Hong Kong! #mollyinhk

Singapore celebrates its independence on August 9, aka National Day.  This year, Singapore applied for AARP membership and turned 50!  Watch out, world!  It felt (and feels) very weird that Singapore is still so young, but National Day prompted me to read up about a lot of SG history and it's super fascinating.  If you're into learning about the world and shit, Google some articles. I digress....SO for SG 50 Singapore gave its nation an extra holiday, which meant a 4 day weekend.  Holler!  The few friends I had back in early July ALL had plans to leave SG, so I was feeling like I needed to make some plans of my own.  Brandon has some great friends expatting in Hong Kong, so it was the perfect opportunity to go somewhere a little further away.  It was kind of funny planning this trip, because I had never actually met the Harlows (Matt and Holly) before, but true to form for all of Brandon's friends, they welcomed me with open arms even though it was their last weekend in Hong Kong.  Good people, I tell ya.   

Day 1:  After a delayed flight, an attempt at standby and the most beautiful in-air lightning show, I finally made it to HK...just a couple hours late.  Sweet Matthew game me excellent instructions and picked me up at the HK central train station and whisked me off to dinner at Brickhouse with his wife and a coworker and friend, Shawn.  Delicious cocktails and tacos.  Then, we were off to their neighborhood of Wan Chai to drop off my bag and see live music and have more drinks.  Well, Matthew took my bag up to their 5th floor walk up, while we all headed to the bar.  We first went to Dusk Till Dawn where there were beers, musicians, super tight pants and an encore appearance (by us) when we heard a Taylor Swift song start #expats.  After the live music we went to Cinta J, which was one of the most hilarious experiences of my life and the strangest/best thing I've done in a long time.  Holly and Matt are practically celebrities there, so if you go without them your experience will likely suffer, but it's still absolutely worth a visit.  

The famous Harlows and me at Cinta J.  You can blame Shawn and my shit iPhone 5 for the photo quality. 

Day 2:  After stumbling home around 4am, we woke noonish to go to Dim Sum.  I LOVE Dim Sum.  I'm not really sure why, because I'm not a SUPER adventurous eater, I just wait for my tried and true favorites.  But I love it and it was one of the things I really wanted to do in HK.  We went to Maxim's and it was awesome.  After brunch, we booked it to the ferry to go to the Kowloon side of HK.  The ferry is hella cheap and Kowloon is where you can really take in the amazing HK skyline.  It was pretty smoggy this day in HK, which was a bummer, but I know from Holly's pics that the sky CAN be quite blue and beautiful.  

 On Kowloon we went to Matthew's tried and true tailor William Cheng & Son so he could have some suits made and I got myself a shirt.  Pretty excited for it to arrive.  We wandered around Kowloon a bit, had our photos taken by some Chinese tourists (a first for the #harlowsinhk) and went back to Hong Kong Island so that we could CLIMB Victoria Peak.  Now, there is a paved path, but it was 97 that day, so we were not clean when we arrived.  The view was worth it and we celebrated our summit with a cocktail.

Thankfully, we took a cab back down where we got ready for dinner at Hot Pot!

After dinner we went to Stockton for delicious cocktails and champers, where I had fun and 2 glasses of champers for about two hours until I tossed my cookies.  I had been feeling sick for a while at the bar, but was really trying to hold it together for the Harlows' last weekend in HK, but then I just couldn't.  I'm not convinced it was something I ate because we all at the same stuff all day and I promise it wasn't the booze.  I know everyone who knows me is laughing at this because I can be quite the puker, but I promise.  I promptly went home and got into bed.

Day 3:  The next day I awoke feeling much better, so we still planned on our BEACH DAY (as Matt put it in his email to me).  We took a long taxi to Sai Wan on the Kowloon side in the New Territories and then hiked out to Ham Tin.

