From Hong Kong

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We are now at the airport having finished our few days in Hong Kong. It has been a very interesting experience on many fronts.. we wrote an earlier post but it looks like it got deleted so here goes again.

Getting off the airline the first thing we saw was a DHL building, and soon after that McDonalds was one of the first few restaurants... didn't feel too different from the US. On the bus to Hong Kong island, we also passed Hong Kong Disneyland (didn't even know it existed until we saw the familiar mouse ears), and a bridge that was exactly the same as the Bay Bridge! I know imitation is the highest compliment but still!! Soon enough though, the differences were apparent - starting with the port which dwarfed anything either of us have seen before. There were easily some 100+ boats/ships in the ocean, and multitudes of cranes, rows and rows of boxes waiting to be loaded, etc. Truly immense.
Then came the skyline and the amazingly high skyscrapers - both of us not particularly loving heights, we were happy we didn't have to work at the top of one of those buildings!

We stayed with our friend JJ's parents, which was great. They gave us tips on where to go and what to do, and that plus our guidebook was perfect. Plus of course coming back home to home food felt great particularly on the first day when we didn't see any restaurants with veggie food (many didn't even have english explanations on what they were serving!). We fared better the next day, finding a great Thai restaurant and also met Anand's classmate Joe and family for dinner at a great Indian place.

The first day, the weather was great so we took the ferry to Lantau island to see the big buddha. The ferry was a lot of fun in itself as we had great views of the skyline, the harbor etc, as well as of the water. We then took a bus on the island itself, which took us through some great scenery of the island's hillside, etc. Interestingly we also passed a few villages, where the houses, schools and everything reminded us very much of outer or mofussil areas of India. When we finally got to the Big buddha, it was definitely worth the trip. It's an amazing sculpture. There were groups of buddhists praying there which was nice to see. Besides the buddha himself, there were six surrounding sculptures of women in beautiful poses which were also nice.

Back in Hong Kong, we did a walking tour of the Central district seeing some of the skyscrapers and malls there, and then took a ferry to Kowloon to see the laser/light show of Hong Kong island buildings. The music was very nice and the laser show was also interesting. It seemed like 'Financial district meets Las vegas' 😊.

We then visited the Temple Street Night Market which was billed as 'the' place to get touristy stuff, clothes, etc. While there were certainly many stalls, the items themselves seemed not too different from what we've seen in Chinatown, and the sellers themselves weren't as interested in bargaining and discussing as I had expected. Anand had a more positive impression (maybe b/c he didn't go there expecting much), and in fact is already talking about going back next time we're here 😊.

The next day we spent the whole day walking around and exploring hong kong island - here are a few highlights:
- we got stone seals with our names in Chinese imprinted on the bottom from Man Wo lane (at least we hope they really wrote our names out instead of something else!)
- We saw hollywood rd which had lots of beautiful antiques - more of what I was expecting to see here..
- a religious ceremony at Man Mo temple
- The districts supposed to be similar to old beijing with lots of street markets (Anand was making fun of me as I was as grossed out by some of the non-veg items for display as I am in the US chinatown)
- Hong Kong park - truly an awesome place, a natural oasis in the midst of skyscrapers. It was great to take a break there for a bit in the afternoon after having explored the concrete jungle. Beautiful lakes, waterfall, conservatory, etc. We had wanted to go to the walk-in aviary but unfort it was temporarily closed b/c they had found some wild birds few km's away with avian flu and were trying to protect this lot. At the conservatory, Anand played the role of tour guide and showed me the rubber tree, cocoa plant (lilyn, i took a picture for you 😊 ), and nepenthus (the insect eating plant). Nibble, we saw yr hong kong counterpart who was taking pictures of flowers after a long long time of focusing. i was all set to take a picture of him but anand stopped me thinking I'd start a fight 😊.
- the mid-level escalator which is billed as the longest covered escalator in the world - but that's a total con job as actually it's not one continuous escalator at all but there are lots of breaks for people to leave for the adjoining streets. From there we saw the coolest neighborhood of Soho where there were lots of interesting restaurants, from a taqueria, vietnamese, russian, pizzerias, and other food. What one would totally expect in a cosmopolitan city but we hadn't seen it in the other areas of HK before that.
- Frm the escalator, we also visited a roman catholic cathedral and the Jamia masjid, which were also interesting.
- After that we went to the peak tram and went up to the Peak to look over Hong Kong. After taking the requisite panorama shots frm the viewing tower, we went for a one-hour hike around the mountain. That was great b/c we saw all sides of the island from there and enjoy some nature as well. On returning, it was time for sunset so we also saw the city lights turn on etc as the sun went down.

Today we're taking a break, we slept in, hung out at home and then are taking the time to rest up for tomorrow. We're at the airport now and soon will catch our flight to Siem Reap via Bangkok. We'll be checking out Angkor Wat tomorrow, and are really looking forward to it. Anand is also looking forward to staying at the Red Piano hotel, whose bar apparently was the favorite spot for the Tomb Raider gang including of crs Madame Lara Croft herself aka Angelina Jolie.

Hope everyone is doing well. Take care!

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Comments

[kartikk]

Anand and Amritha, that was a great description of Hong Kong. It seems like you guys enjoyed a lot. Hope you guys took a lot of photos. Try to post some photos when you get a chance. Hope both you guys are feeling good now. Enjoy the rest of your trip.