新年快乐 (Happy New Year) - Hong Kong Style

Happy New Year from Hong Kong! Unfortunately, not Chinese New Year, but definitely still a happy one!

Jen and I arrived to a grey and dreary Macau on Thursday morning (Dec 31), still weary from the early flight, but very excited at our first visit to China. Fortunately, it is much easier to get into Macau and Hong Kong than it is the PRC (People's Republic of China), because each has been designated as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) and are basically pseudo-soveriegn states. In short, each has their own currency and economy, but they still fall under the PRC's rule. But enough about politics and geography, let's get back to the adventure.

We flew into Macau from Singapore on our way to Hong Kong. The potential downside to Macau is that after landing, we still have to get from the Macau Airport to the Ferry Terminal and catch a catamaran to Kowloon. At first, I was a little apprehensive about relying on so many connections, but luckily we had all day to make our way across the South China Sea and it turned out to be very easy and straight forward... that is, until we arrived into Hong Kong and started walking to our hotel. A couple weeks ago, I found a great deal on a room at a Marco Polo Hotel in Kowloon, which overlooks Victoria Harbor and the amazing Hong Kong skyline. The address for our hotel is on Canton Rd in the Tsim Sha Tsui district, just south of the Kowloon Ferry Terminal, which is also on Canton Rd. Should be easy to find, right? Wrong. The problem was that there are 3 Marco Polo Hotels in Kowloon: The Marco Polo Prince, Marco Polo Gateway, and Marco Polo Hong Kong. All 3 are in Tsim Sha Tsui and all 3 are on Canton Rd! So, as we walked south on Canton Rd shouting "Marco... Marco... Marco...", we ended up visiting the Prince and Gateway Marco Polo Hotels before finally arriving at our chosen accomodations at The Marco Polo Hong Kong. Nothing tops off the feeling of sloughing bags down the crowded streets of Hong Kong like going to the wrong hotel... twice! However, had I known what the night had in store for us... I would have gone to 20 wrong hotels.

After checking in and scouting out our post for the evening's NYE festivities, we got some delicious Italian food next door and freshened up for the night ahead. As night-time fell, we headed to the 6th floor balcony of our hotel that was equipped with a roped off patio for hotel guests and attached to what appeared to be THE New Year's Eve party in Kowloon atop a parking deck shared by the hotel and the cruise ship pier. After finding primo front row seats, we met 3 Aussies - Stan, Michael, and Dave, who I have to give a quick shout out to for sharing their champagne with us (Cheers, blokes!) and provided hours of great conversation as we all waited for 2010 to arrive. It seemed as if the time was flying by because before we knew it, there were 1000 people around us and a reported 4 million people on the streets below all counting down to midnight.

A quick side bar - for the past 31 years, I have spent all but three New Year's Eves somewhere in the Metropolitan Atlanta Area. The first was a 12-hour whirlwind trip to NYC in 2004 with Jen and friends, the second was a weekend trip to Savannah in 2006, and the third was this trip to Hong Kong. In all that time, I've seen fireworks, peaches drop, even gunfire at Underground Atlanta - but an exploding Hong Kong skyline was probably the most exciting thing I've ever experienced at 12:00am - Jan 1st! I would love to try and describe the scene, but that's why Jen and I have a video camera and a YouTube account:



In short, ringing in 2010 has been as memorable as they come and Hong Kong was as good as it gets! This year has been an interesting one; being so far from family and friends, many of whom are spending New Year's away from home all over the world - London, Amsterdam, D.C., Louisiana, and California. Despite the thousands of miles between us, our love and thoughts are with you all and we hope 2010 brings everyone health, happiness, and great new adventures.