Dear Hong Kong

 Dear Hong Kong,
I really enjoyed my time with you.  I learned so much about myself along the way and completely stepped out of my comfort zone.  I consider the city I currently live in, Portland a small city and I even remember years ago when we got our first Cheese Cake Factory.. Krispy Creme Donuts.. and just this year we got our first H&M!  It was sort of a big deal.  I felt a little bit proud of myself to navigate a new place all by myself and in a foreign city.  I had a little help from my husband but my husband was busy with his work.

I saw my first Big Buddha and it was amazing! Growing up Catholic and having been to Europe.. I have seen a lot of churches and am pretty familiar with western religion.  It was a eye opening experience and learned a lot and enjoyed soaking in the culture.

It was interesting trying to discover the vintage in Hong Kong.  There are two areas of town that have vintage/antiques.  The first area is called the Soho district which has art galleries and antique stores but the antique stores were a little old fashioned and it was little questionable if the furniture was even antique.  I did find this really cute market called the "Western Market" which was a little bit more my speed with old keys, locks, books, kettles, and sadly no clothes!

Now let's talk about the fantastic shopping :) There are these little side streets that wrap around and go through some of the streets with discount clothes, accessories, shoes, jewelry, and bags.  Let me tell you.. AMAZING! I love a good haggle and they say whatever price they throw at you- you pay half.  A couple of things that I learned is that since a lot of things are made in China.. alot of the inventory is from the factories that are making the designer goods and electronics.  I was in heaven! Next thing I learned was that you don't buy it off the hanger.  You take what you want to the cash register and they go in the back room and give you a fresh one in plastic.  Over the next couple of weeks I am going to be doing a couple of photo shoots with some of the new things I bought for this blog and I can't wait to show you all the cute stuff I got!

Hong Kong you inspired me. The city is a city that grows up and it's one of the easiest cities to get around in. Also there are escalators around the city to help you walk the blocks. I loved the movement, the energy and the adventure. I loved the old markets mixed with the huge modern sky scrapers.  I completely was mesmerized by watching all the different walks of life.  I can't wait to finish up and show you all the paintings that I have been working on.

Next stop is Singapore :) ....   Funny story about the Hong Kong Airport.  Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997 when they handed it over to China.  So right after the handover they had a ton of British pounds and decided to spend the pounds as quickly as possible.  They built the airport! It was pretty amazing, it was a high end shopping mall with coffee shops and restaurants with in the airport.  I have been to a lot of airports but have never seen anything like it.