20,000 Steps Later (Days 2-4)

Day 2-  We started early this morning.  I mean...really early...as in the boys were bright eyed and busy tailed by 3:00 am.  It was expected but since we were staying in such close quarters we did everything we could to keep them quiet and happy.  Everyone was finally up and moving by 7 or 8 and it was off to breakfast.  I stayed behind to wait for my parents and was so proud of myself for getting directions to a yummy 'jook' (rice porridge) place.  Between the little English the security guard at the apartment could speak and my very (very) broken Cantonese I was able to find the place and my parents and I were well fed.  Dylan was asleep on my back by 9:00 am and slept through all of breakfast. Thankfully Hong Kong is full of little bakeries here and there that we were able to stop and find him something he could eat on the go.

After breakfast, we went for a nice walk along the harbor.  Our first stop was the LDS church office building.  There's something about walking inside and feeling the peace and stillness.  They had nativities on display from all around the world. 

 

 From there we slowly made our way to the Star Ferry to take us across to the Kowloon side.

 

 Dylan was a champ the whole time.  He didn't mind being piggy backed everywhere we went and spent majority of the time in Hong Kong attached to someone. 

 We hiked up a hill and found the Hong Kong Temple.  A few years ago when I went to Hong Kong for my Ye-Ye's (grandpa's) funeral we were able to meet with one of my mom's old church friends and he told us of how the Hong Kong Temple came to be.  Pretty interesting story.

 After walking to the temple and eating lunch we headed to a Buddhist Garden.  It's amazing that such a quiet, peaceful, outdoor place can exist in the middle of such a busy city.

Dylan was thrilled to finally be able to run around and stretch out his legs.  Thankfully he didn't protest too much when it was time to put him back in the carrier.   By the end of this day we had walked well over 20,000 steps and the kids did AWESOME.  Brooke and Connor walked most of the way and were happy about it.  No meltdowns or tears.

 Day 3-My parents took the kids in the morning leaving the rest of us (Troy, Taylor, Brett, Heather, Jackson, and I) to explore.  We started out with a delicious breakfast courtesy of the same place I had gone the day before.

All the food you see above plus a little more cost maybe $13 and left us all feeling very full and satisfied.  We were able to find some pizza to satisfy Brett's hankering for American food.

We then headed up to Victoria Peak.  The tram ride up is always fun.  I'm not sure what the incline is but it's pretty steep.

Unfortunately we picked the wrong day to go up and it was pretty cloudy.  So much that we couldn't really see the harbor.  Bummer but it was still fun.  Then we headed to Stanley Market and finished off the morning with a later lunch at Din Tai Fung.  I wish I had gotten a picture of our meal.  It was heavenly.

The afternoon was spent walking around some more and shopping.  The uncles loved every minute of it!

Day 4-We spent the morning in Hong Kong then headed to the airport to begin leg 3 of our trip.  We are so grateful my parents were able to join us on Hong Kong.  As always, it wasn't nearly enough time but it was time well spent.  I'm especially grateful that we were spend time with MaMa and that Brooke and Connor have memories of her.