Category Archives: Hong Kong and Taiwan

Our adventures in Hong Kong and Taiwan

The Fourth Day (Christmas Day)

I woke up bright and early at 5am but stayed in bed till 6. Calvin and Jaeger both slept several hours later. Calvin developed a distaste for eating breakfast in our room and kept insisting he wanted to go down to the hotel breakfast. Jaeger and I were not sure what to do because at home we certainly wouldn’t have given in but a hungry preschooler is no ones idea of a fun travel companion. Eventually I bribed him to eat our muesli by promising he could eat his dessert that was included in the kids meal from the prior night (baked pizza dough balls with Nutella as dip).

The breakfast crisis averted, we considered what to do for the day. Both Christmas and Boxing days are public holidays in Hong Kong. Not, you’ll note, Christmas Eve. Most of the activities in our book suggested we should avoid them on Sundays and public holidays which limited our options. Finally, we decided to go ahead and try the Victoria peak tram and hope for the best. On Saturday when we went past the line was 1 1/2 hr long. However, we decided to risk it and bring the iPad in case Calvin needed amusement.

To my surprise, the line was pretty short. Maybe it was because we’d arrived earlier in the day around 10am. The tram was stuffed full and we were one of the last ones to get in so all the sets were taken. However, as I was trying to figure out the best way to position Calvin, two people offered me their seats at the same time. I gratefully accepted one of them and sat Calvin on my lap.

Hong Kong may be a busy city but I have been amazed at how considerate they are to the elderly or those with special needs of some sort. Every single time I have boarded public transpiration with Calvin someone offers me their seat if there isn’t one already available. Sometimes, like when Calvin is on my back and it would be hard to sit, I decline. However, when I’m carrying him in my arms and it’s really crowded it is a lot easier to manage him sitting down. The same is true of anyone who is elderly or feeble. Someone always gives up their seat for them. I think there’s some sort of informal pecking order going on. Younger and healthier people obviously give up their seats first. However, what would happen if you got a train car full of pregnant women and elderly people?

The peak tram ride is quick but interesting. At times, it goes up at a 27 degree angle. At the top, riders are deposited into the smaller of the two shopping malls at the top. We milled around trying to figure out what to do next and ended up being accosted by an overly helpful visitor center lady. Eventually we wandered off just to be able to think in peace. While the tram lines had not been bad, it was still quite busy up top. We went up to the top of the building the tram was into to get the 360 degree view. It was impressive but probably would have been more so if there had been less fog/haze. It was also windy and Calvin was grumpy so we left fairly soon.

Since Calvin was grumpy, our next stop was lunch. Vegetarian food is not overly abundant on the peak but we did manage to find some vegetarian pizza bread that was reasonable. The restaurant was at the larger mall. After lunch, we went in to look at the local English bookstore. However, the books were packaged so you couldn’t look at them ahead of time. Picture book quality varies so much that I never take the risk of buying without reading the book first.

After the bookstore, we went out to walk the Peak Walk which is a circular trail that loops around Victoria Peak and is 3.5 km long. The trail is surrounded by lots of trees and other plants and the views are great. Once again, it was really nice to have the backpack carrier to schlep Calvin around in.

After the walk, we went and let Calvin play at a playground next to the mall. I was a little disappointed that we only saw one playground up at the peak and none on our loop walk. Though to be fair, maybe the city planners didn’t think making a playground on the side of a cliff was a good idea.

Calvin finished playing which left us an awkward amount of time to fill. The peak is very commercialized and other than the walking trail, there isn’t much to do up there other than shop. Eventually, we decided to head down and wander the free zoological and botanical gardens in central Hong Kong until it was time to eat supper. I’m still amazed by the amount of land devoted to park-like activities. The zoological area isn’t as extensive as a normal zoo but it still has several hundred animals. Calvin especially enjoyed watching the monkeys.

We decided we were ready for an early lunch so went back to the vegetarian restaurant we had eaten at our first day. Unfortunately, we were a little early and they requested we come back in about 40 min. Since we had time, we explored some of the other shops in the area and found a grocery store in an adjacent building. This store was bigger than the one across from our hotel and included several exotic things we hadn’t seen at the other place.

