Hello Hong Kong!

Lay Ho! After a quick and easy plane ride, we arrived on the Chinese island of Macau (formerly under Portuguese rule). We grabbed our belongings and hoped on board a bus, headed towards the centre of the island. Our plan was to spend only one day in Macau, so we quickly found a place to put our bags (not the nicest of places, let me tell you!) and then we were off to explore the city. As you may or may not know, Macau is considered to be the“Vegas of the East”, so there wasn't too much to do other than pop in and out of the many casinos and see what they had to offer. We explored about six of them, we came to the realization that they were all more or less the same, we decided that we might as well call it an evening. We headed back to our hotel and packed it in for the night. The next morning we woke up early and boarded the turbojet leaving from Macau to Hong Kong. After a fast yet smooth one hour ride, we skimmed our way to Hong Kong Island. With our packs on our backs we then proceeded to make our way over to Kowloon Island, just a subway ride away, to find ourselves a hotel for the next few nights. After about an hour of lugging our over-sized rucksacks around we found the “beautiful” Mirador Mansions. We made our way to the 14th floor and set up in a very, very small room. Having just come from South East Asia, where you can get a really great room for cheap, this small, overpriced room blew our minds. Nonetheless, we decided to make the most of our time in Hong Kong. We headed out for the evening and spent the night wondered around the streets in the pouring rain (wet... but worth it!). The next morning, despite the rain, we were up with the best intentions of seeing more of Hong Kong. We made our way throughout the northern Kowloon Peninsula and enjoyed the sites. By evening we made our way to the “Avenue of the Stars” where we saw the handprints of many famous Chinese Movie Stars (although we only recognized a few of them). That night we made it to the night market, and met up with our friend Xue, who we had previously met on our Halong Bay adventure in Vietnam. On our last full day in the city we were up early and ready for adventure. With clear skies and no rain on the forecast, we made our way to Victoria Peak, the highest peak in Hong Kong which overlooks the Hong Kong Harbour. We took the tram up, got our photos, and then decided to walk down (not the best of ideas). We spent the rest of the day exploring parts of Hong Kong Island and we were back at the Victoria Peak Tram again at night to do it all over again, and the view at night is even better! We enjoyed our time in Hong Kong. The energy of the city was a nice change from the relaxed pace of Southeast Asia. Our first encounter with China was great and we only hope that the best is yet to come!