Hotels in Hong Kong

We stayed 4 nights in a Courtyard Marriott when we first got to Hong Kong. The hotel was a little out of the way and we decided that if we were going again, we would get a room more in the city.

Jake's job was to book the hotel in Macau. He found a Best Western and told me that in China, these are actually pretty nice hotels. Unfortunately that was not the case for Hong Kong. We were laughing so hard when we pulled up in the taxi. It wasn't in the best part of town and then when we were checking in the lady said they were doing construction on the 14th floor and was going to move us down to the 6th and hopefully we wouldn't hear it. Well we didn't hear anything, but it was one of those rooms, that you don't want to be in or even sleep on the bed, but the floor is even worse then the bed.

The best part was when I opened up our window and found this as our view.

Here is Jake not wanting any part of the room to touch him.

When we went back to Hong Kong, we got a hotel that was more in the city and stay at Marriott Renaissance Harbour View Hotel. It was really nice and had a great location and a great view.

Day 6- December 5, 2008

We woke up early and took the speed boat back to Hong Kong and checked into our hotel, that was right on the harbor. We were walking to the subway when we stumbled on a church building (which was right across the street from the visa office...I have no clue how we didn't see that before). We went in and realized that they have 2-3 chapels on different floors and then Jake realized this was also the office of the Area Asia Presidency...Jake's old mission president is the Area President. So Jake asked the front desk if we could go and see him. His secretary said he was in a meeting but to try back later.

We then took the subway out to Lantau, which has the worlds largest Buddha statue outdoors. We took a cable car up to the top and then hiked up to statue. I has pretty tired from our week and was exhausted by the time I reached the top.

The stairs up to the statue.


Can you see Jake...he's just a little guy compared to this statue.

There he is!
Jake fits in the palm of his hand.

Statues surrounding the Buddha.

The view from the top.

I have no clue what I was doing.

The ride back down.

Well as you can tell from the picture we went back to the office and headed up to the 10th floor. It was pretty funny because the security people have to put a card in to get us up to that floor. We rode up with some missionaries and they said, "Wow you get to go to the 10th floor. You must be important." Jake told them that Pres. Perkins was his mission president. Then when the elders got off on the 7th floor there were some people waiting to go down and they informed them that we got to go to the "10th" floor. As the door was closing everyone was trying to see who the "important" people in the elevator were.

That night we went to the Ladies market, where I heard about a million times, "You like, you pay more." I got a couple of purses and some scarfs. I got better by the end of the night to sticking to what I wanted to pay. Well that was our trip. We had a lot of fun and loved how clean everything was. It was also nice that we were able to speak English and be understood. So if you are thinking about taking a trip, put Hong Kong on your list.

Day 5- December 4, 2008

We woke up checked out of our hotel room to head off to Macau. We took a speed boat over to the island, which took about an hour. Once there we debated whether to take a bus or taxi to our hotel. We ended up taking a taxi after waiting for a bus for over 20 min. I will post about all our hotels on another post, but I'll just say our goal was to stay out of our room as much as possible. Macau is a lot like Vegas. Casinos aren't allowed in Hong Kong or China, so people come here to gamble. They have a lot of the same big Vegas hotels like the MGM Grand, The Venetian, Sands, etc... The funny thing about Macau is they speak Portuguese and Cantonese. As opposed to Hong Kong which speaks Cantonese and English. Also on the island are ruins of old churches. Jake found the way to the St. Paul ruins and we walked around there for a little bit. Then we decided to head out to the Venetian and see the show Cirque De Soleil. We got there and had a lot of time to kill. We ate at this place called Fat Burger, which had the best chocolate shakes...mmmm, tasty. Then we ended up walking around and looking at all the high end shops. We were a little worried about how the show was going to be, but it ended up being really good. It was pretty artsy, but we were amazed at everything.

Can you see me?Here were the 3 Musketeers singing Christmas carols...it was a little weird

Day 4- December 3, 2008

The Hong Kong Temple

We woke up and went down to the visa office to pick up my passport. We then decided to take the ferry across the harbor and hop on a subway to the temple. We were pretty pressed for time when we got across the harbor so we jumped in a taxi and headed off to the temple Once there we went to go in and the guy told Jake his recommend had expired on the 30th of November. He was bummed, but told me to go ahead and do a session. So I went and did a session and it was so nice and peaceful. After that we tried to find the distribution center...we found it but was like an hour out of the way. We then got back to our hotel and changed and then went out and looked at shops and ate at California Pizza Kitchen...man was that tasty. I found some pants and some hair products that I had been looking for. That night went out to the Temple St. Night market. We were pretty exhausted, so we didn't get anything but looked all around and were stopped by a number of people wanting us to buy watches and purses.

Day 3-December 2, 2008

Well I let Jake choose whether he wanted to go to Disneyland for his birthday or Ocean Park. We had planned on Disneyland, but after looking more into it, they only had a like 1 roller coaster and so Jake decided on Ocean Park. This amusement park is in the mountains right next to the ocean. On one of the roller coasters you feel like you are going to fly off into the ocean. They also had an aquarium, dolphin show, and a panda exhibit. This was the perfect time to go, you could walk right on to every ride. The weather was just perfect.

We took a 30-40 min bus ride out there.

A long escalator up to the top of the mountain where the rides were.

Jake and I on a ride that spun all around.

Jake and his friend the elephant.

Here is us on our way over to the panda exhibit. They had cable cars that went alongside the mountain. The view was absolutely gorgeous.

The picture of me is because one of the pandas and I shared the same birthday.