Depart on May 7, Arrive in Hong Kong on May 8

May 8- 11 Hong Kong Salisbury YMCA

May 9 more in Kowloon including:
Bird and Flower market
Dim Sum breakfast
Hong Kong Museum of History
Tin Hau Temple
Wong Tai Sin temple
Chi Lin Nunnery
The Peak HK Island
Dinner at Yellow Door?

May 10 Sunday

Dim Sum breakfast Ho Choi Seafood restaurant in Sheung Wan?
Graham street/Peel street markets
Midlevels escalator
Stanley by #6 bus
Aberdeen bumboat around harbor perhaps
Kaido to Lamma Island lunch here hike
8 p.m. light show
maybe dinner at salisbury buffet??

May 11

Bus to Shenzhen
Flight to Guilin
Pick up by guide and driver for transfer to Ping'an (this is booked)
P.M. at a guesthouse with western facilities in Ping'an. Terraced Fields Guide stays here and guides us tonight/tomorrow.

May 12

Hiking in the Ping'an fields and possibily the Jinkeng Terraced fields from Da Zhai

Driver pick up at Da Zhai on the way back to Yangshuo go to Yangti, then take bamboo raft from Yangti to Xingping. (1 hr. 30 min) raft. Driver pick up at Xingping and transfer to Yangshuo.

Li River Retreat, big room.

May 13

Mountain bike to Liugong village along Lijiang river, farmer lunch, boat back in the direction of Yangshuo and stop in Fuli on way back.
Time in Yangshuo for shops.
P.M. San Lujie light and sound show.

May 14
Go to Dragon Bridge along Yulong river, by bike or car. We may choose car, bamboo raft from Dragon Bridge to the 600 yr. old village. 20 min. hike in the rice field and visit the village.
Maybe afternoon Yangshuo cooking school. http://www.yangshuocookingschool.com/about.html


May 15

Transfer to Guilin, see sites in Guilin,

Fly to Kunming connecting to flight from Kunming to Lijiang.

p.m. in Lijiang at Zen Garden

The rest I'm still working on, but this is an outline.

May 16

Old town Lijiang

Shuhe old town

Black Dragon pool



May 17 Lijiang



Jade Dragon

Naxi Villages

Impression Show




May 18 Lijiang

Tiger Leaping Gorge
Locals Market in Lijiang

May 19

Fly to Chengdu
Stay at CHENGDU GULOU Holiday Inn Express


May 20

Chengdu

Panda center

Wu Hou Temple

Jingli Street

Sichaun Opera: face changing



May 21



Leshan day trip from Chengdu





May 22 Chengdu/ day trip to Dazu?



I'm thinking about a day trip to Dazu. May be to much. If not, then a rest day in Chengdu.



May 23



a.m. flight to Xi'an

Hotel Citadines Xi'an Central



History museum

Drum tower

Waterfall show at Tang Paradise Garden arrive at 4p.m. to see

Wild Goose Pagota

Night market in Muslin quarter



May 24



Terra Cotta Warriors

Ride bikes on city wall 2 hrs.

Shaanxi Museum of History if we haven't seen it yet

Night market



May 25



a.m. flight to Beijing

Spring Garden Hotel



5 nights in Beijing



May 30


Afternoon flight from Beijing to Newark

I'd love any input or suggestions anyone may have on this plan. I can't tell you how much the trip reports on this forum have helped me. I've spent countless hours pouring over them. We're a 55 year old couple who have traveled all over Europe, but not to Asia, except for business once on my husband's part. I'll be sure to write a trip report on our return!

That looks quite doable. I really liked the Sichuan Dazu, but I did it from Chongqing, not sure how far it is from Chengdu. Another option for a good day trip from Chengdu is Qingchen Shan.

I'll look into that thursdaysd. Thanks so much for the suggestion.

I think I got the Zen Garden reco from your post! We're the beds acceptable there?

The itinerary in Hong Kong seems to be jumping all over the place, and quite ambitious.

I think you should stick to just Kowloon on one day, and HK Island/Lamma on the other.

And with your limited time, you may want to skip the Museum of History. I'm not sure which Tin Hau Temple you're thinking about, but whichever it is, you may also skip it.

