My Travel Blog
Friday was a lovely, lazy day. Jennie took the day off of work and we had a girl day at the spa. We went for a nice lunch and then spent an amazing few hours getting pampered with a facial and massage. My skin has never been so soft! While we were spa-ing Jeff took the kids out for burgers at a place that Julia had discovered online that morning. Julia said it was the biggest, best burger of her life so I guess their afternoon was also a success!
That evening Scott took Jeff along with him and some friends to the Rugby Sevens tournament while the four girls went for dinner and shopping. We had great Vietnamese (Chloe had been hankering for Pho this entire trip!) followed by some kind of fancy ice cream with crunchy bits on top, and then shopping for little trinkets that you don’t need but really, really want. We were exhausted by the time we finally caught a taxi and got home and the kids fell in to bed exhausted and happy. Jennie and I managed to stay up until the boys returned from rugby and they were an excited bunch after spending the evening in the HSBC box. It’s been so great spending time with Jennie and Scott and seeing how life is so different, yet still the same on the other side of the world. That’s one thing I love about travelling… realizing that people are people no matter where you go - same problems, same joys. Fun stuff.
The last few days have been full of fun sights and interesting food. We started out Thursday morning with the world's largest Buddha as our destination (Tian Tan Buddha), so after taking the metro to Lantau Island we found ourselves in a gigantic line-up to buy tickets. Generally line-ups are not our thing, and we very nearly walked away. 
Julia was adamant about us continuing on the adventure so we took deep breaths and managed to wait the 45 minutes without pulling out all of our hair. We got tickets for the glass bottomed gondola and it was a beautiful 25 minute climb to the top of a very tall mountain/hill. We went over lush canopies of trees, had a gorgeous view of the island, and even got an interesting view of the Hong Kong International airport. (That sounds sarcastic, but it was actually quite fun to see the planes landing and taking off as we were up so high.)
Once we got to the top we did the most enlightening, Buddhist thing we could think of and went to Starbucks. (We were a little chilly and under-caffeinated, what can I say.) It's not my fault they put a Starbucks at the top! With drinks in hand we started the trek up the 202 steps to the podium, and I must admit that it was quite impressive. I'm glad we waited in the line because it would've been a shame to miss. The village surrounding it was quite cute, but we didn't have much time to explore as we had made a date with Jennie for the afternoon and we were rushing to get back.
We met Jennie for lunch at a fusion Thai/Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant, and after our hunger was fed we hopped in her car and went out to Causeway Bay. What a delightful area! The beach was beautiful and had the softest sand, but the weather was a bit cool and so no one was in the water or on the beach sunbathing. Actually, Jennie told us that locals never sunbathe as they don't like to expose themselves to the sun, so it's mostly expats and tourists that use the beach meaning that it's 
very rarely busy. We grabbed a coffee and spent an hour or so just relaxing and hanging out watching the kids run around in the sand. We also witnessed a bride and groom doing a photo shoot that involved many different changes of clothes (one being a fluffy purple bridal gown!).
Dinner that night was at a much touted private club (The China Club) which almost didn't happen... apparently they don't allow children under 13, and Julia was quite adamant that she is 11. Well, after careful persuasion (while acknowledging the fact that truthfulness is always good) we managed to get in. The kids were perfect, and I'm not sure that anyone else in the restaurant even realized that they were there. The highlights of the night included watching a man make hand-made noodles (and jump-roping with them!) as well as Jennie being completely soaked by a glass of white wine that was inadvertently knocked over by a waitress. (We are talking wet t-shirt level wet... it was crazy!).
As I write this it is Saturday night and tomorrow we head out to Bali. I still need to document Friday and Saturday (exciting stuff!), and I am hoping to catch up tomorrow on the plane. It's been so much fun and it's hard to believe we are halfway through our trip already!
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