When I landed in Shanghai post Uganda, I was shocked to see the airport that empty. Regardless of the time we’ve landed, there has always been a line at immigration at least 30 people deep, this time there were maybe 5 people in front of me- all from my flight.
It was a surreal experience that would set the stage for our next trip and the next nine months (so far).
I got home and I was just so thrilled to see the boys, that first day/night is a bit of a blur. I know we did some unpacking and repacking, Alex got his souvenirs from Uganda, which we put aside because he’d have plenty of time to look at them when we got back from the family trip. We have been wanting to go to Hong Kong for a while now, but the timing was never right- given that there were less tourists this year due to protesting, we decided that this was our moment.
This was Jan 26th, when we were all just hearing about Covid and wondering what affect it was going to have on us in Haining. We went on our trip anyway, but bought masks to wear on the airplane just to be on the safe side. The airport wasn’t as busy as usual and we didn’t have a full flight to Hong Kong, which I don’t think would be the case under normal circumstances.
When we got to Hong Kong, we hopped on the train that takes you from the airport to the main section of down town. The ride there is really beautiful and you get to look out the windows and see some amazing countryside.
We were staying a smaller hotel on a busy street, the benefit of that being that we were walking distance to the metro line- which was a lot important given that I was still limping everywhere we went. The first night we checked in to the hotel, they took our temperatures and then sent us on our merry way. When we went down in the morning, a table had been set up with disposable masks, hand sanitizer and a thermometer- and every time in or out they would take our temps and write that down with our room number. It wasn’t a big deal yet and we were kind of joking around about it but we followed the rules and we kept our masks on all day while we were out.
The downside to all this is that big attractions in Hong Kong kept closing due to covid- museums, Hong Kong Disney (let me tell you how heartbroken Mark was not) New Year’s festivals. So we decided to make the best of what was still open and have our best possible time.
First stop was to a bagel shop (we’re nothing if not predictable) It was a cute little shop and not terribly busy when we were there .
It had kind of a New York Subway type vibe to it.
This next picture is one of the last ones without Face masks on in public, the rest of the trip is our faces covered (which isn’t always a bad thing).
Alex got a plain bagel with plain cream cheese and was very happy with his choice (he has since ventured out quite a bit on bagel flavors)
Mark is also a plain bagel guy, but his sandwich was really good.
I was pleasantly surprised although it was a little ungainly to eat.
After the bagel shop stop, we walked around the shopping area down town. We weren’t looking for anything in particular but found a Marks and Spencers to pop in. Its a UK store that I didn’t get a chance to go to in Liverpool, but it’s similar to a Target in the US in so much as it has clothes for men women and children, groceries, but not so much electronics or household goods type stuff. We ended up getting Alex some clothes there since they fit him a bit better than some things we can find in China.
I liked seeing the double decker skinny trolleys, they reminded me of the Knight Bus from Harry Potter.
They had a Five Guys in Hong Kong, we didn’t go eat there but it was weird to see a US company out of the blue like that. Hong Kong had a lot of amazing food options, you could be there for weeks and not have to have the same thing twice.
The boys were the most excited by Ichiran, the Japanese Ramen place that was their favorite spot in Japan. This wasn’t 100% the same as the ramen in Tokyo but I think I was the only one who noticed.
Those are some happy ramen faces. The big plus was we waited an hour to eat at Ichiran in Tokyo , and almost walked right in here in HK.
That is an amazing bowl of rameny goodness right there, a little spice added, but I forgot to add extra garlic and green onions.
We knew when we were getting ready to leave for HK that there were still protests going on, and I thought a lot about how to deal with it as a tourist and how I was going to reflect on it here on the blog. We didn’t see any protests going on, partially because we avoided the areas that they were planned for or that we knew had happened the day before– but we were crossing a bridge to get to something and saw this from up there.
We saw very little graffiti, although some stickers on walls- I thought a lot about what we would do if we happened across the protests- as a Mom I don’t think I could watch kids get beat back by police, but I didn’t have to test my nerves on it. There will be more on this in a later post and I’ll hopefully have a better response to the importance of this issue.
We went to a famous place Mark found called Duck &Waffles, there is a clear duck theme here.
Duck topiaries and egg lights, the theme ran deep.
We picked a goat cheese bread starter, which was good, but there was significantly more bread than cheese- my preference would always lean the other direction.
I had this lovely fish over peas and vegetables, it was so tasty, I would get that again in a heart beat!
Alex got a very fancy sushi served on a salt block, he was a little underwhelmed by the amount of food but it was very delicious.
He was also a little excited at being in a fancy ish restaurant as the youngest person around that we saw.
Mark’s duck & waffle, the signature dish. He was very happy with it and I think would recommend it to anyone who went there. So far so good on our HK vacation!
Traveling Expat Family 