First 2 days in HK!

Thursday morning I got up super early to move out and say goodbye to Tainan. I was really sad to leave. I fell completely in love with the place and the people. I really do hope to go back someday. I made so many good friends that I know that I will keep in touch with for a really long time. A lot of them have already e-mailed me and facebooked me.

We had a lot of crazy adventures getting to the aiport….crazy mess-ups with taxis and getting on the wrong trains, baggage complications etc…..but we eventually got to the aiport. We had another hold up at the airport because security was convinced that Hayley had a Swiss Army Knife….but she didn’t ha ha Our terminal was Hello Kitty themed...ha ha ha

The flight to Hong Kong was only about an hour and fifteen minutes. As we took off we flew over a small group of whales! We could see their backs and fins and the water spouting….it was SUPER random but really cool! The flight was fun because we flew over TONS of beautiful islands. Landing was cool because the airport is on an island all by itself so it seems like you are going to land in the water! After landing we got on the MTR (Mass Transit Railway) to head to Hong Kong Island.

I’m actually kind of embarrassed about how little I knew about Hong Kong. So here is some stuff that I have learned….and hopefully you will learn from it. Hong Kong is actually separate from China (it is not considered part of China)….at least according to the people that live here. They say it is like Taiwan….associated with China, but its own separate entity. It is officially titled a “Special Administrative Region”…not a country. The people here speak Cantonese not Mandarin (so all of the Mandarin that I have learned up to this point is useless). It is the only place in the world where Cantonese is the primary language (Cantonese is such a cool language. It is more tonal than Chinese). They do not use Yuen here..they use Hong Kong Dollars. They have their own economy that is entirely unaffected by China. There is Hong Kong City which is located on a little island, and then there is Mainland Hong Kong which is right off the island and this goes until the border of China.

Hong Kong is not what I expected AT ALL. I was expecting some huge, stinky, dirty, city that was very industrialized but it is the complete opposite. It is the most beautiful city that I have ever been in. New York is a complete shame compared to Hong Kong. A girl that I know put it perfectly by saying “Most cities are a city that overtakes an island…but Hong Kong is an island with a city spread throughout it”. It is a beautiful green island that has tons of small mountains with tropical trees and shrubbery covering them. Then huge skyscrapers are set randomly around the island among the mountains. So the buildings are on all different levels on the island so there’s not a straight skyline. It juts up and down. Its soo cool!!! And its spotless. All of the streets (even the backstreets) are super clean and all of the buildings are newer and very well kept. Everything is very classy too. It’s an extremely wealthy city.
When I first stepped out of the MTR, the first thing I noticed was how diverse this place is. It is definitely an international city. There are people from ALL OVER, tons of Indians, tons of Europeans, etc (surprisingly hardly any Americans). Every time I go anywhere I just sit and people watch because they’re so fascinating. The majority of the people here are very wealthy. Everyone dresses in designer and the entire city is kind of tailored to that way of life. Also, the Chinese people are COMPLETELY different from Taiwanese. In SO many aspects. The Chinese people are much more forward, pushy, and a lot less helpful lol. It’s not because they’re rude people. It’s just simply how they are. When we got off the plane we were shocked that no one was willing to help us and that people didn’t even look at us ha ha On the MTR I sat next to a man that just started talking to me…I was so surprised…until he told me that he was Taiwanese ha ha So it figures. Now every time I meet a super nice asian I automatically assume that they’re Taiwanese…and they always are. The guy I met was named Brian. He gave me TONS of advice for Hong Kong and Taipei even down to what restaurants I should try and what I should order from them. It was so nice of him. He even walked with us to our next station to help us out.

At Central Station (MTR station in downtown) we met up with a member living here in Hong Kong. I mentioned earlier that we were supposed to be staying at her house but she was having company so she found three other members to house us. She told us that the one Sophia and I were assigned to was one of the biggest houses in all of Hong Kong (we thought she was just exaggerating…but it turns out that it literally is the 2nd biggest house in all of Hong Kong..its known all throughout the island!). Everyone took taxis to their houses but this lady drove us because it was furthest away. We drove for a bit then came around a bend and arrived at a huge bay (Repulse Bay) with a beautiful beach and cliffs. She pointed to a gigantic house on the edge of the bay and told us that it was the house we were staying at. We were in complete shock.

