ... looking over to Hong Kong Island

After our afternoon at the pool, we cleaned up and met The A.'s down at the Waterfront Bar and Terrace for happy hour.  One thing that Hong Kong does well, is happy hour.  Almost every bar has some sort of happy hour and most drinks were either buy one, get one free or half off. 

Watching the sunset from the Waterfront Bar

Watching the sunset from the Waterfront Bar

Sun setting

After happy hour, we headed over to Fenwick Pier to meet up with Mrs. S.  She had gone out to the carrier to attend a reception with her husband and we wanted to meet her at the pier so she wouldn't have to take a taxi back to the hotel alone.  The carrier couldn't pull into the harbor, so they had ferry boats going back and forth from Fenwick Pier to the carrier.  It was a pretty nice set up with computers for the sailors to use, a money exchange and a restaurant and bar.  We ran into some other people from J.'s squadron and had a beer with them while we were waiting for Mrs. S.

Once she arrived, we headed out to the night life district of Lan Kwai Fong.  Most of the air wing from the carrier was staying on Hong Kong Island and we ran into quite a few people while we were out in Lan Kwai Fong.  It was a lot of fun!

Me in front of my favorite store :)

On our walk to Lan Kwai Fong!

Mrs. A., me, Mrs. S.

I don't think that I mentioned that it was hot and humid while we were there ... temperatures were in the 90's and there was little relief from the heat when the sun when down!