View over Hong Kong from the Peak

Yes, we are still alive after an almost two months break in blogging!

Lots of stuff have happened since we wrote last time which was right before we left Canada to go to Europe. This will give you a short synopsis of where we went after we departured Halifax:

Our first flight went to Iceland and Reykjavik. We stayed a week there and had a great time that included seeing the elusive northern lights, ride on Icelandic horses and getting slightly lost in the wilderness. We hope to be able to write a little more about our experiences on Iceland, so please check back soon as the entry will be added to the blog.

We left Iceland and flew straight to Sweden and Stockholm. Real winter weather greeted us and the two weeks we spent visiting Victoria's friends and relatives were quite cold and snowy. Christmas eve was celebrated Swedish style (complete with pickled herring, meatballs and Christmas ham) at Victoria's parents and the next morning we left for England just in time to make it to Christmas dinner at Robert's parents' house.

England was also quite chilly with some snow, so after a few weeks of travelling around the country to visit some of Robert's friends, we decided to spend a week in a warmer place. A week in Portugal in the Algarve region was warmer but a little rainy.

Back in England we soon left for another couple of weeks in Sweden before finalizing our travel plans for the Far East and Oceania. On Wednesday last week we left cold Europe for Asia as we boarded the plane destined for Asia. That takes us up to current time so here we go; blog is revived and we are in Hong Kong!

The thought of a 12 hour flight from London Heathrow is not really that exciting but we were off to a great start as we checked in and were told that Economy Plus, the class we had booked was full so they had to put us in Upper Class. Nice! White table cloths, three course dinner, and the best of all: comfy chairs that converted into flat beds! It is easy to understand why it's so hard to go back to economy after such a nice experience.

We landed in Hong Kong early evening and it was warm and humid. Around 25C which was a stark contrast to the -18C in Sweden. We made it safely to our hotel in Kowloon which is very nice. The whole city is decorated for Chinese New Year so lots of red lantens, flowers and red envelopes everywhere. Very pretty!

After a first sleepless night thanks to severe jetlag, we staggered out to explore the surroundings. There is a large flower market right outside the hotel and everybody is buying flowers for the New Year celebrations. It was a little of a clastrophobic experience to try to get through on the street. Robert was afraid he would lose Victoria in the sea of people. "Has anybody seen an Asian girl?" "She has black hair, brown eyes?" "No?"

Flower market. A little nuts!

Victoria checking out the local market. Feather bra anyone????

We spent the day somewhat aimlessly wandering around. We had this idea of getting tourist visas for China since we thought we might want to pop over to the mainland. With New Year coming up the visa office would be close for almost a week so today was the only day we could get them in order to pick them up before the weekend. After realizing that getting the visas through a travel agency is a complete rip off, we headed to the actual visa office itself. We made it there with five minutes to spare and were told that the visas could be picked up the next day. Instead of paying over $4000 HKD at the travel agency, going straight to the source 'only' cost us $1100.

The next day was also a bit of a daze since we still had severe jetlag and woke up at 3am unable to sleep any longer. We went back to the visa office to pick up our visas and that was an adventure in itself. We had to be there by 5pm in order to get them before the office closed for the long weekend. If we didn't make it we would be without passports until Wednesday next week so it was crucial to get there in time. Of course everything that could go wrong went wrong..... We took the train and thought we had set off with plenty of time to spare but when we arrived at the right station we only had 25 minutes left. Fifteen minutes to five we got to the visa office where they told us that we could only pay for the visas with cash. So off in a hurry to an ATM only to realize that Robert's credit card had been blocked since we have travelled in so many different countries. We used Victoria's cell phone (cost a fortune) to phone Robert's bank in the U.K who didn't really see the seriousness in our demand to have the block lifted right away. After almost having a heart attack we were able to get the cash and sprinted back to the visa office. Two minutes to five we got there to find that the staff had started to lock up the place. Thank goodness they were kind enough to let us in. But we were told that if we had been one minute later we would have had to come back next week! Phew!!!!!!

In the evening we met up with a friend of Robert who was very kind and took us to a really nice dinner. A few hours later and completely stuffed on delicious duck, fish, shrimp and dumplings, we headed to the Peak to have a nice panoramic look of Hong Kong. The weather had overnight changed from a warm and balmy 25C to about 13C so it was felt freezing when the night was falling.

Robert and our evening host David!

Both of us!

We spent the next day doing some more wandering around, visiting the zoo and a park in central Hong-Kong. The weather was still a bit chilly with a light misty rain.

Robert in the park

Our last full day in Hong-Kong we slept in and then went to see all the fancy hotels such as the Peninsula, the Conrad, Sheraton etc. Hong-Kong is definitely a place for anybody with lots of money!!!! We splurged with afternoon tea at the Conrad and Victoria went for a record in eating the most. Two plates of food, one bowl of congee, two plates of dessert later and in complete food coma, we took a cab back to the hotel for a nap and digestion.

Since it was Chinese New Year we definitely didn't want to miss the New Year parade so we headed out later in the evening. The parade was spectacular. Very well organized and lots of fun! We took lots of pictures and since they haven't been downloaded from the camera yet, please check back later as they will be added.

Red lanterns