China Light - Hongkong

Sorry for not posting anything in our blog for 3 weeks. What was the reason for that?

Yes, we were on vacation from travelling.

We spent 3 weeks in Southern California with relatives. In addition, I got a bad cold, when I arrived in California. Everybody just called me „Chief Running Nose“. At least now I know, why many Chinese people in Hongkong wear face masks. They are afraid of the running nose. I thought about convincing people in LA to wear those masks. But it probably would not go well with the police, because they think you are a gangster.

But anyway, we are back in business now (ready for our trip to Peru). So I will tell you about our short stay in Hongkong.

We had a wonderful last night in Bali, since nobody was allowed to turn on the lights and there was no traffic and noises. We sneaked over to the temple area next to our hotel and laid in front of the big temple with the wonderful pond and looked at the stars. A few times the religious guard walked by, but he did not say anything, since we didn’t talk loud and had no lights. We also talked to (whispered) a few other people which stayed with us in the hotel. I guess you listen much better to people if you cannot see their faces. So we heard some interesting stories. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you the stories because this blog posting is about Hong Kong. Most tourists we met in Bali came from the USA - Julia Roberts obviously did a great job in the movie “Eat, pray and love”.

Our flight in Bali was early in the morning and our taxi driver picked us up at 5:30 am. We were stopped once by a religious guard at 5:50 am, because Silent Day ends at 6am. The streets were eerily quiet! Other than that there was hardly any traffic and all the stores in the airport were still closed until 9am. 5 hours later (after we crossed the equator) we were in Hong Kong. Silent Day and closed stores? Definitely not in Hong Kong. 

Our friend Harald give us the challenge to find a crossing, where you look in all directions and cannot see a store. Sorry Harald, we did not succeed on this one. Hong Kong is the shopping city.

We had a very nice hotel. Michelle was impressed by green plants growing on the walls in the lobby, Uli was impressed by the free mobile phone we got and of the free minibar.

In the evening we went to a restaurant. I also found a Bavarian place, but Michelle insisted on a Chinese restaurant. We were the only non-Chinese people in the place. So we had a hard time ordering, since most of the waiters did not speak English. But Michelle did a great job and ordered some excellent food for us. It was also a cultural difference to Bali, where all the people are so friendly. The Chinese waiters don’t give you a smile or a word. They just throw the food on the table. It was perfect to overcome any kind of homesickness. Just like in a Munich restaurant.

After all the Hindu temples we checked out the Buddhist temple in Hongkong. We made offerings for all our friends and family. Michelle did that by lightning long yellow candles.

Hongkongian Buddhists visit this temple to pray for good grades for their children. There are two Buddhist gods next to each other. One is for martial arts the one for literature. Guess which one is for what?

Since we have so many kids it took us a long time and Michelle had a yellow face from all the special candles. And we both were dizzy from the smog in the temple.

Like every other tourist we had to drive up the Victoria Peak with the old cable train. From up there you have a great view of the city.

For lunch we went to the Aberdeen harbor. During the harbor tour we saw many small fishing and house boats between some Superyachts. 

Afterwards we went to the floating restaurant. They have real dumplings, which tasted excellent. Not quite Semmelknödel but yeast dumpling with lots of surprising sauces inside. It feels almost like you would get a big fortune cookie or one of Michelle’s famous Zwetschgenknödel.

In the evening we went to the Avenue of Stars, where you have a very nice view of the night skyline of HongKong. I also found a real star posing for me.

Michelle is posing like the other women in Hong Kong - with star allure

On our way back to the hotel we wanted to ride with public transportation, but the bus was stuck on top of a big hotel. So we decided to walk back. See if you can find the bus in the picture below.

All our kids made the long flight and met us there for Easter. We were so happy to see them all together. It was definetilly time for a family selfie during our walk to Box Spring Mountain.

Rock climbing kids in Box Springs California