Central, Symphony of Lights, & Victoria Peak

I’m now back in the States and writing from New Jersey! I had a great 2 weeks in Japan and Hong Kong. Luckily, I still have a few travel posts to write up so I can relive vacation and forget that I’m going to work on Monday.

On Sunday, the day started off a little cloudy with some on/off rain. We took the MTR over to the Central District for a dim sum lunch with family in one of the Exchange Square buildings. After trying to get there early so we could walk around the big mall next door and being unsuccessful, we had a delicious lunch which I’ll show some photos of in my upcoming food post.

While wandering around, not finding what we were looking for though, I did take some photos!

After lunch, we walked around the area more and took the escalators up. So it’s hard to describe, but there are sets of escalators that take you higher up into other streets in the area. According to Wikipedia, it’s the longest covered escalator system in the world!

We walked around, went in to some shops, I got gelato, and we went in to Man Mo Temple on Hollywood Rd. We were going to go to Starbucks for a little breather and some coffee, but the one we went in to was packed and it started raining so we went into a tea house instead (again, photos to come!).

We headed back to the hotel to relax a little bit before heading out on the Star Ferry to Kowloon to see the nightly light show, Symphony of Lights. You’re supposed to be able to see the light show from either side of the harbor, but I’m not sure how good the show would be from the Hong Kong Island side since most if not all the lights are on that side. Actually, I don’t know if the buildings on the Kowloon side light up for the show – I just know the buildings behind me weren’t so who knows! Anyway, we took the ferry across to watch from the Kowloon side and it was beautiful weather, finally!

The ferry ride was really quick – I think a 7 minute ferry ride across. It offered a great view and lovely, warm breeze!

Some videos!

In fact, the weather was so beautiful that we thought it was our best chance at getting a clear view from Victoria Peak. My cousin offered to pick us up from the harbor when we got off the ferry and drive us up. We didn’t get to ride the famous Peak Tram up, but the line looked ridiculous so I don’t really mind having missed it!