Our 1st Anniversary - In Hong Kong!

So with our newlywed year coming to a close, we thought what better way to celebrate our 1st Anniversary than with an unforgettable trip to the most recognized metropolitan city in this hemisphere - Hong Kong!


Our anniversary, June 30th, fell on a Saturday this year, and Hong Kong is only a 4 hour flight from Tokyo (via Taipei, Taiwan), so it was a relatively easy weekend getaway! We got there on Friday night, so soon after checking into our Hotel on the Kowloon Peninsula (the north side of Hong Kong), we decided to head out to the waterfront and catch the skyline view at night. Little did we know that every night, both sides of the city put on a laser light show; according to the Guinness Book of World Records, it's the largest single laser light show in the world - almost every building takes part! And to top it off, on Fridays, it's choreographed to music. We really lucked out with our timing!
Saturday consisted of the usual sightseeing, starting with the Star Ferry ride across Victoria Harbor to the Hong Kong side of the city, from Kowloon. The weather was rainy on and off, so we intended on going to the Stanley Market, thinking it was a closed shopping area, then to Victoria's Peak to get the famous view of the city.
Here is Cicely at Stanley's Market. So much for staying out of the rain. As it turned out, the market was nothing more then an open air Chinatown type place. On the plus side, it was a lot cheaper then the 5th Avenue type upscale stores in the city. We found a couple of souvenirs and decided to head out so that we wouldn't miss our dinner reservations. It may seem like we didn't do much during the day, but much of it was spent in transit; although Hong Kong is easy [and cheap] to travel around (whether by bus, taxi, subway or ferry), it's touristy spots are always on opposite ends of the island, so you need to factor in travel time with your plans.


Based on a recommendation from our Frommer's travel Guide, we made dinner reservations at a restaraunt called Petrus. It's a hoity-toity French place on the 56th floor of the Island Shangri-La Hotel on the Hong Kong Side of the city. Let me say that we definitely paid for the view. This picture was taken after our dinner, and although the service was impeccable, the atmosphere was not the pizza shop atmosphere Cicely and I are accustomed to. The portions were tiny, and the food was, well, French. One more reason for me to not like France. I will say this, it was very romantic. Which is why Frommer's recommended it. As for pricing, well, we could've gone to Ruth's Chris for a nice juicy steak. Three times. Both of us. Live and learn!
The dessert on the left is what we had at Petrus, the ice cream on the right was a surprise from our waiter at dinner the night before, at the aforementioned Ruth's Chris.

Here we are in the lobby of our hotel, the Langham Hotel Kowloon. It was a very nice 5 star hotel.










On Sunday, we headed back across the water to get to the tram that takes you up to Victoria's Peak for the famous view of the entire city. It's the steepest tram in the world, and if you can tell from the picture on the right, we're almost vertical on that thing.



At first, we thought that the overcast day would ruin our view, but the clouds add a certain surreal effect to the pictures. Don't ya think?


We decided to take the bus back down the mountain instead of the tram. The combination of a double decker bus, and a narrow winding wet road, made for an almost roller coaster of a ride! As we got back down to the city, we ran into a parade starting.

Remember that good timing I mentioned earlier? Well, we didn't realize when we booked our tickets for the weekend, but July 1st was the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's return back to China from Great Britain in 1997 - which explained why the city was all decked out that weekend.



We then headed to the marina district to hop on a ferry to Jumbo, the world's largest floating restaraunt.


After a quick snack of Dim Sum at Jumbo, we headed back to our hotel to beat the crowds that were sure to form for the 10th Anniversary fireworks.

We did get right in the middle of the crowded streets of Kowloon for the fireworks, and stayed for the beginning - much like the light show, every building in Hong Kong was shooting fireworks from their roof!

The picture on the left was taken from the crowd outside; we then wised up and realized that the view from our room was just as good, but more comfortable! (picture on the right)

For our final hurrah in Hong Kong, we decided to take advantage of our hotel's amentities, so we checked out the rooftop pool....we should've gone the first day we checked in - in fact, we realized we could've enjoyed the fireworks from the pool! Oh well, maybe for Hong Kong's 20th anniversary....