Winter clothes!

We've been hearing news reports from other parts of China telling about record snow falls and freezing temperatures so today was devoted to shopping for winter clothing. We took the Star Ferry over to Central then (after some looking around) found the bus terminal and took the #6X bus to the Stanley Market. We found a stall selling ski jackets and pants and selected what we would need. All up for 4 jackets and 3 pants we spent $A350. We would never have been able to find heavy gear like this for that price in Australia. That morning we had also picked a family member's name out of a hat so we also shopped for a Kris Kringle present for that person. Because we've already celebrated Christmas this will enable us to get a present tomorrow to acknowledge that it is Christmas Day.

Entrance to Stanley Market

After shopping we went to a 7Eleven and bought something for lunch. Jade chose garlic 2 min noodles which were made up and served to her hot. The rest of us had packaged rolls. Mine was a tomato flavour but they sure had some interesting varieties like cheese and corn, ham and tomato, bean paste, BBQ pork and others I can't remember. There were sweet ones too and all of the various flavours were all displayed together--ie there were sweet ones mixed in with savoury ones. We sat down on a park bench to eat lunch then took the bus back to Wanchai. We got off when we saw tram tracks for the double decker trams, which we wanted to ride. As usually happens there wasn't a bus stop where we wanted to get off so we had to ride the bus a few extra blocks then walk back to the tram. The tram ride was great and so cheap--$HK2--about $A0.40! We got off the tram at Admiralty and took the train back to the hotel.

Double decker tram

Kids on the tram near the stairs

Paul, always one for walking, still hadn't had enough so he and I left the kids in the room while we went out for a few minutes. We picked up my ring then walked down Nathan Rd past the shops. I'm starting to feel I've had enough of the crowds. I was wondering what was on the high area behind the shops when we came to a stairway. I remembered seeing Kowloon Park on a map so figured the stairs led up to the park which they did. We wandered through the park a bit. It's very built up with wide paved areas and buildings. We found a pond with a turtle and another with a pagoda. In a pavillion a group of people were doing tai chi.

Pagoda in Kowloon Park

When we got back to the hotel I took the kids swimming in the hotel pool while Paul took care of the laundry in the hotel's self-service laundry. Later we went out to dinner and now we are waiting to see the Christmas lights festivities that are going to take place on the harbour. The police have blocked off all of the streets in the lower part of Kowloon to allow pedestrians to walk and crowds are building up so we think it is going to be a big show. We don't know though what time it is going to start or what exactly is going to happen.

Today is our last day in Hong Kong. We've gotten the hang of things here and have started to become familiar with getting around. We've done a LOT of walking and our legs and feet are very sore. We'll be sorry to leave but on the other hand it will be good to move on to Nanning where we are going to have a couple of tours--so hopefully a bit less walking!

The big news in today's South China Morning Post is the arrival of the pandas in Taiwan and there is a very cute photo of them on the front page of the paper. Their names are Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan which together mean unification. We are looking forward to seeing pandas later in our trip.

Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan