I love the arts as much as the next person (okay, maybe more than the next person), so it shouldn't surprise anyone that the Hong Kong has become my new annual vacation destination for the Hong Kong Arts Festival. It's a long flight from Seattle, but you simply can't beat the vibrancy of Hong Kong and its month-long festival, which I proudly tell people features hundreds of performances. Last year, nearly 100,000 tickets were sold, and this year is supposed to have even more visitors.

Last year's Hong Kong Arts Festival was my first one, so I made sure to carefully plan things out. I bought my tickets online, well ahead of time. The Hong Kong Arts festival has all kinds of performances and performers, and I wanted to get a taste of everything. I made sure to get a seat for the festival's opening show, which was a rare performance by the Cantonese Opera Treasure. They don't perform their classic pieces for the public very often, so it was a real treat to get to see all of the 150 operatic performers in action.

I also got a ticket for the Marlinksy Ballet's performance of Don Quixote. I'm not really the biggest fan of the ballet, but there was no way I was going to pass up the chance to see one of the best ballet companies in the world. It's not often that I make it to St. Petersburg, Russia, where they are located. In fact, I had the good fortune of being able to see the full complement of the Marlinsky Theatre – I also saw the Marlinsky Opera and the Marlinsky Orchestra. The Opera performed their fairly new show, The Turn of the Screw, which is an adaptation of the classic Henry James novella. Their rendition has won many awards in a short amount of time, and I could certainly see why. Each performer was superb. The Orchestra performed classic, moving pieces by Wagner, and more than a few people in the crowd had tears in their eyes. I wasn't one of them, but it was indeed an excellent performance.

I had an excellent time at last year's Hong Kong Arts Festival, and I'll definitely be going back for many years to come. The 2011 festival has just kicked off, and I can't wait to head to Hong Kong in a few days to see what's in store.

Last year I stayed near the Opera house at the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong. It was an excellent experience, but this year I'm testing out the Conrad Hong Kong (also near the Opera House) just for a change of pace.