Day Two: Sunday

I had a shrimp dumpling, smoked salmon, zucchini, cheese, bacon, and a small hash brown for breakfast! The food here in the hotel is very interesting because the buffet caters to Asians and people from the West!

We went to the visit to the city of Hong Kong and it was very interesting. At first I felt like an alien because everyone stared at me. But as the day went on I got used to it. It probably would have been better if I wasn't with Lori who is blonde and blue-eyed! We truly stood out, talk about an odd couple :-). We had a great time though! We did a self-guided walking tour of Central HK that is in my guidebook. However, what the tour book didn't tell us was that HK is nothing but hills (think of San Fran but way worse) and to see the sights on foot, you had to climb these incredible staircases! No wonder everyone here is so thin. I probably sweated off 5 pounds and my calves look like oranges! We saw lots of cool things including an aviary, a botanical garden, a green house, a mini zoo, a tea museum, and a kid's fencing competition! And everything was free!

But, the most incredible thing we saw was the scores of women just hanging out in the public areas (I took pictures); anywhere there was shade. I can't even describe to you how it looked. At first, we thought the women were office workers on their lunch break, because they all had lunches and were sitting on blankets, playing cards, scrabble, bingo, etc. But then we realized that there were way too many of them and they were there the entire time we were (4 hours). We asked Joe about it on Monday, and he said they are all Domestics who live in people's houses. Apparently, TONS of people have Domestics and on their day off (Sunday), they all come downtown and hang out together. Most of them are from the Philippines. It was crazy!