On a Sunday morning, the markets near Central will be pretty quiet. The vegetable and meat sellers will be there, but the other stores and stuff won't be open. Shops in Stanley Market also tend to open late.

images - the beds at the Zen Garden were fine, but I slept on a modern bed. I imagine the "old" beds are fine too - for a couple of blurry pix see kwilhelm.smugmug.com/Travel/287618 - Dazu and Lijiangg (different Dazu) pix 63 and 64. Did you read my TR on Chengdu? (wilhelmswords.com/rtw2004/index.html)

While I certainly admire your ambition, I would have trouble doing everything you have planned for each day for Hong Kong, and I live here and know exactly how to get where you are going and what to do when I get there, which you don’t, and which would save me a good bit of time and waste some of yours. It is also a little bit of an exhausting schedule IMO. Mostly however, you don’t seem to have included any time AT any attractions: for example, you could easily spend 3-4 hours in the Museum of History, which would seem to throw your schedule off. “Doing” the mid-levels escalator would seem to me to involve more than just going up and down it, but even if you just do that, going up and back to the top at Robinson Road will take about an hour; I would assume you might want to stop and explore neighborhoods, see the mosque on Mosque Street, have a drink, snack, pop into a shop, see the little temple at the corner of Peel and Staunton Street, etc. All this will add time. On Lamma, a real hike will take you 2-3 hours, doing just the Lamma Family walk is about an hour with no stopping at temples or beaches, but even with that short a walk (which is very nice with some lovely views), by the late afternoon, you may be running into a time crunch. (If it is very hot, which it can be in May, even the Lamma Family Walk may take you longer.)

I would check the closing time of the Chi Lin Nunnery, my guidebook says it closes at 4:30 pm, so you may have to rearrange plans to make sure you have enough time to get there and to see it.

I think overall you may need to edit this list a bit, or be prepared to be flexible. I also think you may want some rain contingency plans (the Museum of History is a good one), as some of your plans seem to depend on fair weather.

I am assuming that the Tin Hau Temple you are referring to is the one on Shanghai Street (at Public Square Road) in Kowloon, it is a very nice and large one (and there are some fortune tellers on the far right, but few speak English in my experience), but is sort of out of the way for the rest of your itin, unless you include a walk around the area and perhaps a walk up to the Jade Market; but otherwise it is out of the way. (If you were thinikig of walking from the HIsotry Museum, it is a longer walk than it looks on a map, proably in the neighborhood of half an hour, although a quick taxi ride and not expensive). If you do Lamma, there are small Tin Hau temples in each of Sok Ku Wan and Yung Shue Wan, which you might consider including (you will pass them on most walks esp the one in Sok Ku Wan); also in Stanley there are two small Tin Hau Temples which you can go to, or you can stop at Repulse Bay on the way to Stanley and there is a temple with a very large Tin Hau statute on the beach (turn left on the beach as you face the water and walk to the end). It’s hard to swing a purse here without hitting a Tin Hau temple.

I would do the Bird Market/Flower Market and Wong Tai Sin together, as they are sort of in the same area, take the MTR from the Bird Market one stop to Wong Tai Sin. You might consider breakfast in the Bird Marker Flower Market area, then going to the temple. Then possibly go to Chi Lin which is the next stop. Or do Chi Lin first, the one small thing being that the Bird and Flower Markets are really best in the early morning. So play around a little bit with this. Buses to Stanley on Sundays are going to be very crowded, as is Stanley itself, personally, I might reverse and go to Stanley on the Saturday. Restaurants in Lamma are going to be far less crowded on Saturday as well. The Flower Market is fully up and running on Sundays, have no worries.

Personally, I would do the escalator at night perhaps after or before dinner (it runs until midnight), as you have lots to do during daylight hours, and at night you can get a view of the night life going on (esp on Saturday night in Soho), but mostly because the escalator, while mildly interesting, is really not that big a deal once you see it and understand that it is not one long escalator. You actually walk quite a bit of it to connect between the escalators, and there are no views from it, other than into the apartments and shops you pass on the route. I am not sure it merits time during the day actually.

I don’t kow Ho Choi Seafood at all. My guess is that dim sum on a Sunday in Sheung Wan will be jam packed, try to see if you can make a booking or waiting time may really affect the rest of the day’s schedule. There are all sorts of interesting shops in this neighborhood, drief seafood and medicine shops espeically, it’s really wroth a stroll as you will arelady be there. Also, there is an interesting and little-visited temple to the patron god of carpenters/buildiers nearby called the Lo Pan (or sometimes Lo Ban) temple on Ching Lin Terrace that is worth a look. It is not walkable from the restaurant, but if you have an interest, but be worth some time. (Albeit you have a limited time, but seem interested in religious sights.) From the restaurant, take any tram going west (i.e. going left as you face the harbour) to Sands Street, walk up Sands (away from the harbour), Sands Street becomes a pedestrian-only staircase after it crosses Rock HIll, take the staircase up and go left onto Ching Lin; the temple is down on the right about 100 yards or so. Be sure to go outside the temple and walk further down the street to see roof line of this temple which is quite unusual. There is a little info at http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/ce/Museum/Mon...st1.php?tid=25

