As I was posting the the last
blog we had just arrived in Hong Kong. It came out of the mist early
in the morning. As you might expect is an extremely interesting
city which had heard about for years. After having spent the day
here, it is probably everything and more of what we have heard.
We had a wonderful full tour of
the city. There was not much wasted time from the 9 am start to the
3:30 finish. It is a congested city as many people are crowed onto a
limited amount of space. The need for extremely high buildings and
population density is obvious. Even the public housing buildings can
run to 40 plus stories.
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Apartments are quite small with 4 people
living in 400 sq feet of space. Our guide was quite funny, spoke
good English and kept the tour light and lively. There were many
sections of the city tour on this tour but they followed different
routes so that we never had the feeling of hurry up and wait because
of the crowds.
Our first stop was the Stanley
Market, which is a popular local for bargain hunters with a wide
variety of choices. Judy was looking for some pillow covers for our
bedroom and a few other items. She found what she was looking for.
Now this is a place where they expect you to bargain. She picked the
items she wanted , handed the man the full amount and then asked for
a discount. Of course once the money was in his hand what was he
going to say? She drives a hard bargain!
The next stop was the Aberdeen
Fishing Village. This was no village and certainly had nothing to
th or 5
th time!
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| Sam Pan Ride |
do
with fishing today. It was the start/end or our san-pan ride
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| Harbour |
through
the water area where the “water people” live on their boats. The
san pan ride held about 8 people (more of a water taxi) but it was a
very different view of the city. The boats ranged from run down to
extremely large cruiser type boats. The old Chinese lady who ran the
boat was something else. She said nothing, never smiled or showed
any sort of interest except for one things. Every few minutes she
held up her big glass jar with money in it and shook it in our face.
Now we normally tip these people but I was ready to forget it after
the 4
Next was the “wholesale”
jewelry shop. The guide gave us a great little speech as to why we
are stopping. People need to buy good stuff and the tourism board
get complaints about poor quality and high prices so the tour company
decided to protect us by taking us to a reputable place. What a
wonderful tour company. Of course we did not buy any of it.
Fortunately, the stop was not a very long one. However, it is the
worse things about ship tours. They insist on taking you to these
“friendship” stores. Enough of rug and jewelry stops for the
real bargains! Once back on the bus we navigated slowing again
through all the traffic to the next stop.
Victoria Peak at 1805 feet was
the next on the agenda. The bus took us up to the top although not
to the highest point. It was certainly the most popular with the
many modern shops. However it offered wonderful views overlooking
the main part of the city below. You are overlooking the Hong
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| What Else! |
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| Skyline From Victoria Peak |
Kong
skyline north back towards mainland China. Interestingly enough is
the fact that Hong Kong although part of China operates under it's
own set of rules much like it did under the British. They enjoy
things that are forbidden on the mainland. People from the mainland
can't just move to Hong Kong without a whole series of hoops to jump
through including have a job. Hong Kong seems to have developed
a very good system in all aspects of life. We took the long
funicular ride down the mountain to the very bottom where the bus
picked us up.
From there it was back to the
Ocean Terminal where the free shuttle bus would take us back to the
Diamond Princess. We decided that since we will be having hours of
free time at our next port, we would go back to the ship. It was
docked in another part of the area in the middle of a container port.
The port itself was huge with the loading and unloading of ships
going on around the clock!
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| Honk Kong At Night |
There was a cultural show in
the late afternoon before we sailed but everyone agreed that it was a
bit thin on both culture and entertainment! After we set sail, the
Captain had permission to sail slowly through the main channel so
that we could experience the light show that plays off the many tall
buildings of Hong Kong every night. We were ready for dinner and
standing on the high deck forward (above the bridge) to watch the
show. The second before the show started, the downpours began. By
the time we were able to get off the platform and around to a door to
the inside, we were so wet. Judy described it as the same as jumping
into the pool with all your clothes on! Soaked to the skin does not
adequately describe it. My shoes are still wet. That meant that we
had to go back to the cabin and dress in a complete set of drier
clothes. We could not even see the building for the rain! Dinner
and the sail away deck party completed the evening. Oh, the deck
party had to be held inside! 2 sea days before we get to Shanghai!
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