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Spring Festival traveling, what we had been waiting for since our October travels to Xi'an. Spring Festival or Chinese New Year is the biggest festival in China, almost akin to Christmas in England. Weeks before decorations of red and gold start appearing in shops and people put up red calligraphy banners. Spring Festival usually lasts about 2 to 3 weeks sometime at the end of January to the beginning of February depending on the Chinese lunar calendar. At this time everyone heads home to their families. Since many Chinese people live in big cities they migrate, often provinces apart to their ancestral and familial homes to celebrate the New Year so the transport system gets pretty hectic and full. It's often hard to secure the train or bus tickets you want (as we found out later). Beth and I had been clawing our eyes out waiting to start travelling again. It had been four months since we had seen all our China friends and many of them had started without us because in the north where they live they get two months and we only got one.
It had been difficult hearing about our friends amazing travels in the West while we were stuck teaching for another month but we had something exciting up our sleeves. We started off by going to Hong Kong with Rob and Dan to visit two volunteers that live there. We took an overnight train to the boarder and then walked through the next morning. It was so easy getting through. As we are British citizens we don't require a visa and because our Chinese visas are essentially residence permits we can come and go as we please.
Hong Kong was brilliant! It was so modern and just everything that is not Chinese. Everything was in English and it was so clean and there were so many foreigners! We stayed with two guys called Jeremy and Callum in their apartment for four days. They are also with Project Trust but instead of teaching they are working for Outward Bound instructing. We arrived in the morning so we had the whole day to kill! Beth and I went shopping at a five story forever twenty one where I got a new going out dress and some adorable red flats. Later that day we headed out to the HK boys apartment which is about half an hour from the city in a more expat suburb called Sai Kung. We met their roommates and then watched Superbad and chatted as a bonding experience as this is the first time we had actually met them in person.
The first full day was pretty cool, since we didn't know the boys we all headed out to Ocean Park which is a theme park on the coast and spent a couple of hours there on the rides. It took me a while to build up the courage to go on the rollercoasters but in the end I actually quite liked them. We also looked at the giant pandas (a bit of a disappointment, because the one we did see hid behind a bush for 20 minutes) and that night we then went and had pizza. The boys had heard of a local pizza challenge at their pizza restaurant in town. If you can finish a 24 inch pizza between two of you in 20 minutes you get the pizza free and a plaque of honour on the wall. If not you pay 300 dollars or about £35 each. That night we went out. I had not been out since I left England so it was a pretty big deal getting ready. It was awesome; first we headed to a bar called Carnegie's then we got the metro down to a small club called Graffiti where the ladies get in free! Danced all night, it was brilliant. When we got back at 7 (having waited until the metro opened at 6) we collapsed on the couch and slept until 12.
That afternoon we got a cable car over to Lantau Island to see the sitting Buddha (the largest bronze sitting Buddha in the world, I will have you know) and then the monastery at the base. The Buddha was beautiful and looked very impressive but for the hike out to the island and the cost of the ferry and entrance it was somewhat bittersweet. At some point during the day we decided that it would be brilliant to go out again so four of us headed out for another night of dancing in Lan Kuai Fong.
Finally on our last day after a couple of hours sleep we headed out to Victoria Peak which was a bit of a let-down because of the weather. Victoria Peak is on Hong Kong Island and is the highest peak in Hong Kong, you can get up there by cable car where there is a mall and some expensive shops and the view! That evening we headed over to the ferry terminal to watch the light show from the river after a cheeky subway. Again the light show was a bit of a let-down. We headed back for a nice chat and barbecue and then packed for the next morning. Beth and I went with the boys back up to the boarder and then caught a bus home which was a bit of a MASSIVE pain. It was an overnight bus and the leg room was terrible. Finally, they dropped us 20km off from the city that we needed to be in at 4 in the morning so we had to pay over the odds for a taxi and then caught a bus home. We washed all our stuff and caught up on organising stuff and chilled for a bit before leaving the next day to our friends house in Jiujiang a couple of hours north.
It was a shame to leave Hong Kong, despite it being really expensive it is very expat orientated and globalised. I can imagine that if you were working there and had money it would be a very interesting place to live.
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