I have not had the experience that the shops in the markets in Peel Street are closed on Sundays, that is certainly not the case with the Wan Chai markets, so you could go there if you had any concerns with markets being shut on Sundays, but I generally don’t find that to be the case. However, the shops in Peel Street and Graham Street are more and more being turned into restaurants and boutiques (which are open on Sunday) and the little stalls are disappearing, so Wan Chai may be a better choice in any event (although parts of that are going fast too). Peel and Graham are also easily done as part of a trip on the escalator, just get off around Hollywood Road and poke around. But if you are in Shueng Wan on Sunday there are local markets too.

I personally would not make any real effort to get to the light show, and would not arrange my schedule around it. If you happen to be at the Kowloon waterfront at 8 pm that is fine, but I would not race around or forgo something of more interest to make the light show. (And again weather would be your guide here, if it is foggy or raining I would not stand out in the rain for it.) I personally prefer watching it from the balcony at SEVVA if you have to watch it, or take it in from the Aqua Luna junk cocktail trip. See http://www.sevvahk.com/ and www.aqua.com.hk. It’s actually decent from the Peak as well, or from a bit lower down like at Barker Road (walk down hill from the Peak Tram stop for 200 yards or so).

I don’t really have any comments on the rest of your itin as it is rather sketchy, you seem to have the biggies in each place in there so far. May 28 is the Dragon Boat festival, which is a very big event here in Hong Kong (and is a public holiday), and I understand that there are now races starting to be held in Beijing and other cities. You might look into whether you can see a race on the 28th when you are in Beijing. They are colourful and noisy.

Shops on Peel Street or Graham street will be open on Sunday, but not early in the morning. From the OP's original plan, I would assume they want to go to that area pretty early (like 8-9 if not earlier), if they want to then go to Stanley and Aberdeen before heading to Lamma for lunch. The vegetable and meat stalls will be open, but not much else that early on a Sunday.

Ho Choi is just a regular mainstream chain restaurant. No real reason to go there particularly. And on a Sunday morning in Sheung Wan, it will be pretty empty. That location is mostly catered to white collars from the surrounding office buildings for lunch during Mon through Fri.

Great responses! This is why I posted it. And I thought it was well thought out. Back to the drawing board. I'll take all your suggestions to heart!

Thanks so much rkkwan and Cicerone. I've actually printed out so many of your postings and have poured over them. The seafood restaurant was from yk posting. Her family chose it and seemed to like it alot.

Yes the rest is my inital outline, which I'm working on hard right now. I'm making good progress I think!

Thanks again.

thursdaysd,

Yes, thanks for the link to your report. Sam's have a new guesthouse, http://www.gogosc.com/en.asp in Chengdu. It's now called Sam's Cozy Garden Hostel. What do you think of it? I'm a bit interested in it!

Hi images - that's Sim's Guesthouse, not Sam's. The original Sim's looked like a better deal than Sam's, but this new one's a bit far out.

BTW - much kudos to the new search function - I was actually able to find the thread with the reference to Sims as well as Sams!!!

Are the markets in Wan Chai around Queen's Road and the Tai Wong Temple?

Thanks

Yes, there are two temples in the vicinity of the Wan Chai markets. There is a Hung Shing Temple on Queens Road (which I think you are referring to above as the Tai Wong Temple, which is is also called) and a Pak Tai Temple on Stone Nullah Lane. Of the two, the Pak Tai Temple is the larger and more interesting, IMO, but both can be easily incorporated into a walking tour of the Wan Chai Markets. A map of the area will help, IMO, a good one is the map of the area surrounding the Wan Chai MTR station, you can find this on-line at http://www.mtr.com.hk/eng/facilities/lm.html, scroll down to “Island Line” then click on “Wan Chai” and a map of the streets surrounding the Wan Chai market will come up. It is quite detailed and shows all the MTR exits from the Wan Chai station, the market areas, major buildings etc. You can enlarge it and print it out. You can find similar maps for areas around all the MTR stations.

If you are taking the MTR, use exit door A3, and Stone Nullah Lane is across the street with tram tracks (Johnston Road). It is a narrow pedestrian-only street with butcher shops and market stalls on it, and is one of the main streets for the Wan Chai market areas. Walk up this road and turn left at the intersection (Cross Street also a main street in the busy market), then right at the next intersection (Wan Chai Road, this road has a lot of butchers on it to the left) then walk along Wan Chai Road until you intersect with very busy Queen's Road East (there is a light here). Stone Nullah is the road directly across the street running slightly uphill. You may see a blue apartment building straight ahead of you on the left, the temple is about a block up further on your left. Open 8-5 pm. After you have seen that temple, go back down to busy Queen’s Road and turn left, and walk along until you come to the Tin Hau Temple on your left, a block or two past the very tall and round Hopewell Centre also on your left.

