Travel: Hong Kong Snapshot

The first stop on our April 2016 vacation. Hong Kong is home to more than 7 million people and believe me, it feels like it. The city streets are busy and it’s full of red cabs much like New York City is full of yellow taxis.

We did a lot in the two nights and three days we were there – we were on Lantau Island, the mainland, Kowloon, Tsim Sha Tsui, and made our way to Hong Kong Island and saw Central and Soho. The weather was foggy and tropical like for most of our entire time in Hong Kong – it rained, but not the kind of rain we’re used to in Canada. It was more like a mist and the air seemed full of rain, rather than rain falling from the sky. Strange, I know.

Hong Kong Snapshot

You can see in the photo below how humid it is – the lights aren’t very crips and there seems to be this haze. Believe me, it was a challenge to get some good photos in this sub-tropical environment. It was, however, so much fun to visit Hong Kong.

I don’t want to give too much away in this little snapshot, yet I have so much to share. The tiny hotel we stayed in, well, more of a guesthouse, really, was so tiny. No windows and the shower was in the toilet area, which is to be expected in much of Asia. Still, certainly an experience nonetheless.

The one challenge in Hong Kong was eating, since I’m a Celiac. Most Chinese cuisine contains gluten in some form, even if it’s just soy sauce. I made a few travel cards, yet for some reason I was too hesitant to use them in Hong Kong. We visited one restaurant and I asked if any of their vegetarian items had gluten. The manager showed me the vegetable page – and one dish had pork! How is that vegetarian? Needless to say, we didn’t eat there. The best part was using the ferry in the early morning with the locals. Not another tourist in sight. We are early risers and on Friday we were out the door at 6:15am to catch the second ferry from Kowloon to Central. It was quick and only cost $2.00 HKD which is about 33 cents Canadian.

Overall, we had a blast in Hong Kong and I’m so happy we visited the city a bit before making our way into Southeast Asia.

Thanks for visiting and I’ll share more when we’re back in Canada. Next stop, Bangkok! Here we come Thailand.