The house is like NOTHING I’ve ever seen before (google map 20 Southbay Road in HK..and be amazed). It’s seriously equivalent to a celebrity home. We arrived at the house and there’s a HUGE gate on the outside. They have three 24 hour guards set around the house and a personal guard at the front gate. The guard let us in and we walked on in. This is the view from their garage and these are pics from inside. It’s a five story mansion set literally right on the beach. They even have their personal strip of beach with a guard dog on it. They have a personal cook, 2 housekeepers and a personal driver for each member of the family. Pool, Spa, Hot tub, elevator, gym, and movie theater. These people are ridiculously wealthy. They also have traveled everywhere in the world. There hasn’t been a single country that I have asked about that they haven’t been to. Apparently he works for some antivirus company….I haven’t met him yet because he’s currently in Jakarta. They have been living here in Hong Kong for 22 years. The wife is American (from Utah) but the husband is Chinese. None of their children live with them but Yvonne (their daughter) is visiting for a couple of weeks and she’s a year younger than me. This is the view from their living room. After we met everyone and got settled in we went out for our first authentic Chinese food experience. It was an adventure. We COMPLETELY got lost. We took the wrong train and got off at a random spot in the middle of downtown. We walked around searching for the restaurant we were meeting at for about an hour. We probably looked so pathetic aimlessly wandering and asking people if they knew where we were supposed to go. Finally we just hailed a taxi and gave him the address. He read the address wrong and took us to some random place…then he finally understood and took us to it. We were 2 hours late! Ha ha The girls were just finishing dinner so they all left and it was just us. The restaurant was called 3.6.9 Shanghai. It was absolutely delicious and completely packed. It’s one of the more famous places here. Right when we sat down they brought us tea and these hot rags to wipe our hands. We ordered then they brought us our food and some random extra dish. Being the naïve Americans (and being used to Taiwanese hospitality), we thought they brought it to us for free….but that definitely wasn’t the case. They charged us for the tea, rags, AND rice even though we didn’t order any of it! They just kept saying “English is bad”. Let’s just say it ended up being an expensive meal…but all part of the experience.

After dinner we walked around downtown for a bit. The city at night is gorgeous. Tons of lights on every single building and all of the buildings are huge. I loved it. We got lost again trying to get back to our place. We walked around aimlessly for another hour trying to find it! Ha ha It was so ridiculous. We finally made it at like 12:30 am!
In the morning we got up bright and early to go to the LDS temple. It was extremely different from the temples in Utah but it was still beautiful. We got there earlier than the other girls and right as we were walking in a big group of older ladies walked out. We started talking for a bit then we said that we had heard that Elder Oaks was in town. A lady stepped forward and she was all “Actually….I’m his wife…and this is Sister Burton (Bishop Burton’s wife)”! ha ha So we got to meet both of them and chat for a bit. Baptisms were a lot of fun. Very similar to what I was used to…except we each got dunked like 20 times! We also got to see a family pick up a missionary to go back home. It was so cute!! After the temple we went to Fa Yuen street (this is one of the best and cheapest shopping streets in HK). While eating here, the waitress tried the same trick of bringing out random food…but we caught on and called her out on it). We spent about three hours shopping there and headed back to the Mansion.

We napped for about an hour then headed out for dinner. Yvonne took us out. She’s really cool and I’ve made really good friends with her. She knows that I love Thai food so we went downtown and she took us to a super delicious Thai restaurant. After dinner all of the girls went home except for Sophia, Christina, Yvonne and I. We went to this street downtown that is lined with bars and clubs. The nice Taiwanese man suggested that we go to this on a Friday night so we did…and it was a great suggestion. We didn’t even have to go into the actual clubs because there were so many people outside on the streets! It was so much fun meeting tons of people from all over. There are so many different ethnicities here. We just walked around talking to people and seeing all kind of crazy stuff. The only bad thing about here is that the guys are much more forward here and very blunt if they are trying to hit on you…especially the Europeans!).

After the club street we went to the famous Victoria’s Peak. The peak is the highest mountain on the island and overlooks the downtown skyline and Victoria Harbor. It is absolutely beautiful.

What I loved the most about it is that you’re on top of a mountain surrounded by tons of greenery and tropical trees. You can hear tons of crickets and frogs croaking….yet right below you can see the huge bustling downtown. I loved it. It was so peaceful with a nice cool breeze. At the top there are a ton of shops and international restaurants. We just sat at the lookout eating crepes…what a life . We made it home much more smoothly than the night before…but we didn’t get in till after midnight again. I’ve gotten no sleep at all.