The next day the boys started their tournament with each of them playing a couple games. It was immediately evident that Beijing had brought the big guns! Not only were the kids in all age groups considerably bigger than our kids (some were as tall as Matt and had facial hair!) but their skills were amazing. The games were held in a huge mall called The Megabox, which had a beautiful full-size rink that overlooked the city. Amazing view and amazing facilities!
After the boys endured their games we decided to go see The Peak, one of the big tourist sites in Hong Kong. We took the Star Ferry from Kowloon over to Hong Kong and then a taxi to The Peak. We bought tickets for the tram that takes you up to the top – apparently there is a huge escalator that can take you up, too but we opted for the tram. The tram carried us up a very steep 1,300 foot hill; the ride is so steep that you feel like you could slide back down at any moment. When you get to the top the view is beautiful. And even though we had a slightly foggy (smoggy?) day, we could see 360 degrees around the entire city of Hong Kong. Beautiful. That night we headed to Din Tai Fung for some great dim sum.
The next day, the boys had the day off – no games! So we chose that day to spend in Hong Kong Disneyland. We were so excited. We got on the subway and headed to Disney. As we went along, the sky seemed to darken more and more. As we arrived at the Disney station the downpour began! It was the only day we were in Hong Kong that it rained and it really, really rained! But we would not be discouraged; we bought our tickets, bought our Disney rain slickers, and headed into the park. Since most of the attractions are indoor, it really was not so bad – it was just the running between where we got soaked. And the good thing was, the park was empty! After a few hours, being soaking wet finally got to us, so we headed out but not before we rode most of the rides – like Space Mountain! We really loved it there and wish we had gotten a nicer day. It is much, much smaller than the parks in the US but it was perfect for us. We were hoping to go back another sunnier day but ran out of time – we’ll definitely be back!
Friday was spent at the ice rink, all day long. The boys each had two games, spread out just enough that we didn’t have quite enough time to leave between. But it is very fun to watch them play and they pretty much had the mall to themselves to play hide-and-seek with their teammates between games – pretty fun.
On Saturday we had the whole day free again, so we took a ride on a junk boat called the Aqualuna, through Victoria Harbor all the way around to the other side of Hong Kong. It was such a beautiful ride – it took us about an hour or so to get from Kowloon, where the junk picked us up to Stanley Market where it dropped us off. They had huge seats, there were only a few other people on the junk, and they gave us juice and wine – what a relaxing ride.
We arrived in Stanley Market and wandered around a bit. It is a really great area with a huge street market and lots of restaurants that overlook the water. It reminded Matt and I a lot of Sausalito in Northern California. It was very Western and it seemed to be a very popular spot for both tourists and Hong Kong expats. After having a delicious lunch and wandering for a while, we grabbed a taxi that brought us out to Aberdeen, a floating village in Hong Kong. We walked around for a bit looking at the floating houses and fisherman, we walked along a great reflexology path, then we got back into the cab and headed to the ferry station and another dinner at Din Tai Fung!
The next morning we had just enough time to get to Starbucks before we had to go to the airport. Our plane was practically empty and we could all stretch out on several seats - it was great. We really enjoyed our trip and would love to come back again because I know there is so much more to see.
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