Last, but not least

Hong Kong. Only a part of China for a very short period of time. The British influence is very prevalent here with place names, international businesses and construction, but there are some interesting little blips.



Where in Canada or Australia or Poland, would you see a poster like this asking the public to comment and rate the construction of a restroom facility?



A view of Stanley Market, where many knock-offs can be purchased at supposedly very cheap prices. We didn't find things that cheap there.

We took a harbour cruise on our first day there. They were just starting to experience the beginnings of a typhoon that day. It was raining quite a bit but we did our tour anyway. Took some pictures of the commercial and residential buildings ringing the harbour.




Our guide also explained that some of the fishermen could not afford to live in the buildings and so their accommodation was their fishing boats. They are just moored in the middle of the harbour.

The Jumbo restaurant was the backdrop in the first James Bond movie(I think) It isn't a floating restaurant now like it was when first built.


The rain had just stopped for a few minutes. Good thing we brought our rain suits(garbage bags). Of course, with the rain came much cloud cover and we were also going up to Victoria Peak. We took a coach up and then we were taking the tram down. It is appearing in the mist. We could hardly see anything on the trip so we went up again a couple of days later. The views were amazing.


One of the original tram cars for this tourist area. They have built a huge shopping area called the Galleria. We spent a bit of money here but we mainly went up for lunch in one of the restaurants there. More pictures of the buildings in Hong Kong and Kowloon harbours. Compare the density of population with that of Canada.(once a Social teacher, always a social teacher)




We did a tour on the second day which brought us to a nice beach. Of course, the typhoon had come and gone and few people were there, just us tourists. I don't know what I was thinking when Jannose took this picture, but it must have been something important.


On our tour, we passed by this Medium Security prison. Note the exercise yard and the great views that the prisoners have. Better not let the Conservative Party hear about this place.



The tour was taking us to a fishing village that was over 500 years old. There were many shops where you could by some fish delicacies like below. We didn't.







The canals throughout the village of Lantau. This was a great tour-no factory shops here.


Drying fish from the previous day's catch.

We watched these kids playing in this square. They were having a great time.


The tour also took us to the top of a Mountain where there was this statue of Buddha. We were taken in the coach so we didn't have to use the stairs in the picture below. The statue is up so high on the mountain that it was tough to get a clear picture because of the clouds.
I don't have any pictures, but after viewing the Buddha, we went to a restaurant run by the monks of the Monastery. They are vegetarian and so all the dishes were vegetarian. And so good!!!! Very little waste at this meal.






We took a harbour tour that started at 7:00 and stayed out in the harbour for the light and laser show an hour later. Got some very nice pictures. Here are a couple of them above.


Whenever we went walking in Hong Kong, we always ran into Markets of some kind. This one had as its focus electronics and tools.

This Market had many different clothing stalls.


Jannose and I weren't too interested in what this guy was selling. Greg, in the background, gave him his full attention. (He was burning off the hair from the pig snouts.


Again, lots of clothing for sale. We had no more room in our suitcases.


Look at the size of the advertisements on the buildings. But none as large as the Calvin Klein ad below. I think that is a 30 storey building.


The pictures above were taken on our return trip to Victoria Peak when the weather was better. We took many different forms of transportation in Hong Kong. I will have another post of transportation modes later.




These were all taken from the top of Victoria Peak or on the way down. Note the tall buildings and the population density. The engineers who built this city basically demolished the mountain and put the rock in the harbour and then built on both parts. Amazing.

So ended our tour. Singapore, Chiang Mai, Sukhothai, Phuket, Bangkok, Beijing, X'ian, Chongquing, Shanghai, Suzhuo, Hong Kong. A great start to retirement.

Shanghai'd in Shanghai

I can't move this picture, so I have to start my information here. This is the view from our hotel room in Shanghai. Just had to show the traffic and the construction. The building on the bottom left is a school with a school yard set up for soccer and basketball. Note the amount of traffic and the construction in the area. We went for dinner at a restaurant about 5 minutes walk from our hotel. The guide said that the staff spoke English and they had English menus and the food was great. The food was great, the menus were in English but the staff spoke very little English. I had a card from some Chinese friends which explained that we didn't eat meat, chicken, etc. That helped a lot. We went back a couple of days later and forgot to show the card and got a great eggplant dish, which looked good in the menu picture, but contained pork.(oops)







We went and visited a garden area one day. Beautifully spaced rocks and trees and flowers. Very peaceful and quiet, even with all the tourists all over the place. The pictures are below.





Oh look!!! Another Starbucks. You couldn't go more than two blocks without seeing a Starbucks or a 7-Eleven.


On our way to visit a market and temple, we went past a smaller market area where our guide said we could buy knock-offs. At that precise moment, the police arrived and confiscated and stopped the sale of items until they could see that they weren't knock-offs. The sellers had spies and people posted at all entrances to places like this so they wouldn't get surprised by the police. We saw many examples of this in China. Not so much in Bangkok, though.


On one of our coach tours, we went by the Stadium in Shanghai which would host the soccer games of the Olympics.


A statue in the park. Note the large buildings behind.


Moving merchandise to the stalls for sale to the public.

The YuYuan Market for shopping and also a temple. Our guide took us all to a back stall down an alley where we could by Gucci purses, gold jewellry and watches, all for very cheap. (Knock-offs) and very high pressure.

Again, another peaceful setting. Gail Seemann loves dragons and so does Arone, our son.






Four views of the downtown business district of Shanghai. This is from the area called the Bund.



A subway entrance in the Bund area. We never took the Subway although we used the tunnel entrances to go from one side of the street to the other, in order to eliminate pedestrian crosswalks.




Some pieces of art in one of the temples we visited near the market.


Our coach was parked outside this factory shop, which also contained a restaurant where we had lunch, and there was a bit of commotion because he was blocking traffic. There was a huge argument and the woman passenger in the car almost came to blows with our driver.


But this man never got to sell any of the produce and fruit he had in these baskets.

SPLIT PANTS, AGAIN (sorry Greg, just had to put the picture in)

Then, we visited a small co-op village by a small river.




Three pictures of the Shanghai Acrobatic Show. This was a fantastic evening and I can't wait to see Marilyn's video of the evening. There was no way I could take enough pictures that weren't blurred because of all the movement.



Shopping on Nanjiing Road, the main shopping road in Shanghai. Very High End shops, but we were still offered cheap Rolex watches.


I saw this poster and knew that Daorcey and Natalie would love it.


Then, on a special trip, the four of us went to the commune. We were supposed to take a train to the city and then have a tour. We ended up in a van for over an hour to get here and almost two hours to get home. But, the visit to the city was great and we got to see what life must have been like just after the Communists came into power. Above is the map of the area and below are some pictures around the city.





We went on a little ride down the canal of this city. These dwellings look pretty original. Our guide said that hot water is very expensive, so it is used sparingly. That must be why Jannose saw the airport workers washing their hair in the airport washrooms.

Note the girl wahing her hair in the photo above. There is a pail beside her and there are water stains coming up the stairs. I would suggest that she got water from the canal. I don't have the picture in here of the guy urinating into the canal just up from where she lives. Oh well, what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

We also visited the Humble Administrator's Garden. Pictures are below.


Greg, Marilyn and Jannose and I in fromt of one of the many beautiful buildings there. Notice that we are all smiling. We weren't three hours later after our van ride back to our hotel in Shanghai.



Below are pictures of the interesting buildings of Shanghai.





This was a sculpture in our hotel lobby. The woodwork was very interesting. It was a huge piece of art.

The skyline of Shanghai as were heading to the airport to leave to Hong Kong.