Monday, 3 January 2011

Hong Kong-December 23

Our first full day we went to Victoria's Peak overlooking Hong Kong.  It is a very steep climb.  I think it is the world's steepest cable car ride to the top.
Here are some shots of the lobby.  Bill always takes pictures of the Christmas trees.


Our hotel was connected to a four story mall with over 700 stores (yikes!).  While we were waiting for the tour group the first morning, we took a walk around the mall before the shops opened and the mob arrived.  The stores do not open until about 11am and stay open past midnight.



The view out of the hotel lobby.

While we were waiting for the cable car to take us to the peak, we saw the wax figure of "Mr. Lee."  Mr. Lee is the richest man in Hong Kong.  Everyone knows who he is.  We were told that for every $10 dollars spent in Hong Kong, Mr. Lee makes $3 of it.  


The cable car ride to the top.  You can see how steep it is.




Of course, there was a shopping mall at the top.  It was not open yet as it was only about 10 am.







After Victoria's Peak, we went to an old part of Hong Kong.  There are still people there that live on their boats, called "sanpams".  Their feet never touch land.  They see it as a bad omen.  They live alongside modern yachts.

We rented a sanpam and toured the old fishing villages.










On the way to the village is the world's largest floating restaurant, Jumbo's.  They can seat over 2000 people a night.



There are many huge yachts....


alongside these...


There were many government subsidized housing alongside the water.  The government feels that it is more equalizing to have rich and poor living together.   This is one of the subsidized high rises along the harbor.



The rest of that day was a jade factory (read, buy stuff).  Boring...  Then we went to another market, Stanley Market (read, buy stuff)  Boring...
We got back around 3pm and hit the streets again.  We noticed that many of the girls in Hong Kong try to imitate the styles of the Japanese girls.  We ran across some Cos players (costume players) Chinese style.  they don't have the flair that the Japanese girls have yet.  


As I mentioned in the last post, our hotel is right along the 5th avenue of Hong Kong.  Not much interested in this stuff.  Walking along the streets was fun.




It was getting toward evening so the decorations were lighting up.  We were heading to the harbor.  we were crossing to go see the Swarovski Christmas tree, more on that later.  We ran into these kids singing carols.  So cute!  Everyone was smiling.


It seems like every vacation we run into brides...


So took the ferry across to the area known as "Central."  Our hotel was located in the Kowloon section of Hong Kong.  Central is the business district.





Our tour guide spent a great of time telling us that Hong Kong is 90% "reclaimed" land.  "Reclaimed" from the sea.  In other words, landfills.  The government lops off the top of a mountain in an uninhabited area and builds new land.  Harbor is never a guarantee.  The population is growing very fast and more land is always needed.  There are 7 million people in Hong Kong today.  When we crossed the harbor we could see some of the development going on.



Here is a closer look at the buildings all lit up.

 

The Swarovski tree is 30 meters high and has over 2 million crystals in it.  They do shows every 30 minutes with lights and music.





Caroline walked through the sole of her show, time to call it a night!


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