Hong Kong, China – November 2 – 7, 2010

Seven of the original tour group continued on with the Hong Kong extension of our tour and we arrived in Hong Kong about 3 p.m. – later than expected but still to the hotel in time to relax for a few minutes, unpack and prepare for dinner. We were on our own for dinner and looking forward to something different. Ed, Mary and I went to the Spaghetti Factory and we all had a great meal. Aside from wandering the streets a bit, that was the end of our evening. And I guess I should say that our hotel was in Kowloon, which is not quite the same as being IN Hong Kong.

We were up early and off on our bus tour of Hong Kong Island. It was a nice day but very humid and hazy so we weren’t going to see far. Our first stop was the cable tram car ride up Victoria Peak for panoramic view of the city. Well, the haze wasn’t going to allow for panoramic views but the ride was interesting. It is quite a steep slope and one of the guys stood up on the way up and he was quite literally standing freely but at a 45 degree angle. The floor actually has curves in it so you can get your footing wherever needed and at whatever slope. The tram is over 100 years old and climbs 373 metres. Prior to its installation, only the rich lived on the Peak and they were carried up the hill in sedan chairs. There are walkways and gardens and restaurants at the top of the peak, along with the residences, but we just stopped long enough for fuzzy pictures and then continued on our tour by bus passing some large residences on the hillside.

As we made our way along the peak and back down again we had some lovely coastal scenes and some great beaches. One of these was Repulse Bay Beach and it didn’t look too repulsive to me. In fact it looked quite inviting. We then made a trip to Stanley market, which was just a small local market with tiny winding alleys and lots of small shops with great merchandise and prices. If we’d had more time I definitely would have bought several things here but alas, the bus was leaving again. The back of the market was on the shore and I thought it was a lovely setting to do shopping.

We then went to the Aberdeen fishing harbour/village for a ride on a sampan. The Aberdeen harbour is actually quite large and there are a lot of junks and other fishing boats in the harbour. People live on their boats so it actually is its own village. The boats seem quite old and traditional so they are quite a contrast to the high rise buildings on either side of the water. We took a traditional sampan ride but to me the sound of the motor just really doesn’t seem very traditional. We were only out for less than half an hour and we just went in and around the old boats. Some people were just sitting on their boats. Others had their washing out to dry. Some even had their fish hanging along the side of their boat to dry. There were also large floating restaurants out in the harbour and people would supposedly just take a sampan out to dinner and another one back when finished. These floating restaurants were very colourful and decorated so they were a distinct contrast to the metal high rises behind them. We didn’t get lunch on this tour and just went back to the hotel instead.

Lunch at the Irish pub was very good, especially since it was at least 2 p.m. before we ate. At 6:30 we went for a sunset cruise on the river and enjoyed the well-lit high-rise buildings on both the Hong Kong and Kowloon side. We had drinks and munchies while we enjoyed the view so that made it worth the price. Following the cruise we wandered along the harbour and found a spot to watch the laser show across the water. We were near the Avenue of Stars and they have music playing while the lights on the various buildings change in time to the music and lasers are flashed from various locations. There were also buildings behind us involved in the show but we really couldn’t see them as well as those across the river. It was quite impressive especially because so many buildings/companies are involved. When they start the show they list all of the sponsors (those involved) and as they do so that particular building lights up or flashes or does whatever it’s supposed to do in the show. Prior to the introduction, all of the lights dim so you do get quite a dramatic effect – even if it is a bit hazy. Because of our late lunch and the snacks on our cruise, dinner wasn’t really needed that night so the bun, cheese and banana stolen from the breakfast buffet were more than enough.

Thursday was a free day for us to explore the city but instead we all took a tour to Macau. We had an early morning departure and most of us decided on the evening extension to the tour so we could check out the casinos. We were gone for about 14 hours but the time seemed to fly by. Unfortunately none of us came back any richer from the casino add on. We took the turbojet ferry over and back. It’s about a one hour journey from Kowloon or Hong Kong to Macau. The ride over was fine for me but the ride back was just a bit rougher and we seemed to be doing a lot of rolling, which I didn’t enjoy. Thanks to my Chinese acupuncture point for motion sickness, a lot of concentrated effort in breathing and staring at a fixed point on the boat, I did survive. From now on I’ll have the gravol with me at all times!!!

