Free Time in Hong Kong

Sigh, it's already the last day of my trip, I just can't believe it. Where did the time go. (Probably it went to the same place all my pocket money went.)

I had so much I wanted to accomplish today in Hong Kong, and just not enough time to get it all done.

Cultural Kaleidoscope

The first thing I knew I wanted to do today, was take a free class in Tai Chi, which is organized by the Hong Kong Tourism Board. The bummer is that the class was at 8:00 in the morning, meaning another early wake up call. For about 10 minutes I lay in bed, smacking the snooze button, but eventually did get up all motivated to make the most of my day.

The class was quite fun, in a lovely location by the Hong Kong Museum of Art, overlooking the Hong Kong Harbor. (Here, quite foggy, but still a lovely view.)

After an hour of light exercise, and learning about the history of Tai Chi, I caffeine loaded with a quick stop at Starbucks and then head out to my favorite part of Hong Kong, taking a ferry across to Hong Kong island.

I headed out to test out the Hong Kong mid-levels escalator, a half-mile system of escalators and moving walkways that is reportedly the second-largest escalator system in the world. The system takes you through some cool and funky areas in Hong Kong, eventually dropping you in a mostly residential district, a 20-minute walk from the Zoo & Botanical gardens. Despite walking nearly 35 minutes, I'd gotten so turned around that I never found the zoo, so eventually I headed back for my down hill trek back to the harbor. (The walkway only goes one direction.)

I walked through some very cool neighborhoods, and only wish I had more time to explore. My one emergency bathroom stop, ended in a public restroom, which I was concerned about. But, Western bathrooms in this building were plentiful, and the place was clean to boot.

Running short on time, I took the ferry back across to Kowloon, knowing the afternoon would be spent in pursuit of higher arts education. Wednesday's are free admission days to all of Hong Kong's museums.

First I stopped at the Science Museum. With the whole math major thing, I just can't pass up a science museum. It was pretty well geared to children, but I still found myself spending more time here than expected. Of particular fun were the numerous brain teaser puzzles. I spent nearly an hour trying to figure them all out, much to the delight of one Chinese docent, who followed me around to see which puzzles I could complete. She was quite thrilled, and actually applauded me when I got some on the first try. (If only she knew that many of those puzzles were standard fare in my math classes.)

The photo, here, is of a Chinese sailing ship, which is used at the museum to demonstrate the principals of wind force on sail boats. Quite a cool demonstration.

Hong Kong History Museum

At the suggestion of Lilly, the guide we had on yesterday's city tour, I then went to the Hong Kong History Museum. I'm not so much a museum person, I find many of them tiring after about the first hour, but not so for this museum.

I would go so far as to say that this should be a MUST SEE part of everyone's Hong Kong itinerary. I spent hours here, and could have easily stayed longer. Every room had life-size recreations of true life situations in Hong Kong's past. From the pre-historic age, to modern day Hong Kong, the recreations included life on a Sampan, a recreation of a 1950s tea house, an herbal medicine shop, just to name a very few. Here you see a recreation of a Chinese wedding.

This museum took you step by step through Hong Kong's colorful history, and truly made learning fun. (I know I sound like a spoiled kid, but the place was amazing.)

Now approaching 5 pm, I decided to head back to the hotel for a short rest. I'd been on my feet since nearly 8 this morning, and was starting to feel the burn. At the hotel, I just couldn't resist having an ice mocha and a chocolate truffle cake from the hotel lobby and carrying it to my room. The cake was so very yummy.

The weather had cleared a little bit, and I was able to snap this lovely view shot from my hotel room, while inhaling the chocolate cake.

Despite all that sugar and caffeine, I took a nice long nap, and really only woke up around 8 pm. I'd been toying with the idea of taking a harbor cruise, as I'd wanted to see the Hong Kong night time light show, but my concierge had recommended against it, telling me that the fog might preclude having a great view. At any rate, my nap kind of took care of that.

My plan was to go to Temple Street that night, to enjoy the night market and the open-air food market, but at 8:00 pm I no longer had the energy or the desire to set out on a new adventure. Instead I wandered around my neighborhood, stopping at a chain restaurant known as Maxim's.

Here I enjoyed a delicious final dinner, which included a BBQ platter (roast crispy pork, and roast goose) followed by a steamed crab stuffed with glutinous rice. (No that isn't gluttonous, although with as much as I ate, it probably should have been.)

Despite my desire to extend my final night, I pretty much crashed out right away.

The following morning I woke up raring to go, but with a 9:50 pick up time, there wasn't much for me to do, but try to fit all my Disney merchandise in my luggage and head over to the airport.

The trip has been an amazing one, and I just can't believe it is already time to go back. I'm already counting the days until I can return to Asia and do it all again.

(Of course I'm also looking forward to coming home and getting started on my Sake research.)