I see signs...many signs!!

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Hong Kong at last! our final Asian destination. HK is a big clean modern city with big modern buildings resulting in big prices. We paid $25 (US) for a prison cell for 2 the first night and then upgraded to a cheap hotel place for $55 or we could of stayed at the Holiday Inn for $200 but we have a budget. The transit system here is really good, efficiently packing millions of people around on an extensive network of subways and double decker buses. Pretty much all of our time in HK was shopping because Lonely Planet said HK had good prices and because it was our last stop in Asia so we didn't have to worry about carrying our loot around.

I originally was really excited about Hong Kong because of the supposedly wide selection of cheap electronics. Well they definitely have more electronics than anywhere on the planet but the prices aren't cheaper than most stores and definitely not cheaper than ebay. I picked up some stuff but I got better deals in mainland China. So contrary to LP the electronics aren't any cheaper, the street markets are a little more expensive but the best shopping we found here was the clothing outlet stores, thanks to Maria's sister that gave us the lowdown on the best places to shop. For something different we took the bus over for some different shopping at Stanley Market but didn't find much because the prices were pretty high, probably because it was the resort part of HK and near where all the rich people lived. We found the best deals in the outlet stores in downtown Kowloon and street markets near the night market and street markets near the big escalator in the Central district on Hong Kong Island.

Obviously Hong Kong is the most western of any Chinese cities we have been to on this trip but it still has a Chinese flare from the flashy neon signs to vegetable markets in the streets. The one thing that is really different from all the other Chinese cities was the lack of thousands of bikes and cars breaking every traffic law in the book and honking like their life depends on it. Another difference is there are a lot less vendors selling knock offs and other pirated illegal goods. Don't get me wrong there are still quite a few vendors but most are selling look-a-likes like Tammy Hilfiger, Celvin Klein, Swiss Navy, Tosiba and 3 stripe brand shoes - it was pretty amusing to see how they play the name game. This was the first place I noticed fake electronics or super low quality models from such well known brands, so if you shop here do your homework. Rolex, Omega and some of the other big dollar watches must have really cracked down on the the fakes in HK because you would never see fakes in a shop like you did in Mainland China but you would hear people whispering "copy watch Rolex, Tag Heuer...." at every tourist, or maybe just people without watches like me. Kinda curious about the "copy watches" I said sure to one of the touts. The tout took me down an alley where he told me to follow another guy which took me down a even darker alley. This may sound a little sketchy especially in some foreign country at 10 at night by myself, but we have never had a problem on our trip and have been in similar late night dark alley situations. So we arrived at a building with a little elevator (2 person or one sumo wrestler size) I said no that's alright and he insisted it was safe so I went with him. We arrive on the 5 floor and he said this guy will take care of you. Like all the guys before him he was smaller than me so I felt I could take him. So this guy took me into a little room and then some other guy locked us in the room, now I was feeling a little nervous. Having just got into HK 2 hours ago I didn't have a cent on me so I knew I couldn't be robbed but I was still a little nervous. So I looked at the watches for awhile and pretended like I was interested and then asked how much, he said $100 way more then i would ever spend on a watch without a warranty so the price came down to around $30 for a different grade of fake (who would have known they have grades of fakes). He said the expensive one would last 3-4 years and the cheap one 1 year, so I said I'll have to sleep on it and 5 minutes of negotiating later he let me out of the watch dungeon. What an ordeal for a fake watch. The watches looked and felt like good quality but that equates to $30 a year for a fake watch no thanks. sorry for the anti-climatic tangent but being from Alaska the fake goods trade was quite amusing.

As for other HK sights we almost when to Ocean Park but we decided we have seen really good aquariums and Cara's not big on amusement park rides so it probably wouldn't have been worth the $~30. We did take a relaxing stroll through the city park (Kowloon Park). The park was pretty neat with all the birds caged and uncaged but the park is a little small to really get away from the bustling city. Every night HK has a city light show that is pretty neat. In the show many of the buildings light up plus spot lights and lasers are choreographed to music in the park by the bay (see video).


Well today April 29, 2008 is the end of our Southeast Asia and China experience. We fly to Taipei (2 hours) and then to Anchorage (7 hours) to the to the wonderful country of America, Land of the free home of the brave. Well it has been a great adventure, thanks for following us along our Journey and for the comments and stay tuned for a couple more summary blogs, slide show of the trip and glad to be American party (we still have 3 packages in the mail with one month of pictures so that may dictate when the slide show is) Oh and our wedding.
Take care and talk to all you soon!

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