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exercise is a celebration of what your body can do
After 3 years without a race, we finally welcomed back the HKDL 10k weekend (because HK is too small of a country for a full marathon). There was the 3k Duffy & Friends, 5k Pixar Pals, and 10k Marvel options. Mike and I ran the 3k Duffy and Friends race for fun on the Saturday, and on Sunday Mike ran the Marvel 10k fun run.
Mike even stopped by and got a front row seat to Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip cheering on the runners.
Saturday we had to get up around 5am to get to Disney for our early start time. It was a very crowded event, but Disney did a great job funneling everyone through to bag drop and the starting gates.
We got some photos in before heading to the start line-
In the end, we made it to the finish line in about 40 minutes, because we were stopping and waiting for certain characters.
but look at our cute medals! I am so proud of us.
The next day, Sunday, Mike ran the 10k, which started even earlier than our 3k the day before. The 10k had an earlier start time for the serious runners, and a slightly later start for the fun run. Mike was doing the fun run, even though he is a very serious runner, but he wanted to be able to stop and say hi to the characters. I ran my own little race along side of him trying to keep up and cheer him on.
Ant Man and the Wasp were there to start the official send off-
This race started in the parking lot, went to Inspiration Lake, past the 3 hotels, and then caught up with the 3k race path into the park. For the most part, the characters were all the same from the day before, but Mike waved to them on my behalf-
I was excited to get to watch him cross the finish line and receive his medal-
There is not much left on our Hong Kong bucket list, and my last day will be roughly May 6. The boarder to China has been reopened after 3 years, and since Mike and I already had our 10 year Chinese visas, we wanted to take advantage of checking out what is in the view of our window every day. Shenzhen, China is right over the boarder from where we live in Hong Kong, so we boarded the 20 min B2P bus and headed over.
The customs crossing gate made us a little nervous because they seemed confused that we were only there for the day and not staying the night anywhere, so they pulled us aside for about 20 minutes, made some phone calls, and suddenly we were through. It was so crazy walking out and seeing these buildings up close that we had only seen for so long far in the distance.
Next thing we noticed was how green it is was everywhere, compared to HK, and much more spread out and spacious. The taxis are all blue and look like cars, and there are a million of them around. We took a taxi to the metro to get around.
At the metro, to take a single journey they give you these little tokens-
The metro was nice, clean, and quick. There was a metal detector and bag check every time you got on it too.
We took the metro over to Coco Park mall area to explore. We walked around the city a bit just staring at the buildings and trying to not get run over by motorbikes driving on the sidewalk.
Another notable mention is Chinese bathrooms, also known as squatty potties, are everywhere, and it was a good reminder we were visiting somewhere not in HK.
Coco Park mall had some fun American food like Burger King, and the real reason we came all the way to Shenzhen was to try Taco Bell!
Every one uses WeChat to pay for things in China, and it was almost impossible to pay places with cash. We also could not read any of the menus cause everything was in Chinese. We figured it all out with some helpful locals who were very friendly. The food at Taco Bell was similar but different to American TB. There were only a few options, and although the sauces were the same, sides like chicken fingers and fries were very common.
Our other American treat was a Walmart on the map, which took a lot of wandering around in the wrong direction to find, and making a lot of new friends to ask for directions. We came across so many little, random amusement parks along the way.
We did luck out and eventually find it though! It looked like Walmart and even had the right logo, but on the inside, a lot of the products were similar to what we find here anyways.
They did even have the Great Value name brand on things!
It was a short trip, but it was a fun time. I am glad we took advantage of our visas and popped over for a quick visit.
and back to Hong Kong we go-
Last Chaiwala visit!
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