This place will always be my home <3

But I haven’t been able to be there as much as I’d like in the past 20-some years. So, even though there’s so much to see and do and so much fun to be had, it always feels a bit emo­tion­al to vis­it. Child­hood mem­o­ries, and such.

We crossed the har­bour between Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Penin­su­la almost dai­ly. Usu­al­ly we take the MTR (sub­way), but real­ized that we can also take the Star Fer­ry, so we tried that one day. The Star Fer­ry has been in oper­a­tion since 1888. It used to be much busier when the MTR was­n’t as exten­sive. I remem­ber tak­ing it every time we vis­it­ed my grand­par­ents, and it would make me sea sick (it still does :P). It’s an excel­lent way to take in the views of Vic­to­ria Harbour.

Near the Star Fer­ry pier we could see the smi­ley Fer­ris wheel ^_^ We did­n’t go on it though. It was very rainy that day.

Aberdeen is one of the neigh­bour­hoods where my fam­i­ly used to live. The Aberdeen har­bour is home to many boat hous­es, and the many peo­ple who live in them.

Peo­ple could cross the har­bour with the com­muter boat, it costs $2.20 HKD (about $0.35 CAD) for the 3‑minute jour­ney. So of course we went for a ride :D It was also a nice way to look at the boat houses.

The hotel we stayed at was very close to the North Point Pier. There were quite a few peo­ple fish­ing at the pier. This is one of my favourite pic­tures from the whole trip.

Spring­time is very foggy.

Mike recent­ly start­ed read­ing Moomin comics and was very excit­ed to find a Moomin Cafe :D We had lunch there one day. The serv­er would bring over giant Moomin (and friends) plush to sit at the table with people.

And we found not one, but TWO Stu­dio Ghi­b­li stores! (Donguri Repub­lic at Har­bour City and Times Square)

We also found the BEST cat cafe ever!

There were cats every­where. Right beside me curled up in a chair, on top of the tables, inside the counter…

Most are sleep­ing, but the ones wan­der­ing about were quite friend­ly :D

And in the same neigh­bour­hood I found a yarn store! (the red framed win­dows with the sweaters) Cause­way Bay is the place to be! I bought some dis­count­ed acrylic but exer­cised quite a bit of self-con­trol — there’s only so much space in the lug­gage and there are so much fun snacks to bring back!!

Switch­ing gears to see places out­side of the city, we joined a boat tour to vis­it the vol­canic rock region in the Hong Kong Geo­log­i­cal Park, which con­sists of sea arch­es, sea caves, and hexag­o­nal rock columns! The tour leaves from the Vol­cano Dis­cov­ery Cen­tre at Sai Kung Pier.

Pic­tures don’t do these moun­tains jus­tice, they are absolute­ly mag­nif­i­cent. Here is a sea arch!

And some sea caves, and waterfalls!

As well as fish­ing villages…

And ven­dors sell­ing seafood from their boats.

Fog­gy days mean low clouds hang­ing in the mid­dle of the moun­tains and this heav­en­ly scene.

Then we went to the oppo­site side of Hong Kong and vis­it­ed Tai O, which is a fish­ing vil­lage on Lan­tau Island, with many stilt hous­es built on water.

The small streets and hous­es are very dif­fer­ent from that of the city.

Res­i­dents mak­ing salt fish, shrimp paste and dried seafood.

We took a boat tour to watch for the famed pink dol­phins, but did­n’t see any :( maybe next time.

Going back in time, we vis­it­ed a muse­um of a 200 year-old restored Hak­ka walled vil­lage, called Sam Tung Uk.

We vis­it­ed part­ly because my sis­ter and I have Hak­ka ances­try. Some of the things in the muse­um indeed remind me of what my grand­par­ents used to have in their home, and still in the vil­lage where they live now, like the ances­tral hall.

Back in the city, we vis­it­ed the his­tor­i­cal Stone Slabs Street (aka Pot­tinger Street) in Cen­tral dis­trict. Some of the stone slabs are restored, and some are orig­i­nal I think. Ven­dors keep stalls on both sides of the street. I remem­ber being there once when I was young, and it being a lot busier back then, but this is excit­ing nonethe­less :D

And guess what I found on these fab­u­lous stone steps? A yarn­bombed railing!

Near­by there is a Star­bucks dressed like an old times Hong Kong cof­fee house :D

My sis­ter took us to the Chi­nese Uni­ver­si­ty of Hong Kong, where she went to grad­u­ate school sev­er­al years ago :D It might not be a place that most tourists would vis­it, but since it’s built on a moun­tain it’s actu­al­ly a good hike, with lots of beau­ti­ful scenery, like this foun­tain near the top of the moun­tain, which seems to be built to blend with and inter­act with its sur­round­ing views.

The tiles make up the words, “spread wings and fly” :)

And so we did, at the end of our trip, flew back to our oth­er home in Toron­to. But sure­ly we will be back :)

I hope you enjoyed the pho­tos! :D Because I have more! :D Most­ly street pho­tog­ra­phy using the Diana Mini. I’m still wait­ing to fin­ish my last roll and for the rest to devel­op, but will pick some good ones to show you.

Have a good week­end, everyone!