Phene's at Sea 2011

Mar 26, 2011 Today was our first day in Hong Kong. It is such an amazing city! After being in Vietnam and Cambodia it was definitely a culture shock. We set out from the ship about 11 am, a huge group of 10 of us. Kelly’s dad used to be a pilot, so he has flown to Hong Kong a lot and gave us some tips, including some delicious restaurants. That was our first stop. We went to a cute little pub called Jimmy’s Kitchen that ended up being a pretty expensive restaurant. I got crab bisque and salmon with capers and cream cheese. It was super delicious and definitely worth the price tag after the so-so food in Vietnam and Cambodia. After we ate we were wandering around the city looking for a market called Women’s Street, apparently the most crowded market in Hong Kong. Along the way, Meredith and Jenny got sucked in by some advertising for reflexology. We walked up a narrow stairwell and for a second thought we were gonna die, but we made it into a quaint little salon where we all changed into tiny Asian pj pants and prepared for our foot massages. It turned out to be an hour-long lesson in pain. Okay, I get that reflexology uses pressure points, but dear god. I felt like my toes were being pulled off and I could tell I was getting instant bruises. My lady did not speak English, so I couldn’t tell her to let up at all. Afterward, though, our feet felt great. After an hour of pampering for about $5, we kept walking towards the market. Immediately when I got there I wanted to buy everything in sight. SO MANY fake bags everywhere, fake designer shoes, cheap jewelry, t-shirts…anything you could imagine. Of course I spent all my cash pretty quick so I walked around helping other people bargain. We ended up spending way longer at the market than we wanted to originally. Of course, getting 10 girls out of a market like that was difficult. We left and headed up to this place called the Lookout, which is a building with a viewing deck on the top that overlooks the entire city of Hong Kong. We got there just after dark and missed the light show but the view was still amazing. It’s such a modern city, all the high rises are so colorful and interesting and it was so quiet up at the top of that building. We left and went down to this little restaurant that looked like a French hut in the countryside and decided to have dinner there even though it was a bit pricey. We sat outside under the trees on which hundreds of tiny lights were strung, under blankets and heaters, and drank wine and had great conversation. We completely indulged- desert and everything. At one point we were talking about how strange it was that we were there, eating at such a nice restaurant like real grown ups! Since we had had so much wine at dinner most of us decided not to go out that night, we wanted to be able to enjoy the next day in Hong Kong, so we went back to the ship and went to sleep.