Supper was good and since Jaeger was feeling more awake, he ate a lot more than he did the last time we were there. I’m still not great with chopsticks but am getting better. We have discovered that the standard dishes one eats off are a bowl and plate about the size of our tea cups and saucers. This threw us the first time we ate there but after observing diners I think we have it mostly figured out.

Water isn’t an automatic starting beverage like it is in the states. Instead, we have tea. At most restaurants we’re given two tea pots. One with tea and the other with hot water. We believe the hot water is to refresh the tea in the tea pot whenever it gets low or too strong from sitting.

After dinner we went back to the grocery store and picked up more breakfast food. In addition, we splurged and bought a knife so we could buy and try some “dragon fruit” which is a fascinating item we’ve seen in most produce stands/markets. We’re saving the experiment for breakfast.

Calvin wasn’t quite asleep by the time we headed home but on the train he nodded off several times. As soon as I put him in the backpack to head back to the hotel he was asleep. I’m trying to stay up a little later tonight in hopes of waking up later but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to hold out.

Our Hong Kong/Taiwan Trip:

Traveling to Hong Kong

The Third Day (Christmas Eve)

I woke up around 4:30am Monday morning and lay asleep for a couple of hours before finally drifting off to sleep for an hour before everyone else got up. We ate breakfasts, stopped for coffee for Jaeger, and then took MTR down to central so we could catch a ferry to Cheung Chau Island. The ferry ride was a little less than an hour.

We got off the ferry and disembarked into a very crowded street stuffed with little tourist shops that would look at home on Pearl Street and seafood restaurants with their live seafood on display. By the time we actually got there, it was time for lunch. The island is known for seafood, not vegetarian food, but we had found online a couple of places that looked like they might work. Unfortunately, the first place was closed and we decided to just get fruit and pastries instead of fighting the crowds to find the other restaurant. We ended up with a stuffed sweet bun that had sweet red bean inside and some oranges. Unfortunately, Calvin didn’t seem to be a fan of the bun and ate very little.

After that, we followed a walking tour in Jaeger’s guide book. We first stopped in at a temple but Calvin wasn’t interested so Jaeger stayed to look at it while Calvin and I went back to a little playground we had seen a block back. After Jaeger finished, we continued exploring the area right next to the ferry. It was very crowded and the smell of fish was everywhere. After a while, we left that area and started a several kilometer hike to visit a famous cave that belonged to a pirate (when I heard pirate, I was thinking dinky ship but this guy actually commanded 50,000 pirates so it was a serious operation).

When contemplating our trip back in the states, I had wondered the best way to transport Calvin. Calvin is notorious for wanting to be carried everywhere. We had already gotten rid of our strollers. Plus, strollers are a pain to carry everywhere. So, I bought a Boba carrier that was rated to 45 lbs. The advantage is the carrier had is it’s a soft body so can easily be packed in our suitcase for travel. Unfortunately, it has no pockets so this makes Jaeger responsible for carrying everything but Calvin. The carrier has been working out very well and I don’t think we would have made it to the cave without a carrier of some sort.

The walk to the cave took us up a hill and we quickly left the mob of people fish smells behind. That was the point were I started to enjoy our excursion. The path was steep and was surrounded by all sorts of plants and trees. There are no cars on the island but there are motorized carts. However, we mainly encountered other couples walking up the hill. There were houses most of the way up. Many of the houses appeared to be in bad shape but a couple were nice looking. Near the top of the hill we passed a huge spiraling cemetery that had very elaborate tombstones. It was a pretty impressive site. We were also amused to see banners, within the cemetery itself warning about Japanese Encephalitis and asking people to report mosquito sightings. For some, reason it struck us as amusing the signs were at the cemetery when we hadn’t seen them anywhere else. It also made me a bit nervous that we had skipped that particular vaccination because it was considered low risk at the moment (though I didn’t see any bugs or mosquitoes anywhere).

Have I mentioned there are playgrounds everywhere? On our walk we passed several and Calvin wanted to stop and play at each though, if we’d done that, we’d have never made it to our destination.

