Spring Break in Hong Kong

My nephew and niece Karl and Anna

This is another guest post, this time written by my nephew and niece, Karl and Anna Maher. Karl is a senior at Northwestern University, majoring in Film.  Anna, a Vocal Performance graduate of James Madison University, is a singer and model living in Orono, MN. Although both have traveled abroad, neither of them had been to Asia before, so they chose to spend their spring break visiting us in Hong Kong.  We had a busy and fun week together, and although their flight left just a few hours ago, we miss them already.  This blog post was written by them and contains their photos from their week in Hong Kong.

From Karl:

The Ventian Hotel & Casino in Macau

Macau: On Thursday after a leisurely start to the morning, Anna and I walked down to the Macau/HK ferry terminal and made the trip across the water to the gambling paradise of China. At the urging of a mysterious looking David Beckham, we opted to take the free shuttle to The Venetian casino, and arrived at an outrageously overdecorated hotel in Taipa, a southern island of Macau. After meandering about the casino floor for a while, I opted to try my luck at roulette, bet twice on black, and lost my $20HK (about $2.50). To be fair, a fortune teller from the other night did say I shouldn't gamble, so I guess I was asking for it.  

Incense coils burn at a Macanese temple

With the tables clearly not going our way, we decided lunch was in order and hopped in a cab over to Old Town, a section of Macau yet un-Vegasized, with plenty of old Portuguese influence. We looked up a hole in the wall cafe on the internet with good reviews and had a delicious lunch. Afterwards we wandered aimlessly around Old Town, finding an incredible temple in the process, one of the three largest in Macau. We spent about an hour there before deciding it was time to get back to the ferry. We walked "kinda that way" until we managed to find our way back to the central strip of Macau and the ferry port. Returning to Hong Kong, we snagged some delicious pad thai from Thai on High and capped off the night at the apartment. A great end to a meandering and satisfying day.

Incense burns at a Macanese temple

Anna near the ferry terminal in Macau

From Anna:

Nan Lian Gardens

Since this was my first trip to Asia, I decided to come into Hong Kong with only a small amount of expectations. I wasn't sure if I would be walking onto a different planet, or a place where I could still find similarities despite enormous differences. I found both. Hong Kong provided plenty of differences to be a foreign city, but enough familiar moments for it to be comfortable even when we found ourselves lost (again). It is absolutely a city. The amount of people crammed into this small island is absurd. High rise apartments are practically the only apartments around, and people are even buried in a sort of tiered cemetery system. It's as busy as New York, as hilly as San Francisco, and probably has the population of both combined, times two. The language barrier was less of a problem than imagined, as most Hong Kongers speak at least the basics of English. I'm usually someone who likes to get some basics down for the language I'd about to be immersed in, but Cantonese is a completely different animal than the romance languages I've been so exposed to. Something that struck me from the very first day were the temples and shrines that were about as plentiful as Starbucks in New York. Whether completely overwhelming like the temples at the Chi Lin Nunnery, Ngong Ping or Ten Thousand Buddhas, or the little unassuming shrines that dotted street corners and hid under staircases in the city - there was always a peacefulness to them, as if kneeling or sitting in 

Incense sticks burn at Po Lin Monastery

front of them could wipe out the noise and chaos of the city and tourists and put you in a more reflective state. There was also plenty of incense that accompanied the temples and shrines, which made me miss burning it myself. Karl and I both ended up picking up a pack of the standard incense being burned at all the temples we had been to. The smell is rich and incredibly calming (at least for me). 

Food was, of course, the major highlight for us. Americanized versions of foreign regional cuisine is a huge pet peeve of mine, and I relished the idea of having Asian cuisine so close to its roots. Chinese food, in and of itself, is not something I've ever really had a zeal for (unlike some of my college friends), but I was most looking forward to dim sum, since dumplings are absolutely one of my top favorite foods. Tim Ho Wan, a Michelin star rated dim sum place (with unbelievably cheap prices) was literally our first meal here, and it did not disappoint. One of the things I really loved about Hong Kong was the incredible variety of good regional cuisines you could find. Aside from sushi and dim sum and the like, we found an amazing French cafe in Stanley, some good Vietnamese on the Peak, excellent Indian in Central, Japanese ramen that did NOT come from a cup or plastic bag,  simple Portuguese in Macau (appropriately), and pad thai, another one of my all time favorites. We actually got take out from a Thai place down the road and brought it back while Carolyn was out at a business dinner. Obviously, some of the best pad thai I've ever had. We also managed to snag high tea at a restaurant on the top floor of a very tall building with very very very fancy food and very very very fancy bathrooms (and a very, very, VERY nice wine cellar, though that was regretfully not explored). 

Ramen at Ippudo

Vietnamese chicken salad

Something I personally found interesting was the extreme interest in luxury the Chinese culture

Inspecting Banyan Trees
on the Peak Circle Walk

seems to have. There are a LOT of extremely nice cars here. We saw a handful of both Ferrari and Lamborghini, as well as numerous Bentleys, Rolls Royces, a couple of Maserati, Porsches... you get the idea. If it wasn't a car that would put you in debt, it was a reasonably standard Toyota or Hyundai that had been completely reworked with after-market paint jobs, spoilers, and body kits. Karl and I both remarked at how utterly unnecessary things like the spoilers were, as well as how useless a car like a Lambo or Ferrari would be in a city environment such as this one. They are purely symbols. All this heavy emphasis on the expensive is also reflected in the sheer amount of high fashion designer stores there are in the area, as well as on other islands like Macau. Keep in mind, I'm talking about the same city where Karl and I both bought some lovely knockoff Ray Bans (affectionately dubbed "Faux Bans") for roughly $6.50, and passed by numerous stalls hawking knockoffs of all kinds - from Rolex (Fauxlex) to Abercrombie flip flops. An amusing juxtaposition. Selfie sticks (yes) were as common as pigeons, and taking selfies was a top priority for any Asian tourist. We admittedly had some fun ridiculing the practice.

Most of all, I am just absolutely and totally grateful for my lovely Aunt for hosting us and both showing us around, and sending us off on our own to fend for ourselves. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for our wonderful vacation.