Hong Kong
Had there not been so many Chinese people, I would have almost been fooled into thinking I was back in the US. The city is modern in every way, especially in it's pricing and addiction to brands. The following is a view from The Peak. It's not much more than a grassy hill with 60HKD trolly access. It is special in that it has one of the only Burger Kings in all of Hong Kong. It is rumored that people ride the trolly up just to get a taste of that classic Whopper meal.
One of the most famous tourist attractions is the 2HKD nighttime ferry ride during the light show. How could I miss it?
City Favorites: great food! Allen, Floretta and I went "sweeping the street" in Wang Jiao. Basically, sweeping for street food ~ meats, seafoods, veggies freshly grilled on sticks, fresh baked pastries, freshly mixed noodles, freshly ground sugar cane juice (literally inserting a 5ft long sugar cane into a machine, then collecting juice from a spout). City Least favs: I guess I was incorrect to assume that just because I was close to China, the prices of goods would also be close to Chinese costs. The only activities in the city were shopping, shopping and shopping. Normally, it is an activity I enjoy, but a student's budget can't afford goods in an I-banker's city.
We cut our stay one day short and skipped out our last night's hotel reservation for ShenZhen. Now that's where the real shopping started...
ShenZhen
City Favorites: watching my sister bargain. There's a saying in Chinese bargaining lingo, that for every price they call you have to go to the "half half price", or 25%. But watching my sister, she went even beyond that. It was like she knew exactly what price the buyers got the product for and let them earn anywhere between 1 yuan to 5 yuan. Absolutely amazing.
City least favs: too little time and too many wants. The only thing holding us back was the though of lugging everything to Beijing.
