Hong Kong Part I

Hello everyone!

Kaelin and I have returned from Hong Kong for a very short stop over in Singapore before we are off to Thailand tomorrow evening. We had a good time in Hong Kong despite the "cold" weather: it was around 20C and we had to wear pants and everything.

This is going to be mostly a photo dump, with promises of interesting stories to come tomorrow (or later) from myself and Kaelin.

First of all, the rooms in Hong Kong are tiny. There is a proper picture showing one of us as a scale measure, but since I neglected to upload it, I shall instead give you Kaelin in her bed in one of the first hostels we stayed in:

So much room!

While in Hong Kong we went to a bunch of street markets, including the night market on Temple Street and they were all quite cool. It really is an amazing experience, and if any of you ever get the chance then I highly suggest checking out a street market. The prices are dead cheap and there's always something interesting to see.

Crowd of people at the night market

Anyone want a spiky backpack?

So many colours absolutely everywhere.

There were also some specialty markets, including a flower market that I will let Kaelin talk about, but of which I will show you teaser picture

So many flowers for so little money!

There was also a goldfish market, which I thought was totally random. It was quite intriguing and far more popular than I thought it would be.

I felt bad for the fish in their little plastic bags

I dragged Kaelin to an antique market that sold a wide variety of things:

From "antiques"...

...to dinosaur eggs.

 We also made a point of checking out Giant Buddha and the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery. Both were very cool, but required climbing a lot of steps: 268 to the Giant Buddha and 431 to the monastery.

"That doesn't look so bad..."

It really does tower over you at the top.

No Canadian landmarks, but it is 12968km from the Statue of Liberty

Had to go down a sketchy back alley to find the base of the steps

So many Buddhas and that's not even at the top

After all that culture we decided we needed some fun and so went to Happy Valley Racecourse on a Wednesday night. Horse racing is insanely popular in Hong Kong with masses of people gathering at not only the racecourse, but also at Jockey Club buildings all over town to watch the races. Kaelin and I bet on three races and both of us won money on two of the three. I even won back all my money and entrance fee on one horse. Go Diamond Rainbow, go! And yes, I might just pick my horses based on their names...

Horsey go zoom!

We also went Ocean Park where we saw pandas! Real, live pandas! I was in heaven and took a million pictures, but will limit what I post here to one picture of a giant panda and one of a red panda

"Om nom nom, bamboo"

"Om nom nom, leaves that are also quite possibly bamboo"

And finally, since they bring me such joy I present to you pictures of Kaelin with statues, a tradition we continued while in Hong Kong, mostly at Ocean Park.

"Pretend like it's going to chop you head off!"

"Be one with the weird plant."

"Pretend like he's going to eat you!" Slapp

 

 

"Love that seal!"

"Tadah!"

"Play hopscotch!"

"Pretend that he's pushing the box onto you!"

And finally,

Me with the cutest little zebras ever. I just love their little hooves.

There was so much more to Hong Kong and one or other or both of us will hopefully update you on it tomorrow before we're off to Thailand for the next leg of our adventure, but if not then we'll be sure to put something up after we're back from that.