Macau is a peninsula plus two small islands now joined by reclaimed land to make one island. It is only 29.5 square kilometers is size and has a population of about half a million, of which 95% are Chinese. The Portuguese settled here in the 1500’s and they comprise about 4% of the population. Chinese (Cantonese) and Portuguese are the official languages of Macau but English is widely used. Macau has its own currency but readily accepts Hong Kong money. In December 1999, Macau became another Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, like Hong Kong, so benefits from the principle of “one country, two systems,” which is widely quoted over here. Mainland China follows a socialist system while the special administrative regions follow a capitalist system. In Hong Kong’s case, I know that is to continue for 50 years past that 1997 date. I’m not sure what the arrangement is for Macau.

Once on Macau our first stop was at Golden Lotus Square where we had a picture stop for the golden lotus statue presented to Macau by the government of China to mark Macau’s entry into China. It is a very beautiful statue and the Macau guide was very proud of it.

We stopped at the Museum of Macau, which also includes the old city wall and the façade of the old St. Paul’s Church. I definitely didn’t have enough time on this stop so I was really moving at the end to make our bus departure time. The city wall was impressive but we only saw a bit of it. Most of it has been destroyed so this was just a section that remained. The wall was made out of something called chunambo, which was a combination of clay, soil, sand, rice straw, crushed rock and oyster shells. Near the section of wall was part of the old town and the old church, or at least what’s left of it. We didn’t go into the old town itself. The church was built in the 17th century and burned in the 18th century. All that remains is the façade but it’s beautiful none the less and looks very Roman or at least European with pillars and four stories of decorated symbols. There are archeological digs surrounding the area and many other objects or building foundations have been found here. Behind the church façade there was a very small temple, the Na Tcha Temple, which is also a world heritage building.

I took a long time in the museum mainly because of the very first all. Down one side you had the Chinese story and down the other side you had the Portuguese story. It was a great way to compare the two cultures of the time (16th century) and see how they could meld together. This included topics such as writing and language, schools of thought, transportation and buildings. Most of these were illustrated with models so very easy to see the difference between a European building and a pagoda or a Portuguese ship and a Chinese junk. Throughout the museum it was then easy to see which side (Portuguese or Chinese) was influencing other aspects of Macau’s development.

We went up the Macau Tower to the 58th and 61st floors. The lower was fully enclosed and the upper was more open. We couldn’t see much because it was so hazy but we could look straight down tot eh bottom of the tower through the glass floors we were walking on at times. The tower is 338 meters high, one of the ten highest in the world when built in 2001, and there are lots of things for you to do there. Because it was so windy and rainy no one was bungee jumping or mast climbing to the top of the tower but there were people out doing the sky walk where you get strapped into a harness and then walk around the outside of the building 58 stories above ground. No one on our tour tried it though. I’m sure our tour time restrictions were probably the prohibiting factor.

Oh my! I’m writing this just two days after it happened and I can’t remember what we visited. How will I ever remember what happened two months ago for some of my other blogs??? The brochure says we went to the Mount Fortress built by the Jesuits in the early 17th century but I don’t remember it at all. The picture looks impressive though, if that counts for anything. I’ve just gone back to my pictures and I can say that Macau has lots of big buildings and lots of beautiful parks and streets. The casinos are particularly large and grand and Macau is certainly rivaling Las Vegas in many ways.

Through my pictures I can also tell that we went to the Temple of a-Ma, a 400-year old temple that is now a world heritage site. The temple grounds were built before the Portuguese arrived and it has many parts such as the Gate Pavilion, Memorial Hall, Prayer Hall and several other buildings. It actually covered the worship of several deities including Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism and folk beliefs. It was obviously an important gathering place in the past and it certainly had a lot of tour buses at it today – so many that moving around the complex, which was actually quite small, was difficult. There was a small rock garden around it as well as it was built on a hill. This temple was on Barra Square and there were several neat shops selling cookies and candies and they had samples available. The samples were great so the store did a good business in cookie sales that morning as the place was packed with people.

