Over Christmas break, I had the wonderful opportunity to travel with the juniors and seniors of my school on their jr/sr trip to Hong Kong. We went to Hong Kong and Macau and were gone for a total of 8 days. It was a great trip and I saw so many new things and ate some GREAT food! The culture over there is completely different than that of Japan. Japan is very polite, quiet, and welcoming. Even in Tokyo, a major city, people are warm and friendly. In Hong Kong it was very different... it is a very aggressive culture. I told my students (who were in culture shock) that our theme song/cheer for the week should be "Be aggressive, be, be agressive!" The people that we encountered were nice, but not as willing to bend over backward for other people like in Japan.
Between the 7 of us that went on the trip we took over 2,000 pictures... the majority of which were mine. It was very difficult to narrow down in order to make this blog post. So... there are still about 60 pictures in this post... which is great considering it was an 8 day trip and I am a picture fanatic (blame my mom). If you would like to see a more complete picture album of the trip (or any of my blog posts for that matter) click the links on the right side of my blog, they correspond with events I have blogged about and will take you to my facebook picture albums.
Ok here goes:
Day 1 - We took the subway system and attempted to get visas to get into China for later in our trip. However, it was going to be way more expensive than we had originally thought and was taking way more time and effort than was worth for the one day we were planning on going into China. So we made the decision to go to Hong Kong Disneyland instead of China. After reaching that decision we did a little exploring of the city and took a ferry to "The Peak" which overlooks Hong Kong.
View of a street in Hong Kong. Because Hong Kong is such a small region, most people live in these high rise apartment buildings and very few people live in actual homes.
This was a restaurant we kept passing, if you notice, there is a picture of a cooked chicken with the head still on it on the very top banner. Those chickens were hanging in the windows to prove that the meat was fresh.
We went to a produce market that had a tone of vegetables, flowers, and meat. There was a section that you could go to get fresh chicken... as fresh as fresh can be. You literally pick a live chicken out of the selection, they take it in the back, kill and pluck it, and bring it back out to you to take home. They also sold the organs of different animals that they were selling the meat to, including this goat head and heart. A little disgusting to me but it is just a part of the culture there.
Elisa, Sarah, Ejay, and Timothy on the subway.
Miss Yu, Chris, and me on the subway
We made it to "The Peak." From here we took a train to the very top and enjoyed the beautiful view.
getting used to the exchange rate was very interesting! right now 1 US dollar is equal to about 7.7 Hong Kong dollars. Food was really cheap but we always felt like we were paying a lot!
At the Peak, there was a wax museum... this is me with a sumo wrestler
Elvis and Me... just chilling at the wax museum.
Sarah and Ejay with the royal family
After we thoroughly toured the wax museum... it was dark enough to really enjoy the lights of the city from the top of the Peak.
Day 2 - We went to the Electronics district and the Hong Kong Science Center
Miss Yu's mom (Miss Yu is the teacher that coordinated the trip) made us breakfast. It was all very delicious. My favorite were those puffy white things in the styrofoam box... they had BBQ pork inside... MMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmm!!!! I crave them all the time now!
electronics district.
it was very dusty... and there were a lot of people. most of the people I was traveling with were wearing one so I decided to give in to the peer pressure and try it out. I hated it, and the whole mask-trial-event lasted about as long as it took to take this picture.
get any size remote you want... and even any size remote you don't want!
bead store. pretty sweet!
after the electronics district we headed to the science museum... there were fun mirrors and optical illusions.
hahahahaha... this was fun!
Mei-Lee and I in front of the decorated buildings
we watched the Christmas Symphony of Lights over the water... the only problem is that we couldn't hear the corresponding symphony because we had no way to tune in to the radio station that was playing it. But it was a cool light show and being a music person I could imagine what it sounded like... fun little music exercise for me. :)
Day 3 - Ocean Park
Me with the students in front of the Ocean Park entrance
the park was built on a hill... therefore we had to take these super long escalators to every section of the park.
Mei-Lee happened to snap this picture of me on one of the rides... pretty cool.
Timothy, Mei-Lee, and Chris playing a carnival game
creepy palm reading thing... reminded me of some statues I saw in Italy.
Gondolas down the mountain to the other side of the park. Mei-Lee and I made all the students go in one together and we went in a separate one ourselves... it was fun to hear the reports of who got freaked out on the other side.
the other side of the park, our view from the gondolas
Day 4 - More Hong Kong exploring and Noah's Ark
walking around Hong Kong
Noah's Ark
This is a museum and hotel that is also a to-scale model of Noah's Ark. It was pretty cool!
Day 5 - Hong Kong Disneyland!!! We originally were going to go to China this day but decided to go to Hong Kong Disneyland instead when the visas got too complicated to get in the amount of time we had. This was on Christmas Day and Mei-Lee stayed back to spend some time with her family... I was able to share my love of Disney with my students, it was a lot of fun!
The students in front of the entrance!
notice how they aren't super excited yet... they were really tired and couldn't see what the big deal was about Disneyland. just wait. the pics get better.
waiting for the parade to start
Ejay and I waiting for the parade
I have a picture in the same pose with this same Indian guy in California... I couldn't resist
the parade!
Sarah thoroughly enjoying the parade and the fake snow
Now see their excitement? It went up like 300% after the parade... they caught the Disney spirit.
On It's A Small World Ride - Ejay posed in front of her native language
we look so hot in our 3D glasses!
we got to watch the castle light up... it looked so pretty!
they were sad to leave... which means I did my job!
Day 6 - Macau
on the ferry on the way to Macau
more high-rise apartment buildings that most people live in over there
In a square in Macau with our host. Notice the European look of everything. Macau was a Portuguese colony before it became an independent district of China. Being there made me want to go back to Europe.
In front of an old catholic church
At a traditional portuguese meal, everything was great!
Macau is the Las Vegas of Southeast Asia... this is our group in front of the Venetian Casino
Inside the Venetian
the students were so impressed with everything. lol. I told them that at some point in their lives they should try to make it to Europe and experience the real versions of everything they were impressed with.
Day 7 - Second day in Macau and journey back to Hong Kong
We ate at this tiny place on the side of the road... I think it may have been my favorite meal of the entire trip... it was delicious and very cool to eat at a local spot. The table and "chairs" cracked me up... the stools were tiny.
coke from a bottle and super long orange chopsticks. awesome.
at lunch with our guide from Teen Challenge Macau
Our group!
After making it back to Hong Kong we hit up the local shopping area as a last stop before heading back to Okinawa in the morning. I came back with a few new pairs of shoes. :)
Our last meal in Hong Kong...
