Day 28 -- Hong Kong

Housekeeping woke me up at 9:00am this morning. I wasn’t dressed, so I ran to the closet and tried to find a robe. No luck there, so I held the door shut (I couldn’t find the other lock in the dark to make sure it was done) and told her to go away. She kept standing there, knocking on the door. I yelled for Daniel to push the ‘Do Not Disturb’ button next to the bed. She finally left and I managed to sleep again for a half hour before Mom called to see if we were up. We dragged our butts out of bed and got ready to go. We had spotted a Pizza Hut near the hotel, so we stopped there for an early lunch. Back to the hotel to grab backpacks and catch the 1:00pm shuttle to TST. From there we took a ferry across the channel to Hong Kong Central for a whole HK$2.20 per person (about 28 cents US). We walked around for a bit and then took a Tram to the Peak. The view must be great on a clear day or evening. It wasn’t a bad view while we were there, but it was a little hazy. There was also a cold wind that kept us from hanging outside too long. Took the tram back down and then took a bus to the ferry terminal where we knew a bus line would go to the South side of the island. We found the right bus and rode to Stanley Market. We took the express bus which was supposed to take only 20 minutes. I’m not sure how long it actually took, but it seemed much longer. I guess that could have been the headache and the carsickness from sitting on the upper level of a double-decker bus in the very front seat. The seat actually sits in front of the front wheels, so turns feel rather abrupt there. We got some warm drinks at a café in the market and then shopped around for a while. We didn’t buy anything until the last shop we stopped at and that was only because we saw some rice patty worker hats that I had been wanting. Basically the big flat cone-shaped hats made of dried grass. We took the bus back to the ferry terminal and then the ferry back to TST. Just a short distance away from the ferry terminal is Harbour City Mall. In there, we walked into a sportswear store so I could look at shoes (not that I need more, it’s just an addiction that I have). We found a shirt kind of like the trendy ones that you see at Old Navy or A&F or whatever, that say ‘Property of such-and-such Athletic Department.” This one said “Property of Portland State Athletic Department.” I would have bought one just for the novelty but the colors were so damn ugly. They had a funky green, a pastel yellow, and a pastel blue. Sadly enough our own Portland State Bookstore also invests in these tacky colors instead of sticking with the standards and school colors (green, white, black, and grey). We also hit the Toys ‘R’ Us there to look for the 20 Questions game for Mom and Dad to buy. We walked in and hit the jackpot. Not only did we find the game, we also found PEZ dispensers for the first time in Asia. We ended up with about 25 dispensers, primarily Disney related. We hit KFC for dinner and went back outside to Starbucks. Daniel and I decided to forgo going out to clubs in Lan Kuai Fong as we had planned on earlier. We all took a cab over to the Temple Street Night Market, open from 4pm to midnight. We cruised from end to end perusing the different vendor stands. Mom and Dad bought an oil painting of Hong Kong and Daniel and I bought two that we will frame after we get home. I took some video of a plate of prawns still moving, ready to boil or fry or whatever it is they do to them. Mom and Dad bought a suitcase (we’ve all acquired way too much stuff to fit into the ones we have), which gave us a short-term storage unit for the big bag of PEZ dispensers. I also found a purse I liked and dealt on that until I realized I was pushing for just one more dollar (US) off, so I gave in and bought it. We were all pretty beat physically, so we took a taxi back to the hotel. When we got there, we regrouped to re-pack and be ready to checkout in the morning. Finished up about midnight and Daniel and I went back to our room.