Hong Kong was overwhelming. So much, so high: we only spend four days there, and that was enough, because after living in Seoul, city travel just isn't what a bunch of burnt out teachers are looking for.
So we spend four days before moving on, three in Hong Kong and one quick day-trip to Macau.
The buildings were high. So high: it was like taking two Kangnams and stacking them on top of each other. City busses were two stories, not for local color like in some cities, but just because there was no space, and they had to fit the people somewhere.
These apartment buildings were run-of-the-mill for Hong Kong. In Seoul, they'd be top two percent in height. They had buildings like these all the way up a mountainside.Christmas decorations.
We also took a bus up to the highest point on the island (Hong Kong's an island) and got some really nice photos.
The harbour was just unreal. Busiest in the world (for number of containers) - according to this page.
The trip to Macau involved some great Portugese food, a beer called Sagres, a fortress, and a casino.
We also climbed a hill to see a fortress, and in a playground, a few high-school students were blowing bubbles off the equipment. It was lovely.
Two highlights of the Hong Kong leg of the trip were the light show across the harbor, and the Sunday morning, special pink dolphin tour. You can learn more about the unique, pink dolphins here, and especially how to help protect their dwindling numbers. They're amazing animals, and meeting them was a wonderful experience, and even the tour guide said they really put on a show for us: we go really close, and saw two unique pods of them, along with two others later in the tour: a really rare turnout. You can watch some video here.
After that, we'd had enough of the city, and needed to get out of town.
HK was overwhelming, and expensive, too, though we had some of the best food of our entire trip during our time there.
Macanese food on the first night, wonderful duck at the night market, and good old British pub food at The Pickled Pelican, as well as the discovery of Tetley's beer, a really nice, drinkable beer that is exactly the same colour as Tetley's tea.
In Macau, we saw the remains of a cathedral, climbed the fortress hill, lost money at a casino, and sang silly versions of Christmas songs (we were there on December the 23rd). A lot of silliness took place during the trip... here's video of some of it... I'm just going to throw it on here without context, and explain parts of it as I go.
Warning: there is some potty mouth in the video. If hearing Roboseyo cuss, or seeing a video with cussing posted by Roboseyo will diminish your opinion of me...don't watch it.
