Chinese New Year in Hong Kong

Chinese New Year is likely the biggest break I'll have during my time in Singapore, so Sapna and I decided to make good use of it and head somewhere special! Singapore more or less shuts down over Chinese New Year, so it wouldn't be an efficient use of holiday time to stay here. We racked our brains, talked to travel agents and locals, and after much deliberation decided on Hong Kong. At C$450.00 per person it wasn't a bargain flight, but the price was fair considering it was Chinese New Year. We left at 6:55a.m. Friday February 16th and came home Wednesday February 21st at 11:30p.m. This made for a difficult day at work the following morning, at least for me.

After landing, we hopped on the A21 airport express bus from Hong Kong International Airport to Mong Kok MTR station. We stayed at King Wah Hostel just right around the corner (although it still took us a good 20 minutes to find where exactly our hostel was!). Even though the transportation in Hong Kong is EXTREMELY efficient, it is still easy to get lost. The MTR (Subway system) stations can be particularly confusing being as there can be as many as 6 exits out of each station, all leading in different directions. We got lost going back to our hostel nearly everyday! We finally clued in and noted that exit 'B3' out of Mong Kok MTR station will take us to our hostel. Strange how it took us 5 days to realize this...I'm ashamed.

Our hostel looked super sketchy from the outside, especially considering that one of the entrances/exits was in a back alley complete with a rickety old freight elevator. Our room itself was more than adequate. We ordered a 2 bed private hostel with our OWN bathroom and a private air conditioner! I haven't been cool while I slept in over a month! It was heaven. Mong Kock is quite central, so we never had to travel far to get to where we wanted to go.

We hit pretty much everything up in our 6 days in Hong Kong. After a short nap on Friday, we went for dinner at Delaney's, an Irish Pub in TST. In the next days we went to the Hong Kong Museum of History, briefly viewed the Hong Kong Museum of Art, tried to watch the Near Year's parade (didn't see much due to poor location), and watched the New Year's fireworks. After the fireworks, we went to SoHo (which is awesome, and has the worlds longest escalator network snaking up the hill!) for dinner at an Italian place. We checked out Lan Kwai Fong to see the bars and people watch, the Aqua Spirit bar (Hong Kong's sky bar on the 29th floor of a tower, complete with a great view!), Luk Yu in Central for Dim Sum (more for the ambiance than anything else), visited the largest sitting Buddha in the world on LanTau island and of course visited the shopping streets, including Stanley Market. I picked up 2 track jackets to wear when it's chilly, one of those Adidas tank tops that whisks away the sweat for wearing in my room when it's hot, and two pairs of shoes.



Getting custom made clothing is common in Asia. I decided against getting some garments made in Hong Kong because I was only there for 6 days. I need some new pants and a few light shirts, so I may look into it after pay-day. Gotta find a good tailor here in Singapore or head over to Vietnam where a friend assures me they can copy anything I'd like in about a day! It almost sounds like LensCrafters: 'ready in about a day.'


There are a few more interesting stories, but I'll just have to tell you in person because they won't translate well over the internet. Here are two you can ask me about:

1) Cab driver freaking out
2) Butt crack girl in Lan Kwai Fong

Bye for now!



Sean