We drove past many residential areas that were huge high rises and we also saw many large mansions on the hillsides, the homes of the richer residents. Some were new and modern but many looked like old European villas stuck on the side of the hill. Some of the buildings are even baroque in style. Many of the smaller buildings are pastel in colour, also lending to the European feel, and the streets are cobblestone with lovely designs. Some of the large old buildings, like the former governor’s (?) mansion were also quite impressive

We had our lunch in one of the casinos down on Fisherman’s Wharf. The casino was pretty quiet but the banquet room was definitely hopping with hungry tourists. Following lunch we had time to wander around the wharf in the rain. The whole area was virtually empty so it was easy to walk around. There were small but expensive shops throughout and it was all very modern looking. At the end you had a full size Roman amphitheatre that is used for concerts and a volcano. You really have to think Las Vegas to get the full idea of what the place was like. The only difference was that I’ve never seen Vegas empty! As to the “fisherman’s” part of the mixture, I don’t think there is any real wharf anywhere in this area and thus no fishermen to be found. It is right at the water’s edge though and there are lots of restaurants around. The whole thing looks like a European street with three-storey pastel buildings on either side and narrow tree-lined pedestrian streets between.

Our last stop for the day was the Venetian Casino where we had about 3.5 hours to kill before our return trip. I wanted to see a new production I had read about in some magazine and it had a 5 p.m. show that would have worked but alas, it was a dark night for them. The Venetian’s main show only had an 8 p.m. show so we couldn’t do that either. We wandered around the casino for a bit and then Ed went to play poker while Mary and I continued wandering. We went over to the City of Dreams Casino and saw their 15-minute show, the Bubble, which runs every 30 minutes. It was set in a bubble and you stood and looked at a screen that was the entire dome around and above you. The show was very well done with special effects and flying dragons and strange worlds. The best part was the tiger that filled a third of the dome and just walked or ran around above you. Sometimes we were under the ocean and surrounded by jelly fish or by whales and sometimes we were surrounded by dragons, all in vivid colour and in 3D. It was quite well done. Following that Mary and I used our free coupons for a couple chances to win something. I got a key chain and she got a mouse pad and that was about it for our winnings. Ed didn’t do any better at poker but did walk out with a few magazines as a consolation prize.

The last thing we did was go for a ride on the canal. Our gondolier was a lovely young lady named Annabella who said she was from Italia but we really weren’t sure. She also said she’d sing for us on the way back and when she did it was beautiful. She had a gorgeous voice and sang a beautiful version of This is the Night, which everyone along the canal stopped to listen to. The canal had many bridges and ran through the lovely indoor European village set up to look like Venice and with very expensive shops on the bottom floor. At the very end of the canal there was a lady up in the third-story building singing an aria. It added to the ambiance but was too high and piercing for me. I much preferred Annabella’s song on the way back. She said they audition for vocal parts and then they later teach them how to be a gondolier. She also sang in some of the smaller shows at the Venetian but would love to do one of the big ones. I think she would be great on stage but we couldn’t have had a better gondolier. After that we went to our meeting place, ate our baby bell cheese and our apples from the breakfast buffet and headed off for our ferry ride home.

On Friday I had to change rooms, which was a bit of a hassle. The city seemed very busy and everything was booked so I had to move to the Executive Floor and pay the most I’ve ever paid for a hotel room. I do get free cocktails and food from 6 to 8 p.m. though so that is serving as my dinner. I don’t think it’s making up for the high price of the room but it is a nice bonus. After breakfast and packing and seeing the other folks off for their flights home, I went to the Hong Kong Museum of History. It is near some other museums and several others are right near the hotel so I thought I might enjoy visiting a couple of them. However, the Museum of History was big enough and interesting enough that it kept me occupied for about five hours and then I was too tired of standing/walking to do another one. Instead I walked back to the hotel, then to the post office to get a box to send some things home, and then up to happy hour to relax. I couldn’t put my feet up but it was pretty good any way.

