Being Momma G: Day 110

Jonathan and I played tourist today, and we didn't even see half of Hong Kong!

We set off from the hotel, bright and early, ready to spend the whole day sightseeing in Hong Kong. We had seen ads for the Big Bus Tour, and as we had previously enjoyed tours on double decker buses during our trip to New York City, we thought we'd give the tour a go. We had to catch the ferry across the harbour to alight the bus, as the tour started on Hong Kong Island.

It was while on the ferry that Jonathan made a startling statement. He accused me of not taking him to Hong Kong for 2 whole days, and I was only just taking him there. I looked at him as if he'd gone mad - which country did he think we had arrived in and why was he being so weird?

I should have seen the glint in his eye when he made the statement.

It was funny now, a few hours later, looking back on what he'd said. But at the time, it completely threw me. Jonathan had to explain what he meant.

Hong Kong is divided into 3 main regions - Hong Kong Island, Kowloon Peninsula and the New Territories. As the name of the region suggests, Hong Kong Island is separated from the other 2 regions by Hong Kong Harbour. The New Territories and Kowloon sit at the very bottom of China on the map.

Our hotel was located in Tsim Sha Tsui, a suburb in southern Kowloon. For most of yesterday, with the exception of about 90 minutes spent in Central purchasing my ring, we were in Kowloon.

We were on the ferry when Jonathan asked where we were going. I said we were heading to Hong Kong Island, and that was when he accused me of keeping him in "China" and only now taking him to the "real Hong Kong".

Oh, my silly husband - whatever will we do with you?!

The big bus ride was quite good. We sat on the bus pretty much the whole time, looking at the sights. The day started getting a bit warm and we decided it was best to stay on the bus for the loop, and then go back to the places we wanted to really explore. Traffic in Hong Kong was always bad, and there was no exception today. By the time we'd completely half of the loop, half the day was gone!

And travelling and sightseeing with an almost brand new baby was quite different to travelling and sightseeing when there were just the 2 of us. Lucky for us, Sean was pretty well behaved for the most of the day, sleeping when he was tired, eating when he was hungry, and chilling and being happy for the rest of the time.

It was lunch time by the time we got to Stanley Market, so we hopped off the bus in search of some food. We'd gone past Repulse Bay, and I relived some of my happy childhood memories to Jonathan. Oh, how I still remember spending all those summers in Repulse Bay with Li Li (奶奶), my paternal grandmother, who had an apartment overlooking Repulse Bay Beach. Stanley Market was one of the places we visited a lot during our stays in Repulse Bay, and somewhere I'd gone back to with my cousin Carolyn and my friends Jamie and Justin on my previous visits. There were also a large number of shops and stalls that sold Hong Kong souvenirs, and we were tourists after all, so we got off the bus for the first time since we joined the tour.

We had a look at the shops first before heading down for food. I really wanted Sean's Chinese name to be written in Chinese calligraphy, and stopped at the first calligraphy shop we came across to enquire about getting it done. They said it would take 30 minutes, so we took the ticket and continued our first browse at the shops. As we walked, we became hungrier by the minute, so food became more important than shopping.

Unforunately, I'd forgotten how westernised (read: "expensive") the restaurants were in Stanley Market. Nothing really jumped out at us, and after a second pass, we entered a restaurant that was a little bit cheaper than the others. The food wasn't that great, but it was food.

After lunch, we continued our shopping and bought a few souvenirs, and seeing the time, we hurried back to the bus stop to meet the bus. Sean was great - we both had a little nap on our way back to the ferry terminal where we started the tour - Sean enjoyed sleeping in the MiniMonkey, and I enjoyed knowing he was safely strapped to me.

The ticket for the tour also allowed us on the tour bus on Kowloon side, but it had taken literally all day to get around Hong Kong Island, so we went back to the hotel and rested for a bit before meeting up with Carolyn for dinner. Carolyn chose a lovely Korean BBQ restaurant near our hotel, and we enjoyed catching up with her over the delicious banquet of meats and seafood. Being a bit of a dessert connoisseur, Carolyn took us to a jam packed shop for ice cream. The place, Tong Pak Fu, was literally heaving with people, and everyone was enjoying these awesome looking ice creams. We let Carolyn order for us, as we had no idea what was good. The waiters brought out goodies to the table - chocolate ice cream, sesame ice cream, and mango sago pudding. The ice cream was out-of-this-world good, absolutely spectacular, and so creamy and delicious and light. We found out the secret - the ice cream was actually shaved ice!!!

After the delicious desserts, it really was time for us to head back to the hotel and put the little man to sleep. On our way to flag a taxi, we wandered through some shops, and Carolyn bought Sean a pair of oh-so-cute Adidas shoes. When Carolyn saw these gorgeous little blue shoes, she just had to get them for Sean. I can't wait till his feet are big enough for the shoes to stay on! As we continued towards a taxi rank, we stumbled across a store that sold these gorgeous Hello Kitty bowls, which of course I had to buy!

We bade Carolyn farewell and got into a taxi, and headed back to the hotel for some well earned rest. We'd spent the day apart from Dad and Mum, and while we were dining with Carolyn, they were braving the Hong Kong public transport system on 2 modes of transport to go to the airport to collect Grace and her 3 kids. We heard them arrive at the hotel, and went out to greet them. It was quite late by the time they arrived, so we all went to our rooms to get some sleep, as we had another day packed full of activities tomorrow.