When we booked our hotel we were told there were laundry facilities here as well as laundry services. Turns out there are only laundry services which cost as much as replacing the item we want washed. So I decided to do laundry myself in the sink of our bathroom. We had accumulated quite an assortment of dirty items but to be honest the shirts we had worn weren't really dirty. It's too cold here to sweat and we always have our jackets on over them. I was mostly concerned with underwear and socks as we didn't have enough to get through the next week. I scrubbed and agitated the clothes in the sink and then Peter did a lot of the rinsing in the shower. We had to get creative with where to hang the items as there is not much room in the place and no closet with hangers. Once things were more or less hanging up we headed down to eat and then came back up to pack our bag for the day. Today the weather is supposed to be the warmest yet (high of about 60) and no chance of rain. Since it had rained a little yesterday the scenery was great
for sightseeing. We had a great view from our hotel room of the the buildings on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong and knew that if we got out of the city there'd be a good chance the nature views would be great too.
We grabbed a drink at Starbucks (Peter has tried the hotel coffee a couple times but doesn't like it at all) and then found our way to the MTR. We took two trains and then got off to see the Avenue of Stars.
Peter had seen a sign for this on one of the MTR boards and wanted to check it out. Basically it is a homage to Hong Kong's stars and film industry. There are handprints and plaques but it's pretty underwhelming and short. However, the Avenue is on the Tsim Sha Tsui East Promenade which has a remarkable and amazing view of the Hong Kong Skyline. Since the day was clear we could see everything so well and got to take some great pictures, some with the Junk boat, Aqua Luna cruising by.
The sight alone was worth the stop and walk to see the Avenue of Stars. From there we caught two more trains which dropped us at Tai Po Market right into a mall. We walked around looking at the food choices but Peter wasn't feeling it today and said he wanted to eat at McDonald's. That's really unusual since I am usually the one who is afraid to be adventurous and today I was all about eating something different. No worries though, we grabbed a really cheap meal then
took a bus toward Plover Cove Country Park. Where we got dropped off there was no information so we wandered a bit, checked our book and the GPS and finally figured out we had to climb a pretty steep hill about 600 meters to get to the start of the path. Once on our way we saw a shop that said "USA snacks and beverages", naturally we had to go in.
Sure enough they had a decent selection of US items that we hadn't seen in a week. They had stuff only sold at Target and other things that said "CVS Pharmacy". Peter bought a Mountain Dew and I got a Twix bar and we continued up the hill. Finally we found the start of the trail and almost as soon as we started it we
were awarded with beautiful views of the islands that make up Hong Kong. The climb was step and a little scary. There were a lot of leaves (of course) so where there were steps they were slippery. We had to make sure we took careful steps and every so often we would stop to take pictures. We knew the trail led to Bride's Pool so when we came
across three signs and one of them said Bride's Pool we took that route. We found out, after going almost 100 feet straight down, we took the wrong path. There was no way we would be able to walk back up again in time before the sun would set so we took the road around the mountain towards Bride's Pool. I don't know how far
the walk was but it seemed like forever. The road was all uphill, not too terrible of an incline but enough to feel it in your toes and ankles. We walked and walked and walked, there wasn't much to see from this angle. The book we had said at the end of the path you could
take a bus back to where we were dropped off but we didn't see a single bus pass us and we only saw one taxi. Finally we made it to Bride's Pool where we got to see one of the waterfalls but only from a distance. Apparently, the area is prone to flooding so you aren't allowed access anywhere close to the actual waterfall for safety reasons. Wish we had known that before we walked forever. We took a couple unimpressive pictures, talked over our options and decided the only thing we could really do was to walk back down the way we came up. Ugh. It was just starting to get dark and the temperature was dropping, I was not looking forward to walking all that way again but at least this time it would be down hill. We walked maybe 75 feet and heard a car behind us. When we turned we were extremely blessed to see a "for hire" taxi cab which Peter quickly flagged down and we climbed in. The taxi took us back to the lot where we caught our bus back to the MTR. We took two more trains and then got off to find a ferry to take us across the harbor rather than taking another train.
We didn't realize that the ferries closed down at 7:35 so we just missed our chance by a couple minutes and had to walk (quite a ways) back to the MTR station. Our feet definitely got a work out today.We came back into a large shopping area that was connected to the station and found
a Chinese restaurant where we stopped to sit and eat. Our feet enjoyed the rest and our bodies were happy to get refueled. Once we had a bit more energy in us we caught the next train and got off at Admiralty where we walked through the city and found the tram to Peak Tower. I enjoyed watching all the couples celebrating Valentine's Day along the way. Lots of girls were carrying huge bouquets of flowers that were all fancy and wrapped beautifully. Not like you see in the states where they are just in plastic sleeves with a rubber-band around them. These were all put together perfectly and most were wrapped in a type of thick paper and some straw material that wrapped and bound it together. All the flowers were different colors too. Not just pink and red which I think made them even more pretty.
Taking the Peak Tram was
a new experience for us, I am not even sure we knew it existed last time we came here. We had to wait for 2 trams to come before we could get on but it didn't take too long. Once on we went straight up the slope of the mountain. I didn't have a good seat to take pictures but the view was amazing and it was hard to believe we could be at such a steep incline. It only took a few minutes to get to the top and then we got off and climbed to the top of the Peak Tower. You have to pay for the observation deck but since the night was so clear and we hadn't done it before we decided to go for it. It wasn't as crowded as I thought
it was going to be but you did have to wait to get to the edge and see the complete view. It was breathtaking and I am so glad we were provided with good weather today to see all the sights we did. Peter and I were exhausted by this time but he stopped to get a scoop of ice cream at Haagendaz. I would have had some too if I weren't freezing. Instead of waiting in line to catch a minibus back to central where we would have to catch a train and then walk back to our hotel from the MTR station we decided we would just wait in line to get a
taxi to take us all the way back to our hotel. It cost us just over $10 and was worth every penny even if the driver was upset with us because we wanted to go to “the other side”.
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