The Museum of History starts with the formation of the land around Hong Kong (past 400 million years!) and its flora and fauna in the past 6,000 years. Prehistoric Hong Kong also goes back 6,000 years, which is when the first humans are thought to have lived in this area. Many artifacts are on display in this section. The exhibits then move into the various Dynasties from Han to Qing when the people from central China migrated south bringing different cultures and technology and trade – a time when Hong Kong’s economy really grew. Folk culture is the next the area and it included the four main ethnic groups in the area, their life style, traditions, festivals, ceremonies, etc. All of the above is on one huge floor and is really well done with life-size (or even bigger-than-life-size) displays, short videos, sound effects, etc. Entire homes and boats and temples and wedding ceremonies are displayed. I had the audio guide but signs included English translations so it was very easy to follow and understand – and all very interesting.

The next floor dealt with more current topics and started with the Opium Wars and the Cession of Hong Kong to the British. I have to admit that my knowledge of history is not very good so I found this part quite interesting. I thought the Chinese were producing the opium and trying to sell it to the British, not the other way around! I may have to go back and read some books on the topic to know if I got the correct version of the story but I did enjoy it and I think I would have been on the Chinese side – not very patriotic for a British subject. And of course this section also helped to explain why Hong Kong was British until 1997 and then suddenly became Chinese again. The museum exhibit ends with a video of the big handover ceremony on June 30th 1997 when the British flag was lowered and the Chinese flag was raised, something the Chinese and the museum are very proud of.

However, before you got to that part there was a huge section on the growth of the city. There were many entire shops on display, some of them on several floors, and set up exactly as they were in the early 20th century. There were exhibits in each one of course, but you also heard the voices of the people who ran the shops and what was happening at the time. It really was like strolling through an old town (like Fort Steele or Ketchikan but inside out of the rain!). Did you know that people used to stroll around with their birds in bird cages (kind of like walking the dog) and the tea houses used to have racks for you to hang the bird cage when you went in? It definitely seemed strange to me, but very hospitable. It also got a bit noisy when there were too many birds around!

There was also a section on the modern city, up to the late 20th century. And of course there was a section on the Japanese Occupation from 1941 to 1945. It was the smallest section but it still got its message across about how tough those years were for those who lived in Hong Kong. The whole museum (over 7,000 square meters) covers “The Hong Kong Story” and it was very enjoyable and informative and I’m really glad I went to see it. It was also a great way to pass a rainy day! I even enjoyed a bowl of noodle soup in the restaurant after my tour. I then walked home, went to the post office to get a box to send some things home, wandered around for a while and then went to my special executive lounge for a snack, which was actually my dinner.

On Saturday I did the tour to Lantau Island. I was going to go by myself but it was raining so I decided I’d take the tour instead and get delivered everywhere I had to go instead of having to walk. The tour started out with a walk along the promenade and a visit to a gem factory (think jewelry store) so I really wasn’t all that excited with the beginning and would liked to have skipped the first two hours. We then drove 40 minutes to Lantau and took the gondola up to the big Buddha and that kind of made up for it. The lineups for the gondola were long but we got right in because we were a tour group. That probably saved me two hours right there in wait times. The gondola ride is quiet amazing. It takes 25 minutes and covers almost 6 kilometers, and it goes over the first inner harbour, does an abrupt left turn and then goes over the main harbour and the South China Sea, and then it starts climbing up and down the hillside of Lantau. We couldn’t see far but it was obvious that the island is very green and lush, obviously from all this rain, and there were walking paths all over the hill side. Our guide said it was about a 4.5 hour walk to the top but I think I’d have to count on an entire day. On a sunny day though, I’m sure the views would be worth it.

Just before the top of the lift you can see the Buddha up on the hillside to the left. At over 250 tonnes and 34 metres in height the Giant or Tian Tan Buddha is the largest seated outdoor Buddha in the world. We took the bus up to the Buddha and had a very quick walk through it where there are altars and other statues. You could have taken a different route and walked up about 300 steps but we didn’t have time for that – gosh darn. You also get the view from this vantage point (not much to see when we were there) including more statues outside and a look down to the monastery. The Po Lin Monastery was built in the early 1900’s and has several ornate gates, main buildings and temples with statues, and a lovely garden area. We had lunch here and it was very good, although we were really crowded around the tables. There is a formal walkway back from the monastery to the cable car ride and it is lined by statues. Then you are in the village which is just a row of stores set up for tourists. I had a gelato for my dessert and it was very tasty.

