China's own personal London&New York

This is Hong Kong

It was my favorite place that i went to in China without a doubt.

I am purely a city girl and this was just the most beautiful city i've ever been too.

Flying in, it looked like a dream city.

We flew in around dusk, the sun was leaving, soaking the city,water and clouds in a golden glow.

And seeing it from the plane, above all the city and the islands,

It was breathtakingly beautiful.

The  four pictures above, were taken from the Hong Kong Museum of Art from the Kowloon Penninsula, looking out at the Hong Kong island.

Can you see the rainbow??? The second night we were there, we were eating dinner at this delicious italian restauratunt owned by our hotel, and we were watching a rainstorm pass over. And then all of a sudden, i was like "look!! a rainbow!". And then we all stared at it and watched it move toward us until we got poured on. And then my friend was like "well, guess we should have figured that, we were watching it come over here after all, and with rainbows, comes rain!"

Oh My Gosh this pool was divine. The extremely nice hotel we stayed at, called the Harbour Grand Kowloon had a rooftop pool with an upper and lower deck. From the lower deck you can see into the pool, its like the penguins at the zoo, you can see the pool from the top and then there is a glass wall from the bottom so you can see into it. You can see it in the picture. And the view...the next few pictures were taken from the rooftop at night. The skyline is absolutly gorgeous and i never knew it was so colorful.

Hong Kong money. The currency exchange was about like one U.S dollar was worth 7 Hong Kong dollars. And urg, sorry i think i forgot to flip the 10 and 20 before i took the second picture.

 The two pictures above were taken from my room. No freaking kidding. And all the rooms at the Harbour Grand Kowloon had views of the harbor.Sigh. It was so pretty.  I think the pictures were taken at like 6 a.m the day we flew home.

I only had one full day in Hong Kong, and here is what i did.

I slept in. The day before, my friend had asked the concierge if there was a starbucks within walking distance. There was, so when we were both awake, we walked over with our families. After that, we went to "Fashion World" i think it was called. Anyways, it was a huge shopping mall. Nothing like getting right into the day by shopping. I only got three things, I LOOOVE them. I'm planning on doing a post on them later. Then, we went back to the hotel, and my friend and her mom were wanting to rest, and my mom thought she was getting a little bit sick, so my dad and i went off to the Hong Kong Museum of Art. We were there for like almost 4 hours there. I LOVE conteporary art exhibits, and the Hong Kong art museum was having their Contemporary Art Biennial Awards, so they had an AMAZING exhibit. I personally, prefer contemporary art 10 times better to historical art. I honestly would reccomend going to their art museum if you ever go to Hong Kong. It was phenonenal. I think i could spend all day in a contemporary art museum. Anyways, then we took a walk along the "avenue of stars" (you can sort of see it to the far left in the very first picture) and that was very beautiful. Then we went back, ate at that delicious italian restaurant again (and saw that rainbow), and then headed up to the rooftop for an evening swim. It was a lovely day. Perfect end to a wonderful trip.

P.S if you look at the top picture of the city at night that i took, the very top one (actually all of them work, but i like the top one the best) and look at it standing up, or looking down at it, you can see the clouds and the sky pop out. Its kinda like an optical illusion. Its pretty darn cool.

Hong Kong is like a totally different planet than China. Save for the population with a majority of Han people (the biggest ethnic group in mainland China). They have double decker busses, and they drive opposite than us. They have subways (that you walk through) to get across streets. They have a whole different currency. Its just so different and yet very much like an American city. If there was one thing i would have liked to done in the short time that i was there, it would have been to go to Victoria Peak (its the top of a mountain on Hong Kong island) and look out over the city. I would have liked to see it during the day, and at night. Hong Kong was fabulous and it should definatly make your list of places to visit.

I'd go back in a heartbeat.