FONTastique: Hong Kong

This past weekend we made our way up to Hong Kong to get out of the tropical heat and spend some time in a real city. Sorry Singapore, you just remind me too much of Disneyland to be taken seriously.

From the airport we decided to take the double-decker bus into the city. Liz likes them, and we thought it might be a more scenic and affordable way to get into the city (trying to cut costs where we can since we have been traveling every weekend). Unfortunately it took a really long time and went through the not-so-scenic parts of Hong Kong, but at least we had the opportunity to continue our tradition of taking unflattering photos of ourselves on buses...

Liz getting mauled by a tan monkey

Forced smile

Also in the spirit of frugality, I decided to cash in some of my last SPG points for a room at the W Hotel in Hong Kong, which was the right decision. We got upgraded to a great corner room on one of the highest floors, and the hotel had an amazing rooftop pool.

"Artsy" view from our room (i.e., Liz can't not take a blurry photo)

Looking silly at the rooftop pool

Hot tub with a great view of HK, where I spent more time than I care to admit

Although we hesitated at some points, we did in fact leave the hotel. Most of our time was spent wandering around HK island, admiring the verticality and endless luxury storefronts and continuing our never-ending search for good eating and drinking venues. This included two instances of delicious, excessive dim sum kicking our butts and making our stomachs hate our eyes.

Some shots from our wanderings

Our friend Come (from the Railay Beach posts) and his lovely fiancee Claire were also in HK for the weekend, and we met up for a great dinner and rooftop drinks.

Bar-hopping in Central

While we didn't do a lot of sightseeing on the trip, we did make it up to Victoria Peak to get a few touristy photos...

We tried visiting the jade market in Mong Kok, but failed to find any of the things we were looking for there - an all-jade pair of carved cufflinks, and jade carved with the Chinese symbol for long life. Afterwards, we made our way to a Taoist temple called Wong Tai Sin, in the upper reaches of Kowloon. I'm not sure why we decided to visit it (it was a Sunday, so maybe we were feeling spiritually hungry?), but I'm glad we did. Since it was nearly the Chinese New Year, there were hundreds of Kau Cim worshippers lighting incense, praying and making a wish before the main altar. Afterwards, they shake a bamboo cylinder with fortune sticks until a a stick falls out. The worshippers then take their sticks to one or more fortunetellers to figure out if they'll get their wish.

Chinese New Year was also in full effect around the city. From the Victoria Harbour ferries to the malls, Hong Kong was decorated with various shades of red, butterflies and flowers all over.

The trip unfortunately came to a bad end when our flight out of HK, scheduled for 9pm, ended up getting delayed until after 2am, meaning that we didn't get back to Singapore until after 6am. Oh, the perils of being jetset.

Killing time on a luggage cart at HK airport

At this point our post is probably boring you to tears, so I'll stop writing and conclude with a few random photos that I didn't manage to weave into the storyline...