Hong Kong

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<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Sunday 25^th March 2012:

What’s not to love about Hong Kong? It’s an incredibly vibrant city teeming with life that provides a fascinating blend of Chinese and English. It’s a real melting pot and the result is delicious! The sun shone all day today which made a refreshing change after the cold bumpiness that has been a feature of our crossing of the East China Sea. The view from the top of Victoria Peak was amazing and the ride up to the top was lovely too on the very pretty and incredibly steep funicular railway. Back in town, the Man Mo temple had more incense burning than any other temple we’ve been to and the incense itself was the prettiest too as this was in huge coils hanging from the ceiling. Our sampan ride through the fishing village of Aberdeen was fascinating, especially the area alongside the enormous floating restaurants which all take architectural decoration to a whole new level!

And as for the shopping, Hong Kong provides everything from one extreme to the other. Stanley Market was a huddle of narrow alleyways and hundreds of shops selling lots of fake designer wear. But it also sold the best value postcards: 20 of them for 20 Hong Kong dollars – that’s about £2 in English money. Our main shopping mission today was to buy a Mah-Jongg set but we found only extremes, not the middle ground we were searching for. We found nasty plastic sets for about £30 or an amazing ivory set for £45,000.00! Looks like the internet is going to have to search out something nice but not that nice! We also tackled Nathan Road which is Hong Kong’s shopping mile. And again, it’s a place of extremes with fantastic electronics deals, chinese art shops where we saw a price tag of £1.6 million for a jade ornament, jewellery shops where I saw the biggest diamonds I’ve ever seen (and very easily resisted the second I spotted the prices!) and then a Chinese department store where we were one of the few tourists. And in the queue for the ladies I felt like a giant as many of the older Chinese ladies looked me up and down, clearly amazed to see someone about 2ft taller than themselves.

So tonight we have come back to the ship for a last dinner with our table companions who leave tomorrow. Our feet are sore. We’re absolutely bushed. But we’ve had a ball and can’t wait to do it all again tomorrow as we explore the island of Lantau – which we get to via the world’s longest 2-deck suspension bridge. I have a feeling it will be another great day.

<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Monday 26^th March 2012:

I’m so glad we stayed in Hong Kong for another day because we’ve now seen a very different side to this lovely place and that is the island of Lantau. Lantau itself is an island with two distinct halves: one is very old and a perfect fit for your mental images of old China. The other is the exceptionally modern part – think of enough land reclaimed from the sea to build a huge international airport, a metro line, a 6-lane highway, the world’s longest road and rail suspension bridge, countless high-rise apartment blocks and you’re getting close.

On the old side of the island Tai O is a fabulous fishing village with many of the homes built on stilts in the river. There isn’t a fish in the sea that’s safe from these villagers. They dry a lot of what they catch and we even saw a 6 foot long dried shark! And they undoubtedly believe in using every bit of the fish they catch, including their bladders – the swim variety not the wee wee one! Apparently dried fish swim bladder is an important ingredient in Chinese soup and I reckon the villagers of Tai O could supply the whole nation’s needs! It felt untouched by modern development and stunk to high heaven too!!

Then we drove high into the mountains to visit the monastery of Po Lin. This is home to the largest outdoor bronze Buddha in Asia and it is very impressive at 85 ft high. It sits right on the top of the mountain and you can see it from miles around. We climbed inside the Buddha up to the top (third) floor to view the bone relic of the true Buddha. It is apparently less than the size of a grain of rice and as it’s kept about 10 feet back from where you’re allowed to stand, you can’t actually see it. But you can see the pretty little crystal bowl it is kept in and I’m sure it gives great comfort and inspiration to believers. We had lunch at the monastery – strictly vegetarian with some wonderful sweet rolls dipped in condensed milk for a pudding! The shrine building itself was stunning and you can’t help but be moved by the very loud chanting and clouds of incense smoke wafting through all the temples and courtyards. They’re now building a new shrine – a temple of 10,000 Buddhas. Buddhist temples are famed for their business acumen and these guys certainly know how to attract believers, investors and tourists.

When we finally got back to the ship late this afternoon, we jumped on the free shuttle bus back into down town Kowloon. We found a very posh shopping centre and gawped through the windows at the amazing designer gear on sale here. Van Cleef & Arples sits next to Armani and Gucci and every other designer brand you can think of. There were also some gorgeous Italian boutiques (!!) who I’ve never heard of but could have happily bought any and everything they sold. If only I had a couple of million burning a hole in my pocket, I’d be fine! Coming back to the ship afterwards though, I spotted some very fancy carrier bags!

Thank goodness we now have 2 days at sea before getting to Vietnam. Our feet are in desperate need of a rest but Hong Kong has been worth every single ache and pain. It is absolutely fabulous.

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