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Published: July 31st 2006
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View from Sheraton Kowloon
This is the view from our hotel room. It is of Hong Kong Island. The tall angular building on the far left is the Bank of China. Hello. It has been a few days. We have left Suzhou and are now in Hong Kong. We have spent the last few days seeing the sights. Here is the latest.
Our last few days in Suzhou were interesting. I am calling Tuesday, July 25th the Towers of Babel Day. It started with a misunderstanding with the hotel laundry. I asked them to deliver laundry that they said was already done and they thought I had laundry for them to pick up. I then made the mistake of thinking I could find a dress shirt for a tall man in China. Shirts are sized in European numbers. One thing to remember in a country where your knowledge of the language consists of hello and thank you is to bring the phrase book always. I initially bought the wrong size, and could not communicate that I wanted to exchange. Ironically, the name of the department store is The Towers. I went back to the hotel (and it was raining) and asked the concierge to write out what I needed to say. No problem, exchange complete. I forgot to take into account that Dave is taller than the average Chinese man. The
Sailors in Stanley
We watched the sailboat races for a little while. shirts were too short. And not just short, the bottom of the shirt barely reached the top of his waist. I wonder what the really tall Chinese men do here. I took me all afternoon to just make the exchange. AAHH!! I had a moment of brilliance, and on Wednesday, I asked our tour guide to go with me to help me return the shirts. I just could not face another day of miscommunication. We went through the hoops to make a return. Only authorized people can handle the money which means, it had to go through three different people before I could make the return. But with the help of Becky...happened uneventfully and took about 30 minutes. She is a very nice woman and did not charge me for her time. If we end up in Suzhou, I already have a friend.
We got up early on Thursday and made it to Hong Kong. It is considered a separate country. The airline employee checking us in initally demanded to see our tickets back to the US as she was checking in our bags. It was an intimidation tactic to let us know she was in control. Right now,
Fisherman in Stanley
We also saw a little fishing community across the bay we have no tickets back to the US, but that is because we are coming back to go to Tianjin. She finally backed down. We were concerned one of the bags would be overweight. Not to worry, they all weighed 16.7kg. To leave China, we had to go through Chinese immigration. I guess they want to be sure that only the approved people are leaving.
We are actually staying in Kowloon, Hong Kong which on the mainland. The area that is considered Hong Kong is across Victoria Harbor. It is all high rises and shopping. Any designer you can imagine has several stores all over the city. Under the buildings and every other building is a mall. There are malls connected to malls. Then outside there are shops and street vendors. Sunday, we found a street market where one can buy knockoffs of Prada, Gucci, Ralph Lauren, dvd's, etc.
Friday, July 28, I went to the Hong Kong Museum of History. It was huge and took about me about 3.5 hours to go through it and that was being efficient. It as interesting and I learned a lot about southern China and Hong Kong. One thing I learned
Dave in Stanley
Finally, we are drying out. is that everthing we think of as stereotypical Chinse really comes from Southern China, Cantonese, and Hong Kong. It is very different than northern China. Clothing, Boat dwellers, Dim Sum, and some other foods, are uniquely Cantonese.
Saturday we decided to explore the south end of Hong Kong Island. As we were waiting at the light to go to the subway, It started raining, hard. And it rained all day. It did not deter us. We were soaked, but only saw it as a bump. We got to the bus terminal and got on the top level of the double decker bus in the front. The roads are narrow and wind through the sides of mountains. There were two couples from Australia also on the bus. We had fun. One their side of the bus, were rocks and trees within inches. On our side, we were watching other double decker busses coming at us. And they were driving fast. Better than a roller coaster!
We made it to Stanley that is a coastal town, where there is an outdoor market. It rained all day. Dave, being the Eagle Scout that he is, decided that we should not buy an umbrella. We wanted to go to the Maritime Museum. We decided to take a taxi the 5-6 blocks since it was pouring. We went two blocks. Unfortunately they blocked the street to the museum. We passed by a restaurant that loaned us an umbrella to walk the last few blocks. The museum gave a nice history of boating and trade in Hong Kong. We also found a small boat club. In spite of the rain, a few boats went out for their Saturday races. We went back to the restaurant and had a good lunch. Dave succumbed and had a hamburger. Which I admit, I ended up eating a quarter of it. My pad thai was okay but not as good as the hamburger.
Sunday, we went to Mass and then decided to explore Kowloon. We walked through the city park that has a huge pool and then went shopping for a digital camera. I admit, that I dropped my Nikon and jammed the shutter. One of Dave's co-workers who was in Suzhou has taken it back to Austin for it to be repaired. We found a lowend Nikon Coolpix digital camera that I will use until I can get my other one back. We went to an area recommended in the travel book. I am glad Dave and I were together. The concept of being surrounded by a million people is very real in this area. It was wall to wall people everywhere! As some of you know, my sense of direction sucks big time. We wandered around for about an hour trying to find the Mongkok computer center where the prices for electronics are supposed to be the cheapest but reliable. They do not negotiate. I think people here are realizing that benefits of selling at the asking price. I might have found a better price in one of the shops on the streets but can be dicey. We also found some deals on DVD-R's and headphones. I would recommend it. The prices were good.
Dave needed to negotiate with someone so we went to the street market. He had a good time negotiating a new travel purse and silk chinese top for me. We are going to be looking for some sunglasses for him when we get back to Mainland China. He has been finding DVD's he wants, so be assured that he is not only shopping for me. I think he likes to negotiate.
Sunday evening (last night) we went to the bar at the top of the hotel we are in. Every evening at 8pm the buildings in Hong Kong across the harbor have a light show. There are search lights, and the buildings are outlined in lights. In the bar there is music that coordinates with the light show. We have it on video. The Bank of China building was the prettiest. There were boats in the harbor to watch the show including a modern version of the Chinese junk.
Today, Dave is back at work and I am going to the top of Victoria peak and find the world's longest escalator. More later.
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