Airbnb Hong Kong - our tiniest one to date

Hong Kong is expensive...especially in comparison to our 6 month backpacker budget. Gone were the days of $18 beach bungalows in Thailand and we were looking at paying a good $25 (EACH!) for a dorm room with 10 beds....ugh.

Well...Airbnb to the rescue!! I was stoked to find this private room in an apartment in Mong Kok, a local area of Kowloon, right off of Ladies' Market. 

At only $40 per night, it was a steal! The location was perfect--we could get anywhere we wanted in Hong Kong super easily especially since the metro was literally 30 seconds away.

We found a dumpling restaurant down the street where we happily visited each day for breakfast/lunch each day.

The hilarious part was that this private room was tiny...I mean really tiny. But what should we expect? Some neighborhoods in Hong Kong are the most densely populated IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. 

The other hilarious part was that the granny of the family slept in the hallway. So each night we arrived back home, granny was sleeping nearby ;).

This was a great place to stay for a few days. Would we stay for longer than that? Probably not. But hey we only paid $40 per night for a place to sleep and that's all we were after.

Perhaps on our next trip to Hong Kong, we will up the budget to have our own private apartment overlooking the harbor...kinda like this one ;).

Hong Kong

Once we set foot on the plane to leave The Philippines we realized we were stepping from the Southeast Asian world to the Far East Asian metropolis portion of the trip at the very same time. Yep...our trip was about to take a very different road leading to Hong Kong, Korea and Japan!

We loved Southeast Asia, the tropical beaches, jungles, motorbikes and delicious food...but we were quite looking forward to what was next. And first was...Hong Kong.

To me, Hong Kong felt like a giant, very clean and organized Chinatown. It was dumpling stands-meet-swanky bars, city skylines-meet-harborfronts, street markets-meet-fancy malls and everything in between.

We scored a sweet (and tiny) Airbnb room in Mong Kok. Mong Kok felt much more 'local' and our Airbnb room was right on the same street at Ladies' Market. Each morning we ventured around the corner for pork and kimchee dumplings for a late breakfast and then hit the town. Oooo the dumplings were so good!

I'll be honest, we pigged out in Hong Kong and most definitely passed the 200 dumpling market with our daily dumpling helpings, wonton noodles, fried wontons, dim sum and pork soup dumplings at Din Tai Fung (so good!!) and even more pork dumplings.

On our last night we were up for a really special treat, two friends from Amsterdam (one Canadian, one Australian) treated us to a very delicious Szechuan meal near Wan Chai. A big pot of boiling spicy soup is brought out to the table and you simmer away plates of beef, dumplings (yes...again), veggies, and noodles.

TRAVEL TIPS

Go for dim sum at Din Tai Fung on Canton Road (there is more than one location in Hong Kong and a few other locations around the world!). This place has killer pork-soup-dumplings and brisket soup!

Eat dumplings in Mong Kok...actually just eat dumplings everywhere ;).

Go to Chi Lin Nunnery for a bit of Chinese culture.

And ofcourse head to the Avenue of the Stars for a view of the harbor from below and go to Victoria Peak for a view of the harbor from above.