Today we had a sleep in as we knew it was going to be a late night tonight,
The Star Ferry was our first stop for today. We headed down to Central Pier to catch the ferry. We stopped for breakfast at a bakery and ordered some BBQ pork buns and a pineapple bun and then with our tummies happy we continued to the ferry terminal.
We used our octopus card to get entry to the star ferry and were lucky enough to turn up right when a star ferry was boarding. We jumped on the star ferry and enjoyed the journey across. It was a shame the skyline was so smoggy today as the view would have been spectacular if we could see properly. Regardless the star ferry was a cheap and nice way to get from Hong Kong Island to Kowloon.
When we disembarked at Kowloon we made our way over towards the Avenue of the Stars. The Avenue of the Stars is Hong Kongs tribute to its movie stars. Again the view along here would have been 100% better without the smog, however it was still a nice walk. We stopped to get our pictures with Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan’s stars. After our walk along the Avenue of the stars we made our way to Nathan Road.
Anthony had found a place called In’s Point, which is like a transformers/ gundams/ action figure collectors dream. There were two floors of tiny tiny shops stacked full of transformers and action figures. I have seriously never seen anything like it. Anthony of course was so excited and I was scared how much money we would be spending today. We had a good look around as many of the shops were shut and wouldn’t open until 5.
We made a vow to return at 5 and headed off to explore some more of Kowloon. Our next stop was to the Tin Hau Temple. It is an absolutely beautiful temple with heaps of incense coils hanging from the ceiling. We spent some time watching the locals light the incense and say prayers which itself is interesting. We both really enjoyed spending some time in the temple.Anthony was worried it was sacrilegious to take photos of the god statues though.
We left Tin Hau temple and made our way to the Jade Market. The jade market started off very well and it had some beautiful things but after the first 2 rows i was being pestered by the sale people. It ended up with one lady putting 3 bangles on one hand and holding my arm so i wouldn’t take them off. She kept lowering the price one bangle came down from 2000 hkd to 100 hkd. We kept saying no and she wouldn’t let go of my arm and i was starting to panic. This women would seriously not take no for an answer. Finally she cracked it with us and I got my arm back. After that I did not want to go any further so we went back to the guy at the start who didn’t scare or hassle me and we got some stuff.
It was 5 o’clock so we headed back to In’s Point and Anthony got some transformers. 4 in total as well as a set of transformer monopoly cards. He was happy so we headed back to the hotel to rest before the fireworks and the crowds.
NYE was horrible. We were stuck in the crowd jam packed for 2 hours and in that time only got far enough to see a quarter of the fireworks. To top it off it took forever to get home. Not a very nice experience. The only good thing I can say is I got to spend NYE with the person I love and that is the most important thing.
Happy New Years Everyone :)