Hong Kong

An upside of my whirl wind decision to come and move to China was that there was only time for my school to apply for a visitor visa.  It takes time to collect all the documents and get the approval for a work (Z) visa.  This was a good thing for me because you can only apply for a work visa from outside of China, which means once I had all the paperwork needed for my Z visa then I had to leave the country.  This meant that my school paid for me to go to Hong Kong for 3 days to apply for my work visa.  (Side note, Hong Kong and China have this weird relationship and although Hong Kong is separate from China it is still considered a dependent territory.)

I added another day onto my trip because everyone has told me that Hong Kong is amazing and they weren't lying.  I could totally live there.  It is located on the coast of southeastern China and has an amazing tropical feel to it.  While I've never been to Hawaii, it had that tropical island feel with it's lush green hills and the harbor but then put a huge metropolis on the Hawaiian islands and you have Hong Kong. 

The view from Victoria Peak.

While Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of the PRC, it is also a former British colony.  So Hong Kong has this nice mixture of Chinese and British culture that creates an awesome environment and it's very visitor friendly.  Everything was in both Chinese and English so it made everything so much easier.

My hotel was on the island portion of the city and near major shopping areas with lots of restaurants and all sorts of things going on.  It was fun to walk around, explore and eat dim sum. 

View from my hotel.

Casual billboard.

My hotel was on a market street with all sorts of things for sale.

Hong Kong was really excited for Star Wars.

Like I said, my hotel was on the island portion of Hong Kong, oddly enough named Hong Kong Island.  To get to the mainland (Kowloon) I took a ferry, which gives you awesome views of Victoria Harbour.  I explored Kowloon and at night they have a light show, called the Symphony of Lights.  Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated metropolises with an amazing skyline.  Every night there is a light show that involves over 40 buildings on both sides of the harbor.

Crossing the harbor on the ferry.

View of the Island from Kowloon.

A junk boat in front of the night skyline.

To get the best views of Hong Kong you need to go up to Victoria Peak and take the Peak Tram.  I got up there during the day and hung out so I could also get the night views.  It was really windy so I had a fun time trying to snap a selfie without my hair covering my face.

Posing with a tram.

It took forever to get this shot.

Unsuccessfully trying to manage my hair.

When the sun and wind are in cahoots against you.

A night shot with the Harbour.

I wouldn't mind being in the 80's again.

Stray thoughts:

• So my coworker invited a group of us over for dinner the other night and he has the cutest daughter.  Little Ofilia is the sweetest little thing.

•  At school this week we made pizza with our kids.  It was a lot of fun and really good.  Sure, it didn't taste like pizza pizza but it was good all the same.

The pizza factory.

•  I went to see Swan Lake the other night with a group of teachers.  It was done by a Russian ballet company and it was really good!  It made me think of when I was younger and we used to see The Nutcracker every Christmas.  Here is a photo of the corncob at night when we left the performance.

• Here are some more photos of me "being a teacher."  (I promise I really do teach.  But with 3 year olds there is a lot of playing and exploring.)