Hong Kong, Hong Kong

---

We're now in the country of Hong Kong. They have their own Olympic team, their own government, their own laws, but they're still part of China. The legislative elections actually took place when we were here. Half of the seats are voted by citizens and the other half are voted by special interest groups - who are mainly business groups. Whilst the citizens mainly vote democratic, whilst the business groups are unsurprisingly pro-Beijing. The end result gave the democrats the veto they needed to block legislation sent from Beijing. This system will change soon, though. In 2017 the Executive will be voted for solely by the citizens, and the same will be true of the Legislative by 2020. Not sure what's going to happen then....

Hong Kong is an incredible place where no piece of land is spared - at least in the Central district of Hong Kong island. They are currently underway with a large land reclamation project on the waterfront. Hong Kong has 1000km sq north of Hong Kong island so it seems a bit surprising that they go to all this effort. The place still has a lot of remnants from the fairly recent days of colonial rule. The postboxes, double decker busses (that drive on the left!) and the road signs all look very similar to the UK.

We stayed in the 5-star Conrad hotel. This was all because of some loyalty points I had from work. Our room was on the 58th floor with a stunning view across Central and Kowloon. We also had access to en executive lounge which gave us free drinks and food all day - we made good use of this! It also had a pool which, again had an amazing view, but this time because it was slotted in on the ground floor between so many towering skyscrapers.

Crossed the harbour on the Victorian Star Ferry and spent a day in Kowloon visiting the various markets - the goldfish market, the flower market, the (pet) bird market, the second hand electrical goods market. In the evening we watched the spectacular Hong Kong light show. This is the "largest permanent sound and light show in the world". They use lights on the skyscrapers across the whole of Hong Kong Island and it is all synchronised to music.

Also spent a day on Lamma Island. Hong Kong's territory is made up of quite a few islands. Although it only took 25 minutes to get there by ferry from central HK, it was a completely different world. There are no cars on this island - just a few seafood restaurants and a few shops selling buckets and spades to use on the local beaches. Incredibly, when we got to one of the beaches, there were only a handful of people there. I'm surprised more people in HK don’t make use of this open space.

We flew out of Hong Kong's Chep Lap Kok airport. This was built in the 90's by basically blowing up 2 small mountainous islands and flattening them out, creating space for the airport. Maybe we should try doing the same in London on the Thames estuary!

---