Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a fun and exciting city. It has a little of everything - a beautiful view, high end shopping, cheap markets, great food, a giant Buddha, a unique mix of culture, a really convenient public transportation system, and an amazing amount of nature/wildlife in the heart of the city. Fortunately it didn't rain while we were there despite the 90% chance that was predicted. It was cloudy the whole time though. I traveled with my friend Justin, who is also a JET in Tokushima Prefecture (his blog is now linked over there on the right). We went by brother and sister whenever someone asked, and that's pretty much how we interacted anyhow.

FOOD
It was Thanksgiving weekend, so we ate quite a bit. We had Thai, Peking dim sum, Szechuan, Mexican, Mrs. Field cookies, Hong Kong style fried rice, some seafood (squid and baby oysters), and Japanese ramen (which we're pretty sure was made with spaghetti noodles). We almost forgot that it was Thanksgiving, but this was my actual Thanksgiving meal - congee, sesame rice balls, and soy milk:


MONEY
My least favorite thought process is dividing by 8. We had a confusing couple hours our first night because we had yen that needed to be exchanged for the Hong Kong dollar. We're both accustomed to calculating yen into US$ because it is roughly 100yen to $1 plus a little. And we know there's about 8 HK$ to a $1. But the actual exchange we had to act on was 1HK$=16yen, or 1yen=0.0659HK$. So we kept trying to reconvert everything back to dollars, all in our head of course. We finally found a place with a good exchange rate and then left yen out of our calculations when looking at prices in HK$.

TRANSPORTATION
I was really amazed by the city's public transportation system. There were trains, buses, trams, walkways above streets, outdoor escalator, and a subway. All were super clean and ran frequently. All signs and maps were in Cantonese and English. The subway was so easy to use because all you had to do was put your finger on the destination you wanted on the screen map and it told you how much money to put in. It was a relief after Japanese timetables and price maps. Here we are on a city bus that took us straight from the airport to our hostel. Note the nicely cushioned seats.


HOSTEL
We stayed in a hostel in Causeway Bay, a shopping district on the East side of the city. It was about $16 per night per person and we had our own bathroom, air conditioning, and wireless internet. We used the wireless internet to communicate with family and friends in the US. Justin used his pda and skype to call people. I used my webcam and aolim. The first room they took us didn't have everything we wanted in a room so we switched rooms. It was kind of an ordeal because no one in the office spoke English, but I managed to figured everything out through an English speaking woman over the phone. They took us to one building three blocks away, but there was some problem with the security guys on the first floor, so after a verbal fight took place in front of us in Cantonese, we left and they took us to a different building. We paid the difference for a better room on the street, which felt a little shady, but once we got settled we realized the room was actually quite safe and convenient after all.

THE SITES
Parks - HK has a ton of free, well-kept, clean, gorgeous parks. We went to the Honk Kong Park, Kowloon Park, HK Botanical Garden and Zoo, and Victoria Park. Some of the parks have swimming pools, ponds, greenhouses, sculptures, waterfalls, museums, restaurants, wild animals, aviaries, sport courts, and well manicured plants. Here are some pictures from the parks.
Where park meets city-

Orchids-






Victoria Peak - We took the steep Peak Tram up to the top of Victoria Peak, south of the city. There was a mall and restaurants on the top. This was the clearest it was all weekend. Here is the view-



The Promenade - Across from Hong Kong Island is Kowloon Peninsula. There's a street on the edge of this peninsula and it has the best view of the city from the north. Here is the view during the day, East to West. My pictures at night didn't turn out.





Here's the clocktower near the promenade.


The Ngong Ping Skyrail and Buddha - West of HK Island is Lantau Island. The largest outdoor Buddha in the world sits on top of a mountain on Lantau. There's a brand new skyrail that takes you right to the Buddha. We had to wait about two hours to get on it though. It's about a 20 minute ride over a bay and a couple of mountains. I took a video of the end of the rail because I was worried that I pictures would turn out due to the dirt on the glass in our cabin. Here are some of those pictures, but the video is linked on the right.
Look for the skyrail cabins that fit 10 people there at the top of this picture-

The skyrail begins down near that building in the center of this picture-


It was pretty cloudy up there, but here are the good pictures of the Buddha and the surroundings.






We shared a cab back with a couple Spanish wine sellers because the line was too ridiculous to take the skyrail back. I don't think little amusement park skyrails are going to do anything for me anymore. And this means that in three weeks, I've seen the biggest indoor (at Todai-ji in Nara) and outdoor Buddhas in the world!

SHOPPING
There are malls and markets everywhere you turn in HK. We walked through most of the malls that connected all the big buildings together. You can stride through half the city and avoid the hot, busy street by doing so. The markets were a lot more hectic and fun. We got to Ladies Market, the Jade Market, Night Market near Jordan Rd, and Stanley Market on the south side of the HK Island. We bartered for everything we wanted, and sometimes we unintentionally bartered by walking away when we actually weren't interested in items. We didn't get around to the goldfish and flower markets.






NIGHTLIFE
We went out on the town one night in the SoHo and Lan Kwai Fong districts. We took the public outdoor escalator to get there. I'm pretty sure there are other places to party because only foreigners and ex-pats were there. We still had fun though. No cover charges.

PERCUSSION
We got tickets to see a Taiwanese Ju Percussion Group perform at the HK Cultural Center alone and with the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. It was a spectacular show and parts of it reminded me of Blue Man Group minus the blue and the humor. So I guess it was just the sound and lighting. Anyways, I was really impressed. The orchestra sounded a lot like western orchestras but all the instruments were completely different. It was definitely a highlight of the trip. We also saw the last round of a middle and high school drumming competition. Here's a picture of the Cultural Center. It has three theaters inside it.


JAL
Japan Airlines is right up there with Midwest Express. I got to sit in the upper deck exit row on the way back. All seating enjoyed many movies, games, music, and more on personal screens. They had cameras on the bottom and front of the plane that you could watch. The meal came with silverware, chopsticks, and free unlimited drinks (I didn't take advantage of it Mom and Dad!). No warm gooey cookies though.

I definitely want to go back someday! It would be fun to have a condo there. Hmm, new goal in life.