Hong Kong: Day One

After quite a significant delay at the Beijing Airport, we arrived in Hong Kong around 3 am. We traveled to our hotel in the Wan Chai via taxi since it was too early/late for public transportation. Upon arriving at the Wifi Boutique Hotel, we quickly fell asleep, accepting we would be getting a late start later that day. 

One element that was quite consistent throughout our sojourn was rain - all day, every day. The rain most definitely shifted our plans, but we remained positive and resorted to plan b, plan c, and sometimes even plan d. 

When we truly started our first day, we journeyed out to see Man Mo Temple. This temple houses the Taoist god of knowledge and god of martial arts. The temple area consisted of 2 buildings, each adorned with what looked like large hanging incense cones, gold figures, and red lanterns. The Man Mo Temple was both an interesting, albeit slightly underwhelming, cultural site as well as a respite from the ceaseless rainfall.

After the temple, we navigated through narrow backstreets lined with walls dripping in tree roots to find a spot for lunch. Thankfully, maybe because of our incense offering at Man Mo, we stumbled into a delicious veggie cafe. This cafe not only provided us with a satisfying lunch, but the workers were exceptionally helpful in giving us rainy day activities as well as letting us take one of their abandoned umbrellas (a 7-11 umbrella no less, like one of the locals). 

Following the advice of the lunch gurus, we walked to the pier to take a ferry from the HK side of the island to the Kowloon side. Taking the Star Ferry was one of the highlights of the trip - if only each ride was longer than 9 minutes! After disembarking on the other side of the island, we quickly made our way to the Space Museum and bought tickets for a later 3D space show. In the meantime, we decided to visit a restaurant/bar located on one of the upper floors of the Sheraton Hotel. This experience ended up being one of our favorites. We escaped the downpour, drank some fun drinks and indulged in a wonderful chocolate dessert, all while taking in an impressive view. 

We ended our first day with the space show and walking to the harbor to take the ferry back to Wan Chai. The rain slowed enough that we were able to appreciate the famous skyline as the night was growing darker. 

Day one was quite foggy...as were days two, three and four

The famous skyline did not disappoint - equally as beautiful during the day and at night