Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau

Hello all
I have just returned from a lovely fall break! Our first stop was Guangzhou, our accommodations were about 1.5 hours out from the actual city, which was a bit of a bummer, but we managed just fine. While in Guangzhou we got to see the Canton Tower lit up for Moon Cake Festival as well as see some very interesting museums and monuments attributed to Sun Yat Sen, the first president of the Peoples Republic of China. In addition to this we also saw the Church of Saint Paul, and toured a near by market that was selling all kinds of notebooks and candies and stickers. After two days of touring it was time for us to go to Hong Kong.
Hong Kong was my personal favorite. Although I couldn't use any of my Chinese and they drove on the opposite side of the road, I fell in love with that city. The buildings and architecture were absolutely amazing. We used the very clean metro without fail, and they had every international food brand you could imagine. Normally I would tell you that we only ever ate Chinese food, which is probably the cultural thing to do, but once you see all the international options, its hard to pass up. We ate at Patisseries, Turkish restaurants, Vietnamese, Thai food, you name it. The first night we went to a Dragon festival that was happening in town. It was 250m dragon that was made out of burning incense. At the parade, Hugh Jackman, of all people made an appearance. Other than Hugh the dragon ended up being a bit of a disappointment for the two hours we waited for it to appear. The next night we ended up going to Victoria's peak which has the most gorgeous view of Hong Kong I have ever seen. Pictures won't do it justice, but I will be sending some along.
I would like to preface this next story by telling you that our days in Hong Kong were some of the hottest I have ever had to spend outdoors with no air conditioning. For a lot of the time we had to just pretend not to be miserable because we were all sweating so much. The last day we decided to go to the big buddha which is one of Hong Kong's most famous landmarks. It took us probably three hours to get there. There were 2 ferry rides and a bus ride involved. By the time we made it to the Buddha it was close to 100 degrees. We climbed up all those stairs saw the beautiful view and I would have been so content to go back to the city after that, sit in a cafe and drink a gallon of iced water. However, in a group of 6 girls,  group decisions must be made, and we decided to travel to a fisherman's warf, thinking we might as well see as much as we can. The warf ended up being a mistake, as there was not much there but house and fishing boats. At this point I had convinced half the group to travel back with me. It was so hot at this point, the ground was steaming to a point where we were desperate enough to find a fan and just stand there as it blew hot air on us. We couldn't have gotten on a bus back to the ferry fast enough. When we got back to the hostel we all showered and laughed about how miserable the fisherman's warf was. That night we had excellent Dim Sum and then went straight to bed to catch a ferry to Macau for our last day.
Macau was equally as sweltering. It is known for it's gambling but unfortunately you have to be 21. Getting to our hostel was probably the main event of the trip. We had to split up in taxis 3 and 3. The taxis dropped us off randomly and we had to find the hostel on our own. We don't speak any Cantonese or Portuguese so trying to find the place and our lost friends was a struggle. We eventually found our English angel in this beautiful hotel that happened to be across from where we were staying. She lead us right to where we needed to be, and our friends ended up not finding the place for another hour.  The majority of our day was spent looking at church ruins and eating really good  food. There were so many people out because of the national holiday, it was a really cool atmosphere. To end the trip we went out for a fantastic dinner at one of the Portuguese restaurants near our hostel. I am so glad that I got to go on this trip with the girls. We had so much fun and laughed all the way through. Traveling in Asia can be really hard, because so many things are out of your control, but in the end if you make it back to the dorms safe and sound, it's considered a successful trip.
I will definitely be visiting HK again-- but it's for sure a winter destination!

Love from Shanghai,
Maddie