Justin and Hazel Around the World

In Hong Kong, there is lots to do outside, much to our surprise and delight.  The first thing that caught our attention was the really dramatic night-time skyline.  Each night at 7pm, there is a laser-light show with music that you can view from the shores of Kowloon.   It is really cool-looking:

Laser Show

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Buying fabric in Hong Kong turned out to be a bit of a different experience than anywhere else we’ve been so far.  We looked up where we might be able to buy some fabric and found a whole lot of shops all in one area of town.  Hong Kong has a great subway system, so we took a ride over there and this is what we found:

Hong Kong's typical fabric shop

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Since we had a full week in Hong Kong, we made sure to find the local swing scene and go to the dances.  There are two regular dances per week in Hong Kong, run by Hong Kong Swings, and we went to both.  The first was a Sunday dance at a BBQ restaurant and bar called “Blue Smoke” – interestingly, there is another version of Blue Smoke in NYC which I’ve eaten at while seeing a Maria Schneider concert.  This venue was quite small and only a handful of dancers showed up, but we managed to have a great time nevertheless.

Wednesday night was a much bigger venue, set at a bar called Grappa’s Cellar, which had a great vibe and a lot more space.  They essentially cleared the main dining portion of the restaurant to make room for the dance, and there were tables set aside for stuff and for people to sit at.  We really worked up a sweat at this venue.

Since we wanted to meet the HK Swings people off the dance floor as well, we went afterwards to an ice bar near Grappa’s.  There we had a number of hijinks including meeting American soldiers who worked at the US Embassy, having drinks with them, nearly getting into a fight with them as they got drunker.  Also interesting was the bartender’s ability to make 7-layer shots and play a game where 4 random bottles from the bar are selected and then the bartender makes a drink from them.

We had a lot of fun, and made it home safely despite being rather off our heads!

While we were in Hong Kong, I had a mission – eat as much delicious food as possible.  While in California I had developed a taste for Dim Sum and since this area is where it all started we mainly ate dim sum.

So the day after we arrived we decided to go to a Michelin Starred Dim Sum Restaurant: Tim Ho Wan.  While it all sounds very fancy, it is just a cheap dim sum shack in the middle of Hong Kong’s Mong Kok district.  The trick is, you have to go 2-3 hours early and get a number!  It is all very bizarre.  Anyway, we got there, got our number and were told that we had at least 2 hours so we left and decided to walk around for a while.

The Map

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We had arranged our flight so that we arrived in Hong Kong during the day – unfortunately the only such flight was a red-eye, arriving at 7:45 in the morning.  Since we knew we’d have to wait before the hotel that we’d booked would let us check in, we hung out at the airport for a while.  It turns out that HK airport is really useful!  There is fast internet there (we uploaded hundreds of photos), a post office (for sending our souvenirs and gifts home), food and air conditioning.  We ended up spending a few hours that morning just getting organized and relaxing.

View On The Bus

Afterwards, we took a city bus to downtown where we found our hotel with only a little trouble (imagine a small sign underneath construction scaffolding in an area with hundreds of small signs) and laid our bags down.  The hotel was just what we wanted – a room with air-con in a great location and relatively cheap.  What we hadn’t expected was the size!

Trying to fit in the bed

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We were very sad to leave Sabi Sabi.  It was such a beautiful place and we loved seeing the animals so much.

The same day we left the game reserve my mom had to fly back to Johannesburg and then on home, so we were also sad to say goodbye to her.

A driver came and picked us up and then took us to Nelspruit, a nearby town where my mom would catch her flight later that day.  But first we had another treat in store!  We met up with my aunt’s foster daughter, her husband and their new baby!  They gave us a wonderful lunch at their home and we had a great time chatting with them.  They also gave us some good travel advice, dropped my mom off at the airport and us at our hostel.  So kind of them!

We had a couple of days left before our flight out of Africa, so we decided to stick around in Nelspruit and see the Blyde River Canyon which is only a short drive away.  We rented a car and I was very happy to find that the traffic in that area was not so busy.

It was a beautiful day exploring the canyon!

Rock Pinnacle

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While the big cats were the main event at this reserve, we also had many, many other spottings.  Here are some photos of the other animals we saw:

Swimming monitor lizard

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The other main event in Sabi Sabi is the last animal of the Big Five that we had yet to see – leopards.  And what a show!  We saw a few different leopards on a few different days, including a fast-paced off-road chase of a leopard on the move.  We were amazed at how the guides were able to find the first cat – another car had seen it but it had moved a little since then.  They were right on and led us to it.  It took a while for me to see at all, and I knew where it was!  I’ll give you a sense of what a leopard laying in the grass looks like:

Can you see it?

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It soon became clear that the specialty of the Sabi Sabi rangers was to find big cats, take you to them, and then take you so close you can’t even believe your eyes.  We had our first encounter with big cats the first morning!  Our guide Neil told us that the lionesses had taken down a Cape buffalo nearby and that we would go to see them feasting on the carcass.  True to their word, there were several lions just hanging about!  They had seemingly eaten their fill at this time and were mostly just focused on digesting.

Relaxing Lions

Lioness takes her turn at relaxation

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I have to start this post out by thanking Phil and Joanna, without whom we never would have been at the Little Bush Camp in the Sabi Sabi private game reserve.  This is absolutely the most luxurious, incredible place I can imagine for seeing these animals and I feel beyond lucky to have spent three nights there.  My photos definitely do not do this place justice.  It was perfect.

Our swank room!

The food was amazing (and endless) with lots of delicious choices for each meal.  I was stuffed constantly!

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