Tuesday

I am so tired! Ok SO, this morning, we took the mid level escalators to the center of Hong Kong. They are a long set of escalators that travel up the middle of Hong Kong - which is built on a hill. The escalators themselves are not long, it is just that there are many of them. About half way through, we stopped and found a place for lunch - Vietnamese/Thai. We got a combo that had salad and a noodle entree. We all got the lemongrass coconut chicken salad, and for entees: Beef Pho noodles and lemongrass chicken with fried vietnamese noodles.

We took the escalators the rest of the way up, and then walked all the way back down. (The escalators went one way only - and most of the day, they go up.) We took a different route down, through the botanical and zoological gardens - free - and we saw lots of monkeys and lemurs and tamarins.

The city is very easy to walk around in and labeled pretty clearly so it is easy to find things. We walked on past the US consulate and to the Bank of China building, where we went up to the observation plaza and the 42 floor (not even half way up!)

After a rest at back at the hotel, we headed back out again, to Times Square and the Causeway Bay shopping center. We had dinner at the food court there (Stuff is so not expensive here! SO nice after London and Paris!) Grant had Korean noodles, I had tempura shrimp and veggies, and Steve had chicken, pork dumplings, and shrimp soup. My shrimp tempura cost $380 HK, which is about $4.50. Yum!!!


After dinner we walked along the bay (the Wanchai walk) to the ferry terminal, where we took an hour long harbor ferry tour. There we met a guy from North England and he and I chatted for a while. We timed the ferry so that we were on it during the light show, also!!! Very cool!!!

When we got back, we took the subway to the Jordan stop and went to the market on Temple Street. It is like a Swap Meet, and the prices are cheap - and you are supposed to haggle! Steve bought a bunch of stuff. I am not a great shopper, but it was fun looking!

It is 11:00 PM now and we're back at the hotel! Oh - the weather today was pretty nice - overcast - but still hot and humid. This afternoon while in the hotel it started raining. During the evening, it rained every once in a while, but never for very long, and only once pretty hard for like 3 minutes.

Good night!