Hong Kong-SAR

One Country, Two Systems. Hong Kong has an interesting history of colonization. There is lots of British influence on this city and now it is part of China's Republic but as a Special Administration Region(SAR). They maintain a parliamentary government and a capitalistic mentality while still being part of China. We sailed in on Saturday morning around 9 am. It was cloudy and a bit gray but we could see the hundreds of high-rise business and residential buildings appearing out of the mists. It was pretty cool to be sailing into this port and seeing Hong Kong on one side and Kowloon on the other and all the forest of concrete buildings that greeted us as we sailed into Victoria Harbor.

Once we were done helping with passports and immigration, we headed to the MTR (subway) to over to Hong Kong island. We got off at Centraland went on a search for some food. Clearly we had to do DimSum since we were in the place that invented DimSum! We found this one place that was said to be incredible but got sick of waiting for a table so went to this cute place across the street. I had some interesting experience with "vegetarian" dumplings that had prawns but it's a good thing I'm good at looking at my food carefully before eating! I did have a bun that had this creamy sweet orange-colored filling that was yummy! J Then we just walked around for a few hours just getting lost in the small crowded streets and hopping in and out of shops, galleries and the occasional Starbucks to use the bathroom. We tried to go into the Bank of China building to get a cool view of the island but it was closed b/c of the weekend so we just next door (and almost died trying to cross the street) went to check out the tea ware museum in the park and the beautiful koi fish pond and waterfall. Then we were off to take the tram up the hill to Victoria's Peak for one of the most incredible views of the city. We wanted to get there before it got dark so we could see both what it looked like in the day and after dark. It was just incredible to look down into this maze of buildings, most of which were at least 40 floors high and in every shape and size. It really looked like looking into a different world. After a fun photoshoot of silhouettes we grabbed some New York Fries. It was getting chilly outside and I've never been sooo excited to eat fries before! I especially liked the Cajun spice that gave them a kick. Then got onto the third floor deck excited to see the laser show since we had heard that all the buildings on the island put on an incredible night laser show….we waited and waited and couldn't figure if we were just stupid or somehow missed it?!It so happens that this is the one night of the year that they don't do the laser show in honor of an international energy awareness hour of darkness. Go figure! So we decided not to wait in the ridiculous long line to go down the tram even though we bought a round trip ticket. We instead took the local double decker bus which took us right to the Star Ferry terminal! We have been told this is the one thing you HAVE to do when in Hong Kong. It's one of the oldest ferry systems and costs about 30 US cents each way. It was fun to cross the water by ferry and see more pretty sights of the Kowloon side. Our ship was docked right next to the Star Ferry terminal so that made it even better!

I got to get some quick food before being on duty for the night. I was up most of the night dealing with drunken students but left early in the morning to go check out the Temple of the 10,000 Buddhas, just a couple stops north of Kowloon on the MRT. Alissa and two ship crew (Anna from the Pursor's Desk & Dr. Jocelyn, the ship doctor) which made the trip even better. I had heard this temple is beautiful and not as much crowded by tourists. I was going to visit the Buddha statue on Lantau Island (one the world's largest buddhas) but thought this was less touristy and a bit more interesting. I was totally right. It was filled with locals and though it was raining and gray, we got to walk around the beautiful temples and towers. The walkway upto the temple is lined with different figures of golden Buddhas. My favorite part of this whole temple was the main shrine that had several big Buddhas in the middle and the the walls were lined from floor to ceiling with rows of hundreds of miniature Buddhas. It was incredible! The smell of incense, the glow of the many lights, the bright colors that popped out against the gray clouds and the recording of Buddhist chanting in the background…..it was pretty cool. There were a lot of people at the temple making offerings of many things made of paper (money, cars, clothes, houses, etc) by burning them. It is believed that by burning them, you send these things to ancestors in the afterlife and make their afterlife more comfortable.

After about two hours of walking around the different shrines, we walked back towards the train station and found a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant who served delicious tea and cheap Chinese food. Then back to Kowloon to walk around the shopping district. Hong Kong is known for their night markets which take over several of the streets. Each is about 15-20blocks long and these tents are set up where people everything from cds to clothes, to pottery to toys and everything in between. It's pretty fun to haggle and bargain. I have been collecting magnets from each country so I did get a few of those and some local cookies. Then back to the ship and we headed out at night time which was cool to see the lights on both sides of us as we headed out to sea. We only had about 130 people on the ship for our two transit days to Shanghai because most people travelled to the Great Wall and Beijing to meet us in Shanghai instead of travelling on the ship. I chose to travel by ship to save some money and I just didn't feel like running around like crazy just to say I had done it. I want to go back and actually spend some time travelling through China and the rest of Asia.