Holiday in Hong Kong

A little enforced vacation never hurt anyone! Our tourist visas are good for only 90 days, so before we had been in China for 90 days we needed to leave the country and then re-enter to start another 90 day window. Since we are right in the middle of our five month stay, I decided this would be a good time to take a short break and restart the visa clock. Oddly enough, the easiest way to do that is to go to Hong Kong. I say oddly since Hong Kong is part of China, but for some reason, going to Hong Kong counts as leaving China. So we packed our backpacks and headed south!

Transportation is always interesting here...getting to Hong Kong, about 900 miles southeast, required...a van, an airplane, a bus and a metro train. Coming back we took the metro again, two trains and a bus. We definitely get gold stars for successfully managing all those modes of public transportation...and actually arriving back in Jiaozuo on schedule.

Hong Kong is the same general latitude as Miami, so I was excited about some warmer weather. And we were not disappointed. We had sunny, 70-degree weather for our visit. Kristen was most excited about the bathtub...she received two Barbie Mermaids for Christmas but hadn't yet had a bathtub to enjoy them in. Kristen was not the only one who appreciated the bathtub -- we were only at the hotel for two nights but that tub was well used!
I was also excited about the food, not having to work quite as hard to communicate (English is one of Hong Kong's two official languages), elevators, seeing other foreigners! and did I mention, the food?