Hong Kong!

For this Chinese New Year, I went to Hong Kong. It was a really interesting experience, and it was a ton of fun. It was really nice to be in a big city and see lots of other foreigners for a change. I forgot what it was like to meet new people that spoke English and could understand me. I did a lot of walking and seeing a lot of different things on my trip. I ate all the foods I've missed so much, had a lot of fun with great people, and enjoyed the really nice warm weather. Here’s a few pictures and some descriptions/highlights of what I did and saw in Hong Kong:

When we got off the plane, we had to take a bus ride from that island to the place we were staying. We stayed in a hotel room at a place called Chungking Mansion. It was the craziest place to experience. Before we even stepped foot in the building, people were trying to sell us drugs and calculators and SIM cards and a million other things. In this building, the first floor was all people selling a myriad of things, and our hotel was on the 10th floor. It was a really tiny room. I was staying there with two of my friends. The bathroom was the worst part. It smelled AWFUL the whole time. And the shower is on top of the toilet. I've heard its pretty common to not have a separate space for showering, but I had never seen that before.

The view from the bus

Miriam in our tiny hotel room

The worst bathroom ever

After that craziness, we decided we needed to get some drinks. We went to an Irish pub near the mansion, and there we met up with other friends we knew were there and made some new ones. I ended up at a Nigerian dance club. It was an insane first night there. 

Miriam and I

Some friends outside Murphy's Irish Pub

Nathan Road at night

The next day, a lot of stuff was going on for Chinese New Year. The streets were so crowded for this parade that was going on. We couldn't really see any of the parade because there were so many people.

Miriam, Marisa, and I

Crowds

More crowds

The next day, my friends and I ate dim sum for breakfast. Dim sum is really popular in Hong Kong. It's a type of dumpling. After that, we went to a huge, beautiful park called Kowloon Park in the midst of all the skyscrapers in the city. It was really beautiful. 

Year of the Horse

Dim Sum

More Dim Sum

Kowloon Park

Fountain at Kowloon Park

Kowloon Park

Hong Kong is so beautiful

Flamingo Pond at Kowloon Park

We spent forever watching the turtles swim around

After that, we walked around that part of the town looking for some places to shop. Almost everything was closed because it was during Chinese New Year, but we ended up finding some cool stuff to see anyway.

The City

A park in the city for resting

Miriam and I

Miriam, Marisa, and I

A temple

Outside the temple

They had these cute little things outside everywhere

 

While walking around, we found this place called Hong Kong Avenue of Comic Stars. It was really funny.

 Instead of making this blog post miles long, I'm going to break it up in parts. Check out part 2 for more!