This made me so happy I squealed.  #wildlife #nature

I drank zero water after I got sick the night before, then had a coffee and water before the hike and about an hour into the hike I got sick again.  It was another hot day and we were in the sun and I was clearly dehydrated and malnourished and overdoing it.  At this point, I didn't want to turn back because the only way out was to hike (or summon the chopper hovering nearby), so I pressed on.  But I was going SO SLOW and SHAKING LIKE A LEAF the whole time.  Sweet, sweet Matthew helped me carry my stuff, made me feel less guilt about slowing the group down, and encouraged me to eat and and have some water.  By the time the hike was over and we had made it to the beach I was shaking so bad I could barely walk downhill, my hands had started to go numb and I was experiencing bad shortness of breath - I felt like I was wheezing.  The words "heart attack" kept running through my head.  I promise I'm not a ninny!  I have backpacked above tree line!  But I was maybe the most scared I've ever been for my health. But I knew water and rest and food and the ocean were ahead of me.  I immediately jumped in the water to cool off and we had lunch at the nearby shack, which was DELICIOUS.

Then it was time to head out and thankfully we were taking a boat back.  There's no fucking way I would've hiked again :)

The boat ride back was so insanely gorgeous.  This is the one snap I got as we were nearing port.  The boat was open and went VERY fast and the water was quite choppy, so taking photos would mean risking an iPhone, and after the day I'd had, I just wasn't up to that.  But it was so stunning.  I can't wait to go back. The boat took us to Sai Kung (still in the New Territories) where we had an amazing seafood feast.

 These boats were lined up, stocked with fresh catches that people would buy. 

 More.

 More still.  Would you just LOOK at that guy?!  How old do you think he is?

HK's version of crab mac.  We were skeptical, but we were NOT disappointed.  AND I got to have some shitty local beer!  One of my favorite things to do whilst traveling (true fact). 

After dinner, sweet, sweet Holly braved the torrential downpour to get us gelato to eat while we waited for the cab home.  Minus the whole near death experience, I absolutely LOVED this day.  This is something so different and unexpected for the HK tourist and I felt so lucky to have Matt, Holly and Shawn to share it with me.  

Day 4:  I left with Matt for work so he could walk me to the train and explain to me how to get to to that big Buddha belly.  The journey was long and I'm glad I checked it off the list, but the Big Buddha is probably a one and done kind of thing (bless sweet Holly who has gone MANY times with visitors).  Here are some snaps:

 On approach

It was the perfect amount of fog to be eerie without covering the Buddha. 

Arrived!  I realized I have a bit of a uniform for hiking Chinese landmarks (see Great Wall pics from 2013)

A few of the Six Devas making offerings to the Tian Tan Buddha. 

After Buddha, I took a bus to the small fishing village of Tai O based on the recommendation from one of my American friends in SG who grew up in HK.

The smell of dried fish is really lovely.

It was kind of a neat add on since I was already on Lantau Island, but it's nothing to write home about (yet, here I am, writing home about it).  This was a great day to my introverted self where I got to play with my DSLR and independently explore.  I have more pics, but this is already closing in the record for world's longest blog post, so let's just move things along, shall we?

Went back to Honk Kong Island where Holly and I polished off some pork buns at the famed Tim Ho Wan restaurant.  Why is it famed, you ask? Well, it's known as the cheapest Michelin star restaurant in the world.  And the pork buns were seriously to die.  Then, Holls and I wandered around to the mid-levels (or as Brandon would tell you, "the fancy part of town") where we did a little shopping.  I got a new wallet as an HK souvenir, designed by an HK artist and I realized the other day that it's navy/dark coral colors are kind of Bronco colors.  Woop! We also stopped by the Man Mo temple.  

 Loved this swirly hanging incense.

It was fun to have some girl time shopping and chatting.  Then it was time to head to the airport for my delayed flight home.  JetStar, you're a nightmare dressed like a daydream.  

Hong Kong was AMAZING.  Truly a city I could see myself living in.  Has so much culture (which SG is lacking) and the natural beauty was a huge surprise, but a pleasant one.  Obviously the trip was sweetened by the amazing Harlows and Shawn who housed me, took care of my weak ass (I'm chalking this one up to heat stroke), and let me tag along on all the adventures.  Matt and Holly are two of the sweetest human beings.  And their friend Shawn is hilarious - I'm looking forward to our paths crossing again soon on our Asian adventures.  I don't know why it always "surprises" me, but it does, Brandon has the BEST friends in the world (except for Dave - who even likes that guy?!).  He has the best because he, himself, is the best.  Thank you, Harlows!!  Breaks my heart that you're leaving Asia because you two are absolute gems, but I'm already looking forward to visiting you in NYC.