Hong Kong 2014

We once again went to Hong Kong with my Mom over the Thanksgiving holiday, but this time we were joined by Mark, Wendy, Kya, and Cole.  What a special time!  We prepared by getting Copeland's hair cut:

and packing:

I think we packed more for Copeland than we did for ourselves:  milk, several types of snacks, diapers, wipes, SO many outfits, toys, sippy cups, etc.  We ended up using pretty much everything we packed except some of the snacks because he always stuffed himself on noodles at all our meals and didn't want to snack much.  :)

Our flight left around noon on 11/23.  Instead of driving to the airport and parking, we drove to the bus stop park and ride station and hopped on the A line, which is a service that runs from Arvada to the airport every hour.  It was so convenient and very nice to be dropped off right at check-in so I think it will be our go-to until the light rail is completed in Arvada.

Once at the airport, we waited for my family to arrive from Kansas City and then boarded for our 2.5 hour flight to San Francisco, and then our 13.5 hour flight to Hong Kong.  Copeland was a fabulous traveler who slept most the time and had only a few small outbursts.  I should add that this time we upgraded to Economy Plus and it made a WORLD of difference.  While a 13.5 hour flight is not an amazing time by any means, we felt so much more comfortable this time and the flight seemed to go by much more quickly.  One thing I liked less about this flight than two years ago is that on United we didn't each have our own entertainment centers like we did on Cathay Pacific.  So we weren't able to choose the movies and/or tv shows we wanted to watch; instead, there were three screens at the front of the cabin that alternated playing movies and tv shows.  None of the movies or shows interested me but it's probably okay because when Copeland was awake I was too busy entertaining/feeding him to watch anything. 

Best family selfie ever?

We arrived on 11/25 at about 8 pm Hong Kong time, which is 5 am Denver time.  First order of business was to eat and then...sleep.  Of course Ryan and I were up the next morning at the crack of dawn when nothing was open so we walked around for awhile until we could get some breakfast at 7am (the earliest anything opens - even Starbucks is closed at that time!).  We were SO excited to finally have noodle bowls after two years!  Copeland really liked the food too.  Then on to our daily routine of stopping by 7-11 for soy milk (for me) and Hello Panda (for Copeland) and whatever else we deemed necessary.  I don't know why but I must stop by 7-11 every day when I'm in Asian countries.  I never go into 7-11 in the US!  Maybe I need to start.

We were so happy to be back in Hong Kong!  Because we stayed close to where we did last time everything was familiar to us and it was so easy for us to get around.  

When everyone else was finally up we went with  my cousin Mo Ching for dim sum.  YUM!  No pictures from that.  Later we had a short visit from my youngest uncle (uncle 8 - Bot Gau Foo) and then we walked around Tsim Sha Tsui with Mo Ching and rode the Star Ferry to the Hong Kong island side.  

I love how several buildings light up for the holidays.  I remember this from when I was a little girl.

Copeland got tired early so we had to skip a big dinner with more family and instead grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed to bed.