Hong Kong: The Fam Comes to Asia! // 家人来到了香港

This trip with my parents was my third time to Hong Kong, and although I knew of some good locations to visit, I had never before navigated the city on my own! So it was as equally an adventure for me as it was for my parents. Hong Kong’s main language is Cantonese, followed by English, so thankfully we were able to navigate quite easily. We stayed in Tsim Sha Tsui, in a very convenient location in Hong Kong, and were able to easily access all parts of the city. To get them familiar with the surroundings, the very first day in Hong Kong we explored the flower market, bird market, and jade market along Nathan Road, the popular main road in Kowloon. Here we could really see the normal daily lives of people who live here. The flower market was beautiful and catching sight of all the song birds was really cool! My Mom loves birds so this was of course a “must-see”.

Their first true Chinese meal in Asia… Sichuan food! They loved the spicy. And for dinner we went to a recommended restaurant for Peking Duck. First day in and already experiencing the good stuff!

Day three in Hong Kong and after some morning business meetings, we headed to Stanley Market and Repulse Bay on the other side of the island. As we were in the taxi making our way, the sun suddenly appeared from behind the clouds and we were fortunate to finally enjoy some warm rays and sunshine. It was nice to get out of the city and enjoy the relaxing beach surroundings. Not to mention, Repulse Bay is one of my favorite parts of Hong Kong because of all of the creative and colorful statues of animals, deities and cultural relics.

That afternoon, we headed back to Central HK for another meeting and just afterwards, we made our way up to Victoria Peak. The weather had been foggy and overcast ever since we arrived so we were keeping our fingers crossed that the weather would stay clear for us so we could have a good view of the city! Amazingly, we were able to catch an awesome view just 10 minutes before a huge cloud came in and shrouded the mountain in fog!! We were so lucky! It was a miracle.

We got dinner at the peak and hoped that maybe the weather would clear up so we could have a view of the city all lit up at night, but unfortunately we weren’t THAT lucky. Anyways, it was a great day and I was really happy my parents could see how beautiful Hong Kong is. The perfect combination of mountains, city and the sea.

Afterwards, I took them to Lan Kwai Fong, a popular drinking street, but they were nearly falling asleep at the table, so we returned home soon after. Needless to say, I was missing my friends a little bit at this time!!

For our last day in Hong Kong we ventured away from the main island all the way to Lantau to see the famous Tian Ta Buddha statue. It took us about an hour to get there by metro and we got to take a cable car to the main attraction area. However, unexpectedly, while we were in the cable car going around the side of a mountain, we entered into a huge cloud and got pounded by winds passing over the mountain. Everything was white and you could literally hear the gushing wind around us. That was a little freaky as we were at least 100ft in the air! We all felt relieved as we reached the terminal and were on our own two feet again. We made our way to the Buddha statue, and again literally as we were walking up the steps, we were suddenly blessed by beautiful blue skies!

It was time to say goodbye to Hong Kong for now. After 4 days of adventures, we were finally shaking the jet lag and I was very much ready to Shanghai, my second home. My parents kept saying that they never thought they’d see the day they would enter the PRC. I was just thinking of how much fun they were going to have or if by the end of it they would just think I was crazy for living in CHINA!