Brenda and I are back out and about for the next couple of weeks.  I am attending an annual trade show in Hong Kong – this will be the 3rd year in a row – and we’ve used this business trip as an excuse to return to Hong Kong.  We’ll then add some extra vacation travel at the end of the work obligations to see some new locations we’ve never seen before.

The first several days of these types of trips are the hardest.. we are a full 12 hours’ time zones ahead of Atlanta – literally located on the opposite side of the globe.  It took Phileas Fogg 40 days to get half-way around the world.  While it only took us 25 hours to get here from home, it still seemed like forever and has wiped us out such that we are both desperate for sleep and can’t seem to get any.

We had a direct flight from Atlanta to Seoul, Korea – 15 1/2 hours.. and then a 5 1/2 hour layover before we took a connecting flight to Hong Kong.  This time we got smart and made use of a tiny hotel set right in the airport terminal.  You can rent the rooms in six-hour increments for only $65. there’s just enough room to drop off your carry-on luggage, get a quick shower, use the potty, turn off the lights and pass out in total darkness.  We slept here for about 4 hours and it was WONDERFUL.  We were in much better spirits to take on the second, 3.5 hour flight to our final destination.

We got into our hotel well past midnight local time, had an early morning room service dinner and fell back asleep again.  This was the view of a Sunday morning dawn from our window.

After breakfast we got ourselves sorted with a trip to the ATM for some money and got our subway cards re-freshed (we saved them from prior trips) so we could hit the road.  We’ve done a lot of the most popular tourist spots in Hong Kong so today I convinced Brenda to take a 50 minute ocean ferry to visit Cheung Chau Island, one of the outlying islands.  This is still part of Hong Kong, but a world away from the crowded hustle of the main economic area.

There are about 22,000 people living on the island.  Cars are not allowed and so access to/from is only by boat.  It is a popular destination on the weekend for day trippers who want to get away and do some hiking around the perimeter of the island.

We headed south to walk along the bottom half of the island until we got tired and hot and hungry for lunch.

We walked back to the main commercial area near the ferry terminal to find a lunch that had menus we could read and waitresses who could take our order in English.  

By early afternoon we returned back to our hotel room and crashed again for another several hours this afternoon.  It will take us several days to try and get used to the time change.  Tomorrow my work starts but we will have some time in the morning to see some sights and do some shopping.