After the cemetery, we headed downhill back to the harbor and came to a larger group of houses. There were more tourists there but nothing like the mob at the ferry dock. Apparently we had taken the hard route as there is a flat road hugging the shore and bicycles were skimming back and forth. However, I think our hike was more fun.

At the village, we turned left and headed back up the hill for a short distance and eventually arrived at the cave. It was a cave. Neither Jaeger nor I had a flashlight so we pronounced it to be a cave and the headed back down.

We took the easy path back to the dock and then took the ferry back to central Hong Kong. It was getting dark by the time we arrived which allowed us to see the Christmas displays on the large skyscrapers. Many of the skyscrapers had huge murals made out of lights depicting Christmas themed pictures. It was quite a sight. As Jaeger noted, Christmas here seems more like a folk festival than a holiday like we have back at home. It seems mainly an excuse to have fun.

For supper, we found a gourmet pizza place to eat. It was very good. Calvin fell asleep on the way back to the hotel and we put him in bed when we got back. Calvin has been consistently falling asleep between 6 or 7 and then not waking up till 7:30 or later in the morning. It makes for very relaxing evenings.

Our Hong Kong/Taiwan Trip:

Traveling to Hong Kong

The Second Day

On Sunday, we decided to go see the Alexander Grantham, a retired Fireboat. It is located in Quarry Bay Park ( which appears to have at least two playgrounds, possibly more). Getting there was relatively easy, it was only one stop from our hotel. Calvin appeared to really enjoy the Fireboat but seemed nervous about falling off the side (which was well fenced-in so it would have taken real effort to “fall” off).

After, the Fireboat, we gave in and let Calvin play in one of the larger parks. As a plus, there was free government provided wifi so I had a chance to check email. We thought our hotel had free wifi but that turned out not to be the case. So, a chance to check my email was welcome. While Jaeger watched Calvin I also attempted to find lunch. However, as I’ve already mentioned, Google seems to have a hard time figuring out where things are in Hong Kong so it took both of us looking to find something.

We wandered into a section of town that, if not tourist-free, seemed relatively free of white tourists. When we arrived at the restaurant, the restaurant staff seemed very excited to see us, or, Calvin at least. They spent the whole time hovering over him. It was like having a celebrity in our midst. He was a little cranky and I explained that he was probably just hungry (though having that much attention probably didn’t help). Upon hearing this, one lady bustled back and brought out a small dish of pickled zucchini which, I am sorry to say, Calvin turned his nose up at. Upon seeing this dish didn’t meet Calvin’s expectations, she went back and came out with a piece of chocolate which did indeed improve his mood.

Jaeger ordered food and made sure to include some noodle and tofu, Calvin’s favorite things. However, the noodle was interspersed with skinny bean sprouts that Calvin didn’t like. Not to worry, one lady helpfully took the serving chopsticks and moved the sprouts he had discarded to another dish and then gave him another helping of noodle, attempting to avoid as many sprouts as possible. She also served him some more tofu and cut it up into little bite sized pieces for him. I mostly looked on in bemusement.

After lunch, we walked toward the Coastal Defense Museum. I always find it educational to walk inner areas, sometimes overly educational but not in this case. In the parts of Hong Kong we had been in prior to this, everything had been meticulously clean. There were signs everywhere saying things like, “This handrail disinfected every hour” or “This facility is regularly cleaned.” Our best guess is this is post-bird flu epidemic but we’re not sure. The restrooms are always very clean, even if it’s occasionally difficult to find a sit-down toilet (the handicap stalls usually have sit-down toilets). We haven’t seen any panhandling and very little of obvious homelessness*. We didn’t see any at all in the central area. On the way to the coastal defense museum we noticed several twin beds, complete with box springs, sheets, and blankets, under some stairs but that was about it and it was so nicely made up I had trouble deciding exactly what the situation was.

We got to the Coastal Defense museum, paid for our tickets, and then went up an elevator and our to a breezeway that took us on the path to the museum building. Along the way we saw various examples of cannons and other guns. Calvin seemed very concerned about the safety of them and kept telling us to be careful. The museum was a little above Calvin’s level so I took him back outside and read stories on the iPad while Jaeger wandered around and learned interesting things. Here also, the middle-aged female security guards seemed enchanted with Calvin.

