The time had finally come to leave for our honeymoon, and we were more than ready for it...yay!
Landing in Hong Kong after a fairly smooth overnight flight seemed like a good way to start our honeymoon, that was until our bags took an hour to come off the plane! After twelve hours of flying and an additional hour waiting for our bags, we were finally ready to see what Hong Kong had to offer and couldn’t wait to start exploring, even though we were shattered!
Our first official full day was on Sunday 27th January. We took a taxi up to Victoria peak to check out Hong Kong’s famous views, sadly for us it was quite overcast and we couldn’t see too far out across the bay, but, that was one tourist attraction ticked off! We took the tram back down (which isn’t that great) and afterwards stopped off at the zoo before we headed to Uma Nota for a bottomless brunch with Ben’s friend and his family. Later that day we had a meander around Central to soak up the atmosphere, saw some raw chicken at a market which was literally screaming out “food poisoning” then went for dinner at Ho Lee Fook. The food was delicious, we particularly enjoyed the Hong Kong style noodles and the music, the bill not so much, especially as Ben did his classic of over-ordering and ended up with a wedge of prawn toast which he later took back to our hotel and left outside someone else’s hotel door-shame on you Ben Smith!
On Monday we took the MTR for the first time to the end of the line to Tung Chung and hopped on board the Ngong Ping 360 cable car. We queued for quite a long time but once aboard the cable cars, the panoramic views made up for it. Looking out of the windows, we got our first view of Tian Tan-or the Big Buddha as he’s more commonly known, which is what we were heading for. Once we’d done our touristy sightseeing and shouting at the GO PRO we headed back into Kowloon. That evening we didn’t venture far, we went next door to the Ritz Carlton for cocktails and to marvel at the views of the bay from their amazing roof top bar, we then took a taxi to the clock tower in Tsim Sha Tsui to watch the symphony of lights display across Victoria Harbour. Tuesday saw us hitting one of the many shopping malls Hong Kong has to offer because Ben decided he needed a jumper! We then took our DukLing harbour boat cruise around the bay, apparently, it’s the only original Chinese junk remaining in Hong Kong but unfortunately the sound system was muffled so we didn’t hear or learn anything, but we did get a chilled beer and some fantastic views of the skyline from the water, so we were happy people! In the evening we wandered around Temple Street Night Market and grabbed some food in Club Noodle, a lot harder than we’d hoped when you have a mushroom allergy and struggle in broken English to let the waitress know. Once we knew the food was mushroom free, we both ordered the most satisfying bowls of noodles with Taiwanese sausage, which to this day we still talk about, it was that good! We opted to have a more relaxed day on Wednesday so took the MTR over to Hong Kong Island (relaxing in Hong Kong Island, I hear you say!) and followed a street art trail to some of the artwork we’d researched. You can’t not take a trip to the Bruce Lee mural when in Hong Kong, right!? Whilst we were in the area, we thought it would be rude to not drop into Dim Sum Square for a bite to eat after having discovered it earlier in the week, we were dying to go back. It’s a no-frills café type eatery, we love finding these kinds of places to eat. The food was great, so good we made sure we had two trips there in our week-long stay in Hong Kong. Ben stuffed his face with dim sum, his favourite being the shrimp and I wolfed down a bowl of fried rice with mince meat and egg on the top, perfect comfort food after an afternoon of walking around hilly Hong Kong. We then headed back to our hotel for a quick, albeit chilly dip in the rooftop pool. We didn’t go too far that evening and thought we’d check out the hotel’s rooftop bar, the views were fabulous, the service not so much!
Thursday saw us up early and heading to Macau on the ferry. Most people head here for the casinos, which of course we visited too but our favourite part of Macau was visiting the Panda’s at the Giant Panda Pavilion. We managed to get in a taxi from the main strip which was approximately £10 and fortunately managed to flag one down once we left the pavilion too, as it's in the middle of nowhere. It’s not that well known which is great, so no queues! We arrived just after feeding time, the Pandas were happily chomping away on a feast of bamboo, we got to see three of them and one red panda. Seeing the pandas felt so surreal and was a highlight of our trip.
Next stop, the casinos! We thought we’d try our luck on the roulette tables, easier said than done, finding one was a problem! We managed to find one at The Grand Lisboa, had a few go’s and sadly came away empty handed. They call Macau the Vegas of Asia, there are obviously similarities but tea being served in place of alcohol was one eye opener for us. Gambling is taken very seriously here; hordes of families seem to take the trip to Macau in the hope of winning the jackpot! It was all a bit too serious for us, so we chose to call it a day and go for some Portuguese food and hunt for a custard tart, which we found and was absolutely delicious. It was quite an exhausting day so we decided to take the ferry back to Hong Kong, arrived at the ferry terminal, after buying fridge magnets, only to find out the taxi had dropped us to the wrong port so had to take another taxi to the correct one!
Friday was sadly our last day in Hong Kong and the first leg of our honeymoon was almost over (sigh). We did a day trip to Lamma Island which is a small fishing village not too far from Hong Kong Island. It was good to get out of the city and experience a quieter side to Hong Kong. We did the walking trail from Sok Kwu Wan to Yung Shue Wan. It took around two hours, we managed to avoid the copious amounts of seafood restaurants whose waiters try to entice you in by saying “romantic dinner”, which it clearly wasn’t!
Saturday morning saw us flying out of Hong Kong and onto the Maldives. We ate A LOT that day! Our feast started with breakfast at our hotel in Hong Kong, then once we got to the airport, we tucked into the business lounge buffet, rude not to when you’re flying business class. We then ate again on our flight to Singapore, although there wasn’t a great deal, I could eat which was probably a good thing! Once we arrived in Singapore for our connecting flight, and after seeing half of Changi airport, including the baggage area below the airport we arrived at our departure terminal to once again tuck into yet another buffet in the lounge. Food was then served on our really old-fashioned plane to the Maldives, but we decided to decline this, I mean how much can two people actually eat in one day! We had now been travelling almost a whole day and were making our descent into Male when the plane had an issue with it’s landing gear so up and over the sea we went again until the problem was rectified.
We finally touched down quite late, our friendly representative Blue, was waiting for us, ready to take us to paradise in a very bumpy forty-five-minute boat ride. Taking a boat at night, and in very choppy waters wasn’t the worst of it, and, feeling like I had the worst hangover didn’t help. Mid conversation, the boat stopped only for us to be told by Blue that the crew thought the propeller had hit something, so there we were, tired, but not hungry, bobbing around in the Indian Ocean!
Panic over, they managed to get it going and we were once again en route to Maadhoo and before we knew it, stepping onto the jetty at our beautiful resort, Ozen. We were greeted by the lovely Natey, who would be our butler for the week. He presented us both with necklaces made from palm leaves, we then hopped in his buggy and after a tour around the island, we arrived at our water villa. We’d made it to paradise!
Arriving in the dark meant we weren’t initially treated to the beauty that surrounded us, but the next morning we were in complete awe with how crystal clear the water was, so clear you could see the fishes darting around without the need of a snorkel. For me, this was probably best as, even after practising I still couldn’t get the hang of it! We spent our days lazing around, eating, drinking our way through the cocktail list and taking photos at every opportunity (me). It was the ultimate honeymoon get away, made even more perfect because we got the chance to snorkel with pods of dolphins and parasail on our last day! Unfortunately we didn’t have perfect weather every day but to have the opportunity to visit the Maldives was a dream come true, it had been on my bucket list forever and to go there with my husband, for our honeymoon, I couldn’t have wished for a better person to have experienced it with.
