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.