Hong Kong (a perfect layover)

When looking for flights to Bali, it appeared that the most economical and least crazy flights went through Hong Kong with an overnight layover. Hong Kong had been on our list of places to visit but hadn't been there yet, so we decided to extend our layover here to give us an entire day to look around. It ended up being the perfect amount of time to see a few sights and eat some good food. One thing I hadn't really thought about but struck me by surprise was my constant wanting to speak Japanese. I had to bite my tongue to not say "arigato" to everyone there :)

We got in to Hong Kong Sunday evening and headed straight to our hotel. We stayed at the Ibis hotel which ended up being cheap and awesome! We went to bed and woke up to start exploring!

We decided to start with a trip up the glass bottom gandola to the Big Buddha.

This was my first time in a gondola with a glass bottom and it was really fun! The view below was gorgeous, lots of trees, a few little waterfalls, and a few views of the city out the back. The weather was about what it always seems to be in Hong Kong...overcast. Seriously everyone I know that has gone has had overcast weather.

The kids loved the ride but did NOT like being in the middle of the glass. Both kids were a little freaked out (I was actually surprised that Boden realized that it was a little freaky).

We happened to be there at the same time as Molly (a nurse I work with!) and her family, so it was so much fun to ride up with them and hang out for awhile. Kind of funny to be in another country and run into friends. We knew each other were there so it wasn't totally unexpected but still fun. Dom and Joey went to spend the morning with some of his family that lives in HK, so we were without them for the day.

And nice to have someone to take pics of our whole family :)

Once we got to the top, we got out and walked around for awhile. There was a really cute shopping area with stores and restaurants and then the staircase to the buddha (I think a little over 300 stairs).

Boden was ready for his hike up to see Buddha!

At the top our babies decided they were hungry, so we enjoyed the view of the mountains while babies got their milk. We named this the nursing bench :) It seemed fitting to have 2 L&D nurses nursing their babies from the top of the big buddha.

The monastery and surrounding buildings at the bottom were also gorgeous...very ornate with fun colors and flowers everywhere.

Boden was exhausted by the whole ordeal so took a nice little nap and we walked.

Next stop was a little boat cruise through a fishing village not far from there. It was crazy to look at the "houses" and realize that people actually live in these.

 Happy after his nap!

 Rowan checking out the live fish for sale

Nasty dried fish stuff for days...

Then we headed back up to take the gondola back down...and Rowan decided it was nap time. Bringing two carriers on this trip was one of the best decisions we made :)

Once back down we wanted to meet up with Dom and Joey, but it's a little difficult given we didn't have phones except when on wifi. We knew they were headed to the Peak so we decided to see if we could find them up there. We took the tram up, which Rowan loved. Again, it was super overcast so our view was less than spectacular, but it was still a fun experience. The area at the top was WAY bigger than I anticipated (definitely not just an overlook), but we were lucky enough to find them at the top!

The last thing on my Hong Kong bucket list was eating Dim Sum. I have memories of Dim Sim lunch in Sacramento growing up. Weirdly enough, Dom grew up in Sac and we realized that we actually ate at the same place!
 Although kind of trendy/touristy, we really wanted to try Tim Ho Wan for Dim Sum and it was delicious. The pork buns were to die for. Grant was weirded out by some of the food, but it was all really good!

And then we took a nice walk home where we got to enjoy the HK skyline. We tried to see the light show but it didn't happen. Not sure what happened there. Overally, it was a perfect day in Hong Kong and we were ready to head to Bali!