Hong Kong adieu

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Leaving tonight at 11.00pm for Germany. We asked for a late check out so we would have a base for the day when needed then hopped on a bus to the Star Ferry terminal and sailed across to Hong Kong Island for a nosey around. Specifically we wanted to ride the big escalator in the sky which, in other visits to HK we hadn't got around to. It was easy to find walking through the elevated walkways above the jam-packed streets. They're open sided so a breeze blows through and they're probably a few degrees cooler than at street level. Hectic activity below on the street. You have to wonder what all the activity is about. Who's going where for what, to do what to whom and why?

The Central mid levels escalator rises 135 metres over 800 metres and works downwards in the morning for getting to work and uphill from 10.00am to midnight. It was busy. Full of people going somewhere to do something. We enjoyed the ride and stopped occasionally to look out and down from where we had come. At the top it spills out onto a street with no particular destination so we waited for a bus and zigzagged down some 20 degree switchbacks to the flat lands below.

Wandering through narrow alleyways we came upon markets dedicated to veges, clothes, meat and miscellaneous stuff. Also streets of cheap lunch spots, tables packed into the alleys and with what looked like gangs of labourers from building sites sitting shirtless in the heat all talking and laughing at the same time, enjoying their break from low wage toil (I make assumptions).

MTR subway back to Kowloon, a quick lunch, some shopping for Matt and Tim and now we're packing, getting ready to go to the airport where we will slope around for a few hours before our Lufthansa flight leaves. There can't be much more of a contrast between countries than Germany and Hong Kong. So it's farewell from Hong Kong and Guten Tag Mannheim tomorrow morning.

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Photos

Hong Kong Day 3
Up the escalator.

HK Day 3
Alley markets.

HK Day 3
Lunchtime