hong kong

When I last visited Hong Kong, neither my guide Serena nor I were interested in shopping so I barely spent any time at the shopping malls. But when I visited HK again this time en route to India (One-world Alliance doesn’t have direct flight from Seoul to Delhi so I had 21 hour layover in HK), I learned why HK is called the shopper’s paradise. The initial plan was to go to either the Maipo Wetlands or the Wetlands Park with JS and Carol. (Serena left 5 minutes before I arrived in HK- but I did meet her parents and handed her the gifts that my mom prepared- actually, I left the original gift my mom prepared at home so mom had to buy a new one at the airport- first and hopefully the last accident of the trip… :) But JS dropped out for the afternoon because he had to accompany his sister shopping, and Carol and I ate lunch at the mall (at a cool salad place) and headed off to the Peak. It was nice to go up the Peak again. Last time I visited the peak it was in the evening, and although I think all the cities look cooler at night than during the day, HK’s daytime skyline wasn’t bad either. It was interesting to see Kowloon (land connected to Mainland China that is across the river from HK) build another financial center bigger than the one in HK, perhaps a symbol of the fact that China is catching up to HK’s economic prosperity (although this would take a while…). I also figured out the secret behind all of IM Pei’s architecture- triangles! And then Carol had to go attend her parents’ friend’s wedding anniversary, and I took a subway down to Causeway Bay to hang out with JS. It was nice to see JS in HK and his sister was interesting too with un-JS-like in many aspects such as zen-like voice, mature look, reasonable optimism for life, and also reasonable confidence in herself. From going to the Amazon and being at school with JS, I had no idea he was into shopping, but he had a strange soft spot for sneakers. Although he dresses almost the same everyday, he cared a lot about his shoes and we spent three hours after dinner trying to find JS sneakers that he likes. We walked through two malls, and many outside shopping shops, and Hong Kong just had endless forest of shops. I passed by so-called the biggest Louis Vutton in the world, and passed many other fancy designer shops. I have to admit that some of the shops did have a cool layout in how they displayed their products, but it was a long day for me as I cannot stand shopping without purpose but I bit the bullet for my friend JS.