Jaeger thought it would be interesting to attend an evening Christmas service at the local Anglican church so after the museum we went back to the hotel to change. We stopped to have a light supper of hot drinks and pastry and then continued on to the church. In central there were massive numbers of people, mostly Filipino women, sitting down huddled in groups on the side walks. Apparently maids are very common in Hong Kong and most have one day off on Sunday. So, they all get together to play cards and talk on Sundays.

We arrived at the church a couple of minutes before the service started. It was packed and we had trouble finding seating, apparently all the foreigners had the same idea we did. Eventually, we found two seats and I set Calvin on my lap. This was a “lessons and carols” service and everyone in the congregation had lit candles. it proved to be an interesting balance act holding a candle in one hand and stabilizing Calvin in the other.

The service was mostly in English though they did have small parts spoken in Catonese, Mandarin, and a Philippiano speaker. I’m addition, the program was printed in English on one side and Chinese on the other. The congregation was invited to join in the singing several times. Unfortunately, we were in an alcove that couldn’t see the platform and behind us was a very loud singer who seemed to have a different vision of tempo than the choir director/organ. As a result, our section was often woefully out of sync with everyone else. Calvin fell asleep before the end of the program.

Once again, I carried him home and tucked him into bed with only minor mutterings.

* Having been here longer, I now have seen people panhandling, though not a lot (certainly a lot less than Boulder). On my walk back to MTR one day I saw several people panhandling on one of the walkways I took. These were people with very obvious physical problems. It’s possible that begging is more common in the evening, when I’m already back at the hotel.

Our Hong Kong/Taiwan Trip:

Traveling to Hong Kong

The First Day

Saturday morning I woke up at 7:30 local time. Considering the prior night, I would have slept later but the clock in our room isn’t illuminated in the dark and all I knew was it was light outside. Once I found my phone and checked the time, it seemed pointless to go back to bed.

We ate breakfast at the hotel buffet which was very good and included a wide variety of European and Asian breakfast items. At first, it looked like Calvin was going to demand noodle for breakfast until he saw the mini-pancakes. After breakfast, we went to the small grocery store across the road and picked up cheaper breakfast items for the rest of our stay.

With eating out of the way, our next task was to get an Octopus cards for MTR, the local subway system. I love this subway. It’s the best one I’ve been on yet. Each train shows the route and has lovely flashing lights to indicate which direction the train is going as well as which station is next. Naturally, Calvin was enthralled with the ride.

After getting off the train, we wandered around in circles for a bit but finally managed to track down the store of a local cell phone provider. Verizon was kind enough to unlock Jaeger’s phone for international locations and my cell phone was already unlocked so it was fairly simple to get SIM cards so we could make calls to each other while in Hong Kong. We also got a data plan with Jaeger’s phone to help us navigate the city (though it’s obvious that Google maps is a lot more comfortable in the US than Hong Kong).

Our next stop was lunch. We had been warned that it’s hard to eat vegetarian in Hong Kong unless you go to dedicated vegetarian restaurants so we wandered, only in small circles, to a place to eat. The menu was a little overwhelming as it still seems odd to me to have more than a couple vegetarian choices to choose from. We ended up with a noodle dish, an interesting soy milk soup dish, and some dim sum. Unfortunately, it was way too much food for us but it was good.

Our original plan after dinner was to take the Victoria peak tram up the peak. However, when we got there the line was 1 1/2 hr wait. I didn’t think Calvin could deal with that so we decided to try again another day. Instead we wandered around some of the parks and visited an aviary. Wandering around Hong Kong I’ve been amazed at how many communal spaces there are. There are beautifully landscaped parks and mini-parks all over the place. Also, there are tons of playgrounds. It seems like every time we turn around there’s an entirely new playground. Naturally, Calvin wants to try them all but if we did that, there wouldn’t be time to do anything else.

We ended the day going to a tea museum and then having tea. I got an Oolong tea that included an interesting preparation that involved, among other things, pouring some of the tea water over the pottery tea pot. By the time we left the tea shop everyone was dragging a bit so we decided to head back to the hotel.

