Although we didn’t have the best luck with the beginning of the trip (ie. Our flight was cancelled, we had to spend the night at the airport hotel in wuhan, had to fly to a different city, and then take a train to get there….) we made the best of everything and didn’t let anything get our spirits down. When we got there it was so shocking. So much English, so much diversity. It was a nice change to recognize things as well and actually be able to read signs and packaging. The hostel we were staying at was uber sketchy, but there were 11 of us all staying there so we weren’t too worried about it. Once we were all settle I was set on trying to find the sephora in Kowloon. I had the address so we headed that way. We got distracted as we wanted to get our hair done so that we didn’t have to do it ourselves for New Years Eve. Well, that ended up taking a lot longer than expected (and I lost like 5lbs of hair) so we had to head straight back to meet up with the others for dinner.
Once we all finally ate it was out to Dragon-I, a club that mike had found and got us all on the guest list for the night. It took a little bit of a trek and fighting through crowds to get there. The streets were comparable to Granville during the Olympics this year. It was insane. I was shocked that by the time we got there all 12 of us ended up in the same spot. We lost each other so many times. The club was awesome once we were there and we all had a fun time counting down to new years together and giving hugs and kisses when midnight hit. The cab ride coming home was a little difficult…and I also had a very intoxicated friend to deal with, haha, so that didn’t make matters any easier. In the end we got back safe and sound and everything was all good.
When I woke up in the morning I was so excited! Haha! I had been looking forward to Disneyland ever since we decided to go to Hong Kong. To top it off I knew that it would still be decorated for Christmas which made it even more exciting. That’s pretty much combining two of my favourite things into one big ball of goodness. The train which connected to Disneyland even had Mickey head windows and Mickey head hand rails. I won’t go into full detail of our whole day. It is a lot smaller than the real thing. They only have three lands: tomorrowland, fantasyland and adventureland. Most things were in English, or your had to the option to see things in English, but one of the shows was in Cantonese with English subtitles on the sides and then the songs were in English. The best part of it was that Mickey was speaking Cantonese in a high pitched voice. It was absolutely hilarious. I took a short video of it just because it was so entertaining. We stayed there the whole day enjoying the part and the last thing we did was shop down mainstreet and watch the fireworks. Perfect end to the perfect day.
The next day it we weren’t really too sure what we wanted to do. We ended up taking the metro to take a gondola to see the largest Buddha I had ever seen at the top of this mountain. It was a long wait but in the end it was worth it. There was this whistler type village at the top of the gondola as well. Big tourist spot. On the way back we took this special ‘crystal’ gondola which had a glass bottom. It was pretty awesome. After that the base of the gondola just happened to be at a huge outlet mall, so we were able to do some shopping at some familiar stores and head on the metro to the airport.
Our trip ended just as it began. We got to the airport to see that our flight had been delayed, and we had already booked the late flight home :s we didn’t end up leaving Shenzhen until 1:15, got into Wuhan around 2:45 and weren’t home until 4:15am…and had to start teaching at 7:40. Lol, let’s just say that I was a little bit delirious while teaching the students, but that’s alright, I got through the day and it all worked out! Hehe.
So that is how I brought in 2011. Probably won’t forget that one! Now I’m counting down until our big break which I’m getting super excited about. The cold is really getting to me :S
Missing everyone back home!
-Taryn
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