When we woke up Saturday morning and walked out on our balcony we were greeted with the rising sun casting its first rays on the stunning skyline of Hong Kong. Like Singapore, Hong Kong was part of the British Commonwelth so, again like Singapore, it is a very westernized city. Unlike Singapore, Hong Kong is teeming with people. There were crowds wherever we went. While we loved Singapore, it certainly did not have the same energy as Hong Kong.
On Saturday morning we took a cruise-sponsored tour of Hong Kong, the first stop being Aberdeen Fishing Village, the oldest fishing village in Hong Kong. Silly us, we thought there would be a short drive through the country to get to this village. How wrong we were. Aberdeen fishing village is nothing more then a marina amongst all the skycrapers and apartments. Here we took a 30 minute Sanpan ride around the marina, seeing large, exceedingly expensive yachts next to old, rust bucket fishing boats. It sounds strange but was a lot of fun. After the boat ride the bus drove through some very expensive neighborhoods, taking us to the Stanley Market. This market was very similar to the Night Market we visited in Bangkok; a nice blend of interesting, upscale shops along side cheap souvenier stores. We spent about an hour strolling through the Stanley Market and then it was back on the bus to catch the tram to the top of Victoria Peak. Victoria Peak is the tallest mountain/hill on Hong Kong Island. For Tim the tram ride to the top was very harrowing; for Lynda, more "eh." But the view over Hong Kong was incredible. Fortunately for Tim, our bus met us at the top of the peak so we did not have to ride the tram back down. We returned to our ship from Victoria Peak and spent the rest of the afternoon packing and preparing in general for our disembarkation Sunday morning.
We sadly left the Celebrity Millennium about 8:30 Sunday morning and took a cab to the hotel we had booked for Sunday night. It was too early to check into our room, but we stored our luggage and ventured out into Hong Kong. Directly across the street from our hotel was a flower market. We would like to claim that we chose our hotel, after careful research, because of its location by this market. That would be lying. Sometimes it's better to be lucky then good. The flower market took up several blocks and it was literally nothing but flower stores with most of the flowers on display on the sidewalk in front of the stores. The street was a riot of color, or, as Tim likes to say, a visual cacaphony. There were cut flowers as well as potted plants. Some of the cut flowers were at least 3 feet tall. There were also even taller bunches of cut pussy willows. Orchids were the predominant potted flower. We also identified gladiola, lillies, azaleas, daffodils, mums and dahlias. Some of the dahlia blossoms were the size of a dinner plate. We suspect that the Market was particularly crowded because of the upcoming Chinese New Year on February 19.
We immediately went from the sublime to the bizarre as we came to Yuen Po bird street. This was a narrow (think wide sidewalk) two block long street lined with short trees where old men bring their caged birds, hanging the cages in the trees so the birds can get some fresh air. We kid you not. It said so in our guide book. There were also small stores along the street selling birds, cages and all the necessary accessories. The men all stood around talking, probably solving all of the world's problems. There were no women, other then Lynda, on the street. We decided it was probably easier for these guys to get out of the house telling their wives they're taking the bird for a walk then to get permission to meet their friends at the bar. We told you at the beginning of the paragraph it was bizarre.
After spending a couple of hours in our hotel room, we took the subway to the harbor. Hong Kong is actually a group of islands. Our hotel is located in Kowloon which is across Victoria Harbor from Hong Kong Island. Kowloon is where most of the nightlife of Hong Kong is located; Hong Kong Island is more of the business/financial section. The famous Star Ferry Line runs continuous ferries between the two islands. Lynda claims to have read about the Star ferries in 4 or 5 different novels. According to her, the hero is always making his escape from the bad guys on a Star Ferry. Given the speed of the ferry, Tim wondered how the hero ever escaped, but Lynda assured him that he always did. Of interest on the Hong Kong side of the harbor was a sculpture created by Henry Moore that one of the major financial companies had commissioned and erected in a plaza in front of their building. Everywhere we went on both of the islands we encountered endless stores: Prada, Gucci, Ferregamo, etc., never-ending jewelry stores, and the ubiquitous stores selling fake high end merchandise. Battling the constant crowd of people is exhausting so we went back to the hotel to rest for this evening's sojourn.
Each night at 8:00 the Hong Kong Tourist Council presents a Symphony of Light Show over Victoria Harbor. We went down to the harbor to watch. Words can't describe what we saw. The skycrapers across the harbor were used as canvases for the multi-colored show of lights. The different light designs were done in sequence with music playing over loudspeakers. There were also green and white (!) laser lights at the top of a few of the buildings that occasionally added to the overall effect. It was hard to follow all of the lights on the different buildings because the buildings were so wide spread. It was a pretty spectacular way to spend our last night in Hong Kong. Our last stop was the Temple Street Night Market. This was decidedly low-end goods but the vibe on the street was obvious. At one point on the way back to the hotel Lynda turned to Tim and said, "We certainly wouldn't be doing anything like this in Mason on a Sunday night!" As always, she was right.
This is our last blog posting. Tomorrow morning we fly home. Between the 20 hour flying time and the 13 hour time change tomorrow will be like a day and a half. Thanks again for following along. We will be glad to talk to you in greater depth about the trip. However, a word of warning. Don't ask to look at pictures. You'll be sorry.
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