Back on North American Soil: Boston, MA

After leaving Hong Kong and a very long 13 hour plane ride to London and we hopped on a connecting flight to Boston.  

Ahem...home of the greatest baseball team in the world:  the Boston Red Sox; and, I admit this grudgingly, one of the best teams in hockey right now: the Boston Bruins (I can't believe I just wrote that).  *lol*

Anyway...after having been away from North America for about 5 months, we were both dying to watch a hockey game and what better way to do it than watch it live.  :)  

So we dropped our stuff at the hotel, took a quick nap, then hopped on the subway to make our way down to the 'new' Boston Gardens.  The real name escapes me right now...

I should add here that Boston was FREEZING!  *lol*  Then again, I only had a sweatshirt with a hood to keep me warm as we made our way down.

After grabbing our tickets and a quick bite to eat, we made our way to the rink and found our seats.  Then the game started.  I could tell Neil was pumped to be there; this was his team and they're off to a great start.  But following them over the internet is not the same as being able to watch them with your own eyes, live or otherwise.  I was just happy to be watching a game!

Anyway, Boston pretty much dominated the game.  They won it 5-3.  And they continue to hold the top position in the Eastern Conference of the NHL.  

Unfortunately, we didn't bring the camera.  There are a number of reasons why and we'll both agree to disagree as to why.  :)  (I still blame Neil for it!)

However, I managed to find a clip of some of the highlights of the game to take it's place.  After watching it, any pics we might've taken would've been put to shame by live coverage.  =)

So here is the link for all of you to enjoy watching we had watched!  *lol*  

I will leave you with one last message before I go:

GO FLAMES GO!!!

=)

Exploring the Streets of Hong Kong

Throughout our stay in Hong Kong, we did a lot of walking through the streets of the city.  Along the way we took some pictures and here they are.  Not all of our pictures turned out so great, but I tried to pick the best ones.  

We hope you enjoy them!!

View of Hong Kong Island from the Avenue of Stars.

The Mong Kok Markets.  Neil was amazed at how quickly the vendors put their 'stores' up.  It is pretty impressive!

Holy sign-age, Batman!

This is by the waterfront and where one of the major bus terminals is located.

Neil trying to do his best impression of Bruce Lee.  I don't know about you, but I'm not scared of the goofy red-head...

Where Neil & I eloped....

HAHAHA!  Just kidding!!!  I actually thought it was strange that they had this in the middle of a shopping mall...in Hong Kong.  Then again, they have drive-thru places where you can get married in Vegas.  So this probably isn't all that strange...

This is in front of another shopping mall/hotel.  I'm not sure if they're decorated for the holiday season, or if the lights are there year-round.  Either way, it still looks pretty.  :)

At the Avenue of Stars...again.  :)

There's a department store in this old cruise liner.  It would be even more interesting if it was located on the water!  :)

This is in front of the shopping mall/cruise ship.  It's located in a city called, Whompoa; you can see part of the name in the background.

To get to Whompoa, Neil and I hopped on a double-decker bus.  This is some of what we saw on our way back to Kowloon, where our hostel was.

Neil and Melis' next adventure???  *lol*

And that folks, brings us to the end of Hong Kong.  

Next up:  Boston and the good 'ol Canadian sport of hockey!!!

Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple

This was yet another attraction on our list of things to see and do in Hong Kong.  

Just visiting this temple, I found it hard to believe that it was in the middle of a big city.  Once you walked through the gates and passed the temple itself and it's worshippers, there were pathways surrounding gardens and small waterfalls and ponds.  It was very peaceful even though it was surrounded by high-rise apartments.  

Here are some of the pictures that we took.

Me posing in front of the Yin Yang symbol.

Behind Neil, you can see the roof of the temple.  Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside of it.

This is the entrance into the gardens behind the temple.  Even on a Sunday you can see how busy it already is.  We arrived mid-morning.

Posing with Confucious.  He's one cool dude.  =)

Neil and his new buddy, Confucious.  :)

The Garden of Dragons.  I wasn't able to find them, however.  *lol*

Neil rockclimbing to the top of the rock wall in the Garden of Dragons.  *lol*

Hong Kong @ Night

Hong Kong also has quite the night life.  It's always bustling with activity.