We also visited a fishing village called Tai O and it was very authentic and not touristy, although there were a few stores to meet that purpose. The streets were very narrow and windy and it was very easy to get lost when wandering around. The homes were small and all on stilts along the water’s edge. In some cases the stilts were much taller than the homes themselves. The local market basically sold fish products and you could get fresh or dried products. At one point the guide showed us dried fish stomachs and you could get 10 to 12 of these, each thin and about four inches across and six inches long, for a mere $45,000 Hong Kong dollars or about $6,000 Canadian. Apparently they are very valued for many medicinal purposes and for keeping one young looking. Too bad I didn’t have a lot of extra change, not that I’d know what to do with a dried fish stomach if I did have it! There was another small temple within the city, Kwan Tai Temple, that was small but very ornate on the inside. However, it was the outside work that impressed me. All along the top of the building was a carved design with hundreds of people on it – very impressive. It was outside this temple that I also saw the most beautiful black and dark shiny blue butterfly about 5 inches long. He paused just long enough for a picture for which I was very grateful.

When you go to Landau you also find the airport which is built on reclaimed land. It was very busy when we were coming down the gondola. You cross the Lantau Link bridge from Lantau to Kowloon and it is also quite new and impressive. Along the route you pass much of the harbour area and it is huge. The main shipping is done by container and some of the ocean vessels are just massive. One today had 12 containers across the back piled five high and there were 12 rows from front to back for a total of over 700. It looked like it should sink under all the weight but instead it was moving right along and heading out to sea. There are hundreds of cranes along the harbour to load and unload the containers and then just thousands of containers lined everywhere. It’s quite an impressive operation and I just kept thinking of all the logistics involved to make it all happen.

And that was the end of my Saturday as I came back to my hotel, worked for a while on blogs, went up for my cocktails (now known as my dinner!) and retired for the evening. Tomorrow I have to take my box to the post office for mailing, and yes, the post office is open on a Sunday. Then I have to get organized and pack so I can check out. I hope to go to the Art Gallery for the afternoon and then fly out tomorrow evening to Ho Chi Minh City to start my next tour - Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.

Well, tomorrow is today, Sunday, November 7th and it’s a beautiful sunny day in Hong Kong and of course I’m leaving. I did manage to get my box posted and I also visited the Art Gallery and took some pictures from the promenade. Strangely enough it was almost too sunny to get pictures across the water because of the direction of the sun, the reflections and of course the haze. The Art Gallery was very nice but not exactly what I was expecting. There were wonderful scroll paintings and calligraphy, which they consider art, but most of it was pottery and carvings in wood and jade and even gold. There was jewelry and accessories, figurines and vases from 2000 BC to current day so it was almost more of a museum than an art gallery. Some of the pieces are so delicate that it is hard to believe that they could survive for so many years. Most of the paintings were black and white traditional Chinese style but there were a few in colour. One was a peacock that was just amazing. You would have sworn that the peacock feathers and tail were attached to the painting it had such depth and dimension but apparently it was all just done with ink and shading. I also thought that some of the 17th century figurines could have given current day Royal Doulton’s a run for their money. The Brooks clan will be pleased to know that nowhere in my travels did I ever find a dragon plate the likes of which “haunted” us for many Christmases. We can either assume that ours was a true fake and worth nothing or that it was a one of a kind original and probably now worth a fortune. I’m leaning toward the former.

Now what else can I tell you about Hong Kong? Its name apparently comes from the Chinese word for smelly fish or fragrant harbour. Hmm, that doesn’t sound all that impressive so perhaps I should just end this. I now have about half an hour before I head to the airport so I’ll have to move fast if I’m going to get my e-mails cleared and this blog and any others posted before I go. Hopefully Vietnam will be less restrictive of websites so, if I have internet, I’ll be able to post more regularly. However, if this trip is as busy as the last one I still wouldn’t count on much happening in a timely manner. Cheers!