Shop Till You Drop Malls

Shopping in Hong Kong is always an adventure, sometimes good and sometimes too much of a good thing.  Most of the ones we've been at so far are quit amazing, big and interesting to see but really don't always have what you want.  There are always lots of woman's shop, with very tiny clothes, lots and lots of brand name skin care products, like Lancome, Body Shop and a few department type stores.  They all have about a million restaurants in them also.  Most of the really tall ones have express escalators that go up two or three floors and they all come in various shapes or odd configurations of the buildings.  Some are very Chinese with everything written in Chinese and food courts have mostly Chinese foods.  These ones tend to have lots of little shops, and they will be there one day and gone the next.  The rule of thumb here is if you find something you like, buy it, because you may never see it there again.
Mega Box is my favorite because it is quit close and has 3 department type stores and I also find it easier to understand what I'm doing, as it seems more Western.  Ikea is in that one.  It's ten stories and has an ice rink.

The big orange box is the Mega Box Mall.  This is the view
out the window in our computer room

Festival Walk is another more Western one.  It has a Marks and Spencer which is an English store.  It also has a Toys R Us, which Rachel loves to visit.  It has a good variety of shops and a huge book store with English books, so that is nice.  They also have a grocery store called Taste which l go to at least once a week because of all the western things you can get.  Meat is an expensive thing to buy if you want beef especially.  Most of it comes from Australia or Brazil.  I found corned beef at the deli there.  It's $200.00 HK a pound. so that is about $28 Can. a pound.  I usually get 1/2 lb. for $14 Can. so it's fairly pricey but sure is nice to have something other than pork and chicken.  Today Blaine and l took the green bus to Taste with our little cart and loaded up.  Next time we'll take a taxi home!!  The bus only cost 60 cents one way compared to the taxi which is $40 but l really hate walking and carrying groceries.
Thursday night Ryan, Jill Blaine and I went to the Dragon Mall to look around and get Massages. This mall is all Chinese, is circular inside and has an ice rink, and floating roller coaster on the top floor. Most of the shops are very small and fan out from the middle.  The middle is open from bottom to top with the elevators in the middle.  There are about 10 different massage places on this one floor and you walk in and choose what you want done.  neck and shoulders, feet and legs, head, or full .  It seems like more of a social event for people.  The one the kids and I went to had four comfy chairs in one room with lady's sitting on stools doing every ones feet!!  They were all very friendly and when l miraculously found a shirt and two vests that fit me in the store next door they were all very excited along with me.  Patty if you ever want to set up shop in Hong Kong l know just the place for you!! There are massage parlors practically on every street, but some are rather iffy and do massages in the front with more of what you don't want to know about in the back.  We went to the food court after and had some pretty good food even though we weren't sure what most of the places had to offer.  As usual there were some very strange looking concoctions.

Looking down from top floor of Dragon mall

Food Court - this  is one side of it

Waffles with cream was about the only thing we recognized!!

Jill and Blaine checking on the roller coaster. Don't think l'll ride.

Weird chicken wing!!

Rachel loves eating french fries too!

Wandering around Mong Kok.  Sometimes it seems
very unreal to be here!!

On Sat. Kylie, Jocelyn, Rachel and us went to Mong Kok.  It's supposed to be the most densely populated area on earth, and l think most of them were out that day!  Kylie had seen a hot dog place he wanted to visit and Jocelyn had her eye on a French fry place. We agreed the french fries were quicker and better at the hot dog place.  I think we'd go there again.  The one kind of funny thing they had was a chicken wing stuffed with two cocktail sausages.  Wing was tasty but l wasn't too crazy about the sausages.  Later they took us over to the Langham Place Mall, which is part of a Hotel.  As you can see from the pictures it is quit the mall.  It's full of very interesting restaurants, and shops.  The view from the top floor is amazing and stomach dropping, if you don't like heights. There are two express escalators and l think they go up 3 or 4 floors each.  The elevator in the hotel is one of those all glass ones.

Heading up one of the express escalators.

Looking down, way down!!

That tv down there is like a jumbotron, but it doesn't look that large from up above.

 We didn't have time to really look at the stores in either the Dragon or the Langham so we'll have go back one day and poke around.  This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to malls here.  The shopping is endless and varied.  At Christmas time the malls and the whole city goes nuts over decorating and there's everything you can imagine to see.  We'll be going out to the Gold Coast for a Thanksgiving pot luck dinner and games night at Ryan and Jill's, along with a few of the other teachers.  There is no holiday for thanksgiving here so back to work on Monday, but you can get butterball turkeys so we are looking forward to good eats and a fun time.  Happy Thanksgiving to you all. We are truly thankful for Gods provisions and goodness to us, and grateful that He see us and knows our needs even when on the other side of the world!