I don't know if you can see it in this picture, but the big sign at the top has bamboo poles sticking out and holding it to the building.  You can see signs similar to this all over the place.

The front of The Peninsula.  Probably the most expensive hotel in Hong Kong.  Every time we walked by it, we always saw some really nice cars parked in front of it.  I think at one point we saw about 5 million dollars worth of vehicles.  

The Olympic Rings on this building was also another attraction to hit that was on our list.  Along the path in front of this building is "Avenue of Stars", all stars from Hong Kong of course.  

This view is along the path that I just mentioned.  It's also a good place to catch the Symphony of Lights, currently the largest permanent light and sound show in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. 

It was hard to take pictures of it, but it was very cool.  The lights were all synchronized to music that you could hear from the speakers.  Very neat.

Honk Kong Island Tour

A couple of days after arriving in Hong Kong, we went on a tour of Hong Kong Island.  This is where the new international airport is located and also where a lot of the huge business building are found.  Hong Kong only occupies a very small part of the mainland.  It looks like it's a part of China, but it's actually not.  It never was.  For a long time it was under British rule, but only recently has Hong Kong become independent.  Our tour guide, Andy, also pointed out that in China the main dialect spoken there is Mandarin; in Hong Kong the main dialect spoken is Cantonese.  Both are forms of Chinese.  In terms of language, the only similarity is that both Hong Kong and China also speak English.  

Anyway, some of the places that we visited on this tour was an old Taoist temple; Victoria's Peak which we travelled to by a trolley; we drove through one of the ritzier areas and by a beach called Repulse Bay; we also enjoyed a boat ride through the oldest fishing village in Hong Kong, the Aberdeen Fishing Village; and we made a final stop at Stanley Market.  There are an awful lot of markets in Hong Kong!!!  

But I'll let you check out the pictures.  =)  Enjoy!!

The temple was pretty neat.  They do a lot of things in three's.  To enter the temple, you're supposed to hit a drum 3 times and a bell 3 times.  This is an attempt to alert the Taoist 'gods' that one has entered the temple.  And the people in the temple will also burn incense as an offering to the gods.  And they burn 3 sticks of incense, of course.  The smell of it was strong, but not as strong as the temple we visited later on in our visit.  But that's another post.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to take as many pictures as we would've liked.  There were some places where you weren't allowed to take pictures, and obviously, taking pictures of people who were praying is against the rules as well.  Nevertheless, it was a great place to visit.  It would've been nice to have visited a Taoist temple when I was back in high school studying world religion.  Oh well.  =)

This is the view from the trolley we took up to Victoria's Peak.  Basically, it's a mountain located in the Western half of Hong Kong island.  'The Peak' itself is actually occupied by a telecommunications facility (I think) and so the public is not allowed to go up there.  However, the rest of the area consists of a public park and some residential areas.  In fact, there's a five hour hiking trail there; it would've been nice to do, but because we were on a tour we were pressed for time.  It would've been awesome to explore the surrounding area.

Now this is one of many views from The Peak.  Fantastic!!

This is a view from our drive towards the fishing village...

This is one of the boats that we rode through the fishing village.  It was actually taken at the end of our ride, but I posted it here so that you could all see the boat.

These are some of the boats in the village.  Very old.

A jumbo floating restaurant.  Kind of cool, but our tour guide said the food here wasn't of great quality and went on to suggest some other restaurants around Hong Kong to check out if we felt the need.  That's too bad because on the outside it looks like a pretty neat place to be having a meal.

More boats.  The fishers actually live in them.  However, the village has been bought out by Ocean Park, which is an amusement park.  They want to build a series of hotels and resorts on it.  In a way it's kind of sad, but at the same time there's no one to continue the fishing tradition.  This is because the children of the fishers have been educated and would rather work in a different industry and, of course, money.

This is Repulse Beach.  

Jackie Chan has a mansion not too far.  Too bad we didn't drive by it; I would've taken a picture of that.  :)

This was the last stop on our tour.  The only thing I bought here was a sweater.  But I had been looking for one for awhile.  :)