If you are taking the street tram, you want to get off at Stone Nullah Lane as well, the best landmark to look for is a large outdoor cement playing field with a grandstand on your left, alight at the next stop you can after you see this, and then look for Stone Nullah Lane on the opposite side of the road.

The main Wan Chai market streets are Stone Nullah Lane, Cross Street, Tai Yuen and Tai Wo Streets, so you can wander around those streets, then head back to Stone Nullah Lane and go up to the Pak Tai Temple. Then the Hung Shing Temple and back to the markets or elsewhere.

About a block before the Pak Tai Temple, also on Stone Nullah, as a bright blue house on the left, this is quite a famous old building and is now a sort of museum, it is not particularly well-curated in English, but takes like 15 minutes to see if you want to stop in, they sometimes have different exhibits. They do walking tours, but I think mostly in Cantonese.

I have not walked around the neighborhood much of the Wong Tai Sin temple, so can’t comment on markets. But I shop in the Wan Chai markets, and they are quite interesting.

I my experience, very little in the markets is open before 9 am, and only bout half of the stalls are open much before 9:30 or 10 am on weekdays or weekends. As they stay open until 7 pm, they tend to open later in the morning. Lunchtimes and early evening like 5 pm are the most crowded, but Sat and Sundays are fairly busy all day. Chinese like to have very fresh food, so will shop every day. The meat and fish markets are interesting for this, with lots of live seafood.

yk is my sister and our family has eaten at the Ho Choi in Wan Chai (China Resource Building) many times. But that's mostly because my uncle and aunts eat there all the time and know the managers there at the Wan Chai location.

Otherwise, I wouldn't choose Ho Choi over other restaurants particularly.

<b>Images2</b> I took the tram last night and noted some details if you want to take the tram to the Wan Chai markets. The stop you want is the Southorn Playground, which will be noted on the tram stop itself (if you can manage to read it before the tram moves off again). The street number of the block where you want to get off is about 116 Johnston Road. Stone Nullah Lane and the other market streets run parallel off of Johnstone on the right hand side of Johnston (based on the direction in which the tram is moving.)

If you are taking the tram from Central, the tram will go on a number of different streets before it gets to Johnston Road, so it may be hard to judge when you are on Johnston Road, but roughly, from the tram stops in Central (say if you walk from the Star Ferry piers to a tram stop, or get on at the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank building), you will pass by the Bank of China building on your right, and the tram will run along what appears to be a four-lane divided highway with the tram running down the centre, this will go for about 400-500 yards, with a stop in the middle. (This is Pacific Place Mall on Queensway in Admiralty.) You will then come into Wan Chai proper, and the tram will make a sharpish turn to the right, and this is the beginning of Johnston Road. You can start looking for street addresses, you want maybe the 3rd-4th stop after the turn, about #116 Johnston. From Central the journey should take maybe 10-20 minutes.

The street trams are fun and a great way to see the city sights. They are double decker and if you sit upstairs you can get a real bird’s eye view of the street life of the city. Really an half hour or more spent on one with a camera would IMO be time well spent, and more interesting than the escalator. For the short hop from Central to the Wan Chai Markets you might want to stay downstairs, but certainly if you have the time and inclination, you can take a longer ride and go upstairs. Go as far as you want, and then either cross the tracks and head back in the opposite direction, or take a taxi or bus or look for an MTR and take the subway back. You enter in the rear and exit in the front and pay as you leave, HK$2 (regardless of the length of the journey), you can use the Octopus card as well. For the run to Wan Chai from Central, you can take any tram, otherwise, if you want to go to Happy Valley you have to take a tram marked “Happy Valley” etc. They tend to be crowded at rush hours in the morning and evening and at lunch, and they tend to travel in bunches, and generally the last tram in the bunch is the emptiest so take that one unless you need one to a particular destination.

Cicerone,

You are just too wonderful! I thank you so very much for these details, and all the other help you've given to all of us. You must enjoy exploring your Hong Kong in such detail!

I am a detail person, so am plotting this out on maps so once we arrive I'll be prepared!

And thanks rkkwan for the info on Ho Choi in Wan Chai. I just thought since your sister and your family went somewhere, it must be wonderful! Thanks for the explanation.

I'm still working on my new plan for Hong Kong with your suggestions.

I thank you both again so very much.