Calvin was upset that we hadn’t taken the promised tram ride so to make him happier, we decided to take the streetcar back instead of MTR. In retrospect, that may have been a mistake. Calvin really enjoyed it in the beginning but the streetcar stopped often and it felt like it took an hour to get back to our hotel. Calvin fell asleep half-way back.

Back at the hotel, we successfully transferred Calvin to bed and then decided to claim that 8pm was a reasonable bed time for us as well.

Our Hong Kong/Taiwan Trip:

Traveling to Hong Kong

Traveling to Hong Kong

On Thursday morning we woke up bright and early at 2:30 am in order to reach the airport for our 6:00 am flight to LAX. When booking the tickets, Jaeger had the option to choose a flight with a one hour layover in LAX or one with a three hour layover. To be on the safe side, we chose the three hour layover. When we woke Calvin up, he kept insisting that he didn’t want to go to Hong Kong until it was morning.

We made it to LAX without any delays and had a fair amount of time to wander the airport before our flight to Tokyo left. We ate breakfast at a cafe that had a splendid place to sit and watch airplanes taxing back and forth. Calvin was entranced. After breakfast, we found our gate and I eventually convinced Calvin to expend some energy by promising to play tag with him. We found a fairly deserted spot and amused the window washers by running around after each other. One window washer suggested that Calvin may be wearing me out more than I was wearing him out.

Ever since we decided to take Calvin with us to Hong Kong I have been panicking about the long plane ride to get there. I have spent hours (days?) reading every bit of long-haul travel advice I could get my hands on. I carefully packed and re-packed our carry-on bags to try to maximize the amount of entertainment I could carry. However, in the end, it turned out that all the entertainment I really need to bring for Calvin was the iPad. We were very fortunate to have power available for the longest leg of our journey so I never even had to pull out our spare batteries.

On our flight to Tokyo, Calvin happily watched movies and played games on the iPad for at least 5 hours. However, a little over half-way through our flight he stated getting really cranky so I took the iPad away from him and told him it was time to sleep. He feebly protested but was asleep within minutes.

I had worried a little bit over when to let Calvin sleep in order to reduce jet lag. However, one blog I read suggested that it was best to let your children sleep on whatever schedule makes them happiest and only worry about changing schedules once you arrive at your destination. This advice seemed to work surprisingly well for Calvin, at least for the trip here.

Approximately eleven hours after leaving LAX we arrived in Tokyo. This time, we only had an hour layover and I was a little nervous once I learned we had to go through the international security checkpoint before we could continue to our gate. However, security was less painful than I have grown accustomed to in the US. They did specify no liquids were allows through the checkpoint. It was unclear to me if there was a similar exception for 100mL amounts like in the US and I stressed over it enough that I complexly forgot about the water bottles full of water I was carrying. My quart bag of liquids went through without a snag but my full water bottles were flagged. I felt kind of silly. However, once they saw I was traveling with a child they just did a perfunctory smell test (opening up a bottle and wafting any sent towards there nose) and when it smelled like water, they passed me through without any hassle. We actually got to our gate with around a half-hour to spare and got to checkout the nearby children’s play area for a couple of minutes.

I had been especially dreading the Tokyo to Hong Kong part of our journey. Unlike our eleven-hour flight, this five-hour flight didn’t have personally entertainment systems. Calvin played happily with the iPad and I continued reading a book I had been saving for the occasion. However, about half way through the flight I gave up and snoozed the rest of the trip. Calvin also fell asleep shortly after I did (I woke up enough to rescue the iPad from his hands) and stayed asleep until we landed. Apparently Calvin had seen enough airports for one day and we were unable to get him excited over anything we saw outside while we taxied to the gate.

I thought our long journey was almost over. We got through immigration and customs and headed off to find our hotel’s shuttle bus. We successful found the hotel representative and, with a group of people, followed our guide to the hotel shuttle area. Our shuttle bus serviced at least five hotels and we were unfortunately the last ones to be dropped off. However, we did arrive and managed to drag ourselves upstairs to bed. I was very relieved when Calvin climbed into his bed with no fussing at all. Our 30 hour trip was finally over.

Our Hong Kong/Taiwan Trip:

Traveling to Hong Kong