Last day in Hong Kong

To start the morning we didn't have breakfast, instead we waited until 11:00 at which time we had a traditional yum cha at city hall a.k.a Maxim's Grand Palace. Here are the photos that came with it.

 Following the yum cha was a relaxed day of shopping at a selection of stores, fashion etc. Photos.

Above are the trams that go through the city, these have been going for a very long time.

Eventually after all this was a short swim in the ice pool before a four o'clock(eleven hour long) flight to Auckland. Today wasn't very eventful, true, and the pace at the end has slown down, also true, but now that the trip is over am I sad? No, but I will remember how fun it was, and even if I don't I have this blog for a reason. This blog was enjoyable to write. 

Thank you for reading it. Till next time.

Joseph Hewson

Hong Kong Day 2

Today is the second to last blog of this trip, this trip. Just thought I should let you know so in a few days you won't have a heart attack or anything. To carry on. Today was our fist real "full of energy" day and it started off pretty good with us doing some shopping for half the day. Here are the photos of people, shops and bags everywhere.

Looking down the streets.

All the photos above have to do with the new Avengers: Age of Ultron movie coming out soon, hopefully  I can explain it all. The top photo is the first and last thing we saw when we entered and left the mall, but that was nothing compared to what was inside. Inside was this cool bunker with a spinning fan ontop and all these very, very detailed models of the Hulk fighing the original Iron Man and the next gen. Iron Man. The detail not only in the fights were incredible not only in the actual models but in the rubbish bins, the bricks, the trash bags, newspapers, soda cans. You could tell they (the movie designers) cared and payed a lot of attention to their jobs.

    

The photos above are of the new apple watch that I tried in the Apple Store. This made me happy for the duration of the day as it was a prototype that they wanted my feedback on.

When we (me and dad) arrived back we headed straight the club lounge before going for a swim in the amazing selection of pools i.e. hot, cold(as ice) and normal pools which were hidden away from the main pool but worth the search.

For dinner we went to the famous Jumbo restaurant which I'm sure anyone will tell you, it's floating.  It's in an old fishing village called Aberdeen which isn't such a village anymore as you will see from the backdrop skyscraper apartment buildings and huge boat launches 

The artwork inside was great and the food was also good(we went to double dragons) which made for a happy family. After this was a trip to another market where I got this quadcopter(four roter helicopter which is flat) which is quite small but saw the guy fly it and it looked awesome. As most people do we went to bed to sleep and gain enough energy for our final day tomorrow (sob, sob).

Joseph Hewson

Hong Kong

First of all the reason I didn't post anything yesterday was because we were travelling the whole day and we did nothing else but travel, not very interesting. Anyway, this post starts last night in the New Delhi Airport(Udaipur-Delhi then slept all day), here is a photo of a still very tired me.

After this photo was taken we moved to our gate where we got on a Cathay Pacific airplane(At 11:00pm) where we flew for five hours to Hong Kong. This was tiring because I hadn't slept on the plane and it was now 7:00am HK time, not fun. When we arrived at our hotel room I spent two hours lying in a bed not sleeping because I was wired.

this is the view from our room

When I "woke up" we went out shopping but first we went to lunch at the restaurant we always went to in Singapore(what a coincidence) called Din Tai Fung.

On the way there and back we took photos of the Hong Kong streets. On the way there and back we were offered Rolex s, "Specially" Tailored Suits and many other things which I am sure were
100% genuine fakes seeing as they were only $5 each(I knew stuff was cheap here but something was wrong).

When we returned we spent some time by the pool before moving in to the Club lounge watching harbour working.

Then the sunset and lights came on

After dinner we went via taxi to the night markets.

 Boy who found Dad being so tall amazing. 

Sneaker street - nothing but sneakers....

After this it was back to our room for a well deserved sleep, tomorrow we delve into the depths of even more shopping.

Joseph Hewson

Udaipur

We woke up later than usual for a more relaxed tour of what Udaipur had to offer. The tour was mostly a walking tour and it took up half the day it was quite interesting seeing that the people conduct the same morning street rituals as they do in other parts of the country, and that the fort's inside wall designs are again generally the same. This is how the tour went.

The tour started off with us walking around secluded streets and alleyways picking up little gems of knowledge along the way.

For instance this waterpump  is made up of a front bowl for cows, dogs and animals, and a back bowl for people to wash and drink from

For instance this door means that inside there is either a bride or a groom or they are the relatives of such people.

This is a street cafe getting ready for the morning trade

A guy hard at work making a leisure suit for someone

A textile shop selling quilts

Shops, Shops and more shops.

After walking around for a bit we ended up walking into a Hindu temple where there were chants, loud music and continuous morning prayers.  They were also feeding the poor, sick and homeless while we were there.

The temple reminded me of the Khajuraho temples but not quite so graphic.

Close to the temple was our next stop, Lake Pichola this is one of only four large lakes in the area and what Udaipur is famous for.

It had ghats like Varanasi where people came to sit, bathe and swim...

including the animals!

Next stop was the old city palace which is more of a fort but is also home to the current King/Maharana.  The citizens are very proud that this is the only kingdom that never surrendored to the Muslim Moghuls and has reigned consistently for 100s of years.  The day we visited it was busy with dancers, actors and directors as it was to be the scene of an upcoming Bollywood blockbuster.

Under the umbrella is a very famous Bollywood actress that had everyone excited to see!

Inside the palace

The king's mirrored bedroom

The Lake Palace (now a hotel)

The Maharana's love of Silver could be seen in his silver gallery 

Next we took a boat ride to an island close by. This was home to the same king that built the Taj Mahal.

People were carrying on their daily routines on the lake side ghats

The royal boat parked in the lake

Our hotel from the lake.  On top of the hill is the King's Monsoon Palace where he and all his wives and girlfriends go when the rain comes 

After this excursion we retired to he hotel missing out on the possible garden visit but we were tired after no-stop tours for two weeks so decided not to. I think it was for the best that we just relax and have a non day to get some energy for the following week. Later on we had room service dinner and watched the IPL hoping for a good nights rest before we head back to home via Hong Kong tomorrow.

Joseph Hewson