Season 2, Episode 1 : Hong Kong

We’re on our way back to Cairns, Australia to continue our sailing adventure on Pegasos. After a brief overnight stopover in Joburg we flew on to Hong Kong.

We had a longer than planned stopover here while we sat out the random delays imposed by the mysterious Australian visa office. Eventually they gave me THREE visas. Perhaps they think I’m a farmer? And after weeks of formal form-filling explanations about my finger trouble on the initial application, the relevant authorities have finally been convinced that Marcelle is in fact not Japanese but actually her passport is Italian, the preceding country on the drop-down list, and so she too is now good to go. Anyway, we got to spend nine mostly fun but always interesting and bewildering days in Hong Kong.

We arrived in Hong Kong on Friday 9^th March in the morning. We wandered around the city centre for a couple of hours.

Checking out some strange statues in the Hong Kong Sculpture Park while stretching our legs.  

Hong Kong has two of the worlds tallest 25 buildings. The Two International Finance Centre, the one behind Marcelle in this pic, comes in at number 24 at 416 meters. (Their International Commerce Centre comes in at number nine at 484 meters).

On Saturday we took the cable-pulled tram up The Peak, a mountain in the middle of the main island.

From the top there are great views of the city. Hong Kong is bristling with skyscrapers. It holds the record of 317 skyscrapers of over 150 meters in height. Second is New York with 257. London has 17 and Johannesburg has 3. Of buildings over 100 meters, Joburg has 13 while Hong Kong has 2,706! The result is a skyline that is mind-blowingly impressive for us simple folk from the little fishing village of Cape Town.

After coming down from The Peak we took a stroll along colourful Hollywood Street, with its arty street posters ....

...  lots of shiny stuff ...

... and “antiques” for sale

We took the opportunity of being in the area to visit Man Mo Temple - a small old building squeezed in by ugly towering blocks of apartments.  The temple is crowded with worshipers all intent on burning as many incense sticks as possible.  It was too asphyxiating for Marcelle who stood outside watching the incense smoke rising through the roof of the temple.
 

On Sunday we took a ferry from the main Hong Kong Island where the city centre and our tiny room in Causeway Bay are located across the harbour to Kowloon on the mainland.

We visited the local history museum. Hong Kong was just a muddy deserted backwater when the English opium-pushing traders first arrived here in 1842.  They were banished here by the Chinese in their war against drugs. Hong Kong has come a long way since then and apparently they’re now one of the richest countries with average per capita incomes among the world’s highest. When we were kids our cheap plastic junk toys (samples on exhibit in this museum) were all made in Hong Kong by people who were living in squalid shanty towns sprawling over the hills that are now forested parks.

Nowadays everyone lives in high-rise apartment buildings. They all dress well and trendy fashion brands are all over the place. Public transport is very impressive: clean, fast, regular and covers the entire city-state. This is the subway platform. The train pulls up behind sliding glass doors.

Despite their wealth they don’t seem to have a particularly enviable lifestyle. Public spaces are safe and reasonably free of litter but still noisy and quite smelly! And they still eat some pretty revolting things ...

 

From Kowloon we could see the “Festival of Lights”. Just after sundown all the harbour front skyscrapers get lit up in bright colours and flashing patterns.

On Monday we went to one of Hong Kong's biggest tourist shows, the Big Buddha: a pleasant ferry ride to Lantau Island and a reasonably scenic bus ride and a very long staircase.

On Tuesday we ambled through Jardine Street Market and Victoria Park. 

There's a pond set aside for model boats, with a barrier to separate fast boats from slow boats.

 Here's me wishing they'd install a few of these barriers offshore.

Wednesday was mostly spent rearranging travel plans and getting visas sorted, but we managed to visit he Soho District and ride part of the very long travelator moving people along above the crowded narrow pavements.

On Thursday we went to Chi Lin Nunnery which houses the usual beautifully decorated shrines and a super exotic oriental garden with an impressive collection of bonsais.

Looming over the tranquil nunnery are the ever-present skyscrapers.

Following our visit to Chi Lin Nunnery and Nan Lian Garden, we went to Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin - a Buddhist temple.

We finished off our visit on Friday at the really impressive 2018 Hong Kong Flower Show.

 

Our last day was Saturday 17th and we took the super quick MTR into the city centre and checked in our baggage early at the convenient luggage drop off at Hong Kong Station.  That left us with enough time to visit the Maritime Museum and a very brief ride on a very crowded tram before taking the Airport Express train to the airport.

And now, Oz here we come ...