Kowloon and the Avenue of Stars!


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August 13th 2010
Published: August 13th 2010
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This morning we woke up at 5:30am to dodge traffic to the airport, and it actually worked. It was a 4 hour flight from Beijing to Hong Kong, so I tried to sleep but didn't end up getting very much. By the time we were flying lower, and I could see the Ocean, I didn't want to sleep. The view from the plane was amazing. Most travellers are probably used to similar scenes, but I'm not. I loved seeing the islands on the way to Hong Kong, tiny islands with mountains all over them.

Then we saw Hong Kong. I had no idea there were so many mountains! I expected the huge skyscrapers of course but from the air you see that the mountains have an even more dominant appearance. We flew into Kowloon, Bruce Lee's childhood home(!), and took a taxi to the downtown, where are hotel is. I found out it's a 5 minute walk from our hotel to Bruce Lee's childhood house. So I'm hoping to go see that soon. Today we walked down to Victoria Harbor, only 5 minutes from our hotel! And we walked down the Avenue of Stars, kind of a Hollywood type boardwalk where a ton of Hong Kong stars make hand imprints in the cement next to their names. To name a few we saw Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Chow Yun Fat, Raymond Chow, and Bruce Lee! With not only the handprints but a statue. I got a couple pictures next to it and also got myself a souvenir Bruce Lee t-shirt.

Hong Kong is sooo busy! There are people everywhere and so so many malls. I think the population is around 7 million, and the population density is one of the highest of any cities in the world. It's a very modern city and most people actually speak English. It feels like someone meshed together the Western world with the East. I saw three starbucks in a one block radius, a burger king, outback steakhouse, tgi fridays, and then mixed in with it you see Chinese signs, restaurants, and shops. The good shopping is one of the biggest tourist attractions, but everything is really really expensive.

We started walking around looking for food and found a cool local noodle place where I had shrimp dumplings in noodle soup. After that I walked to the YMCA thats right next to our hotel and trained for a bit. I'm back home now and sooo tired. Tomorrow morning we're taking a ferry to Macau and probably seeing Bruce Lee's old house here in Kowloon. No websites are blocked here in Hong Kong but I can't use my own computer in the hotel room, so I'll have to post pictures later.


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