Hong Kong

Hong Kong was a beautiful place full of history and clashing of cultures that often make a place a breeding ground for my most desired combination of things. We only had 2 days in the city which is a shame and I hope to some day return, maybe even to live there except for one thing which really put me off. The heat! Japan is hot, but Hong Kong was hotter. Each day we took refugee in some air conditioned building about every 2 hours just to cool down and not exhaust ourselves. I can’t imagine living there for an entire summer, but the rest of the year must be superb.
On the first of our two days we went to Macau. Macau was “discovered” by the Portuguese in the 16th century and remained under Portuguese administration until 1999! One of the first and last colonies in China it is steeped with historical buildings and contains not a World Heritage building but an area! Clearly there was too much for just one specific point and numerous monuments, temples, and other places were incorporated. We saw the ruins of the cathedral of St. Paul, A-ma temple, and the fortress. Unfortunately, we were so exhausted by the heat, the walking, and the travel of the previous day that we decided to wrap it up early and head back to Hong Kong. The remainder of that day we spent finding a sweet shop for Aya and then a bar with good beer for us boys. We bounced to a few good places, one of which was Ned Kelly’s. I had remembered reading about it before coming. It wasn’t such a bad place, Filled, but not full of people on this Saturday evening with a live band and some decent beers available. It was a nice way to wile away the final hours of our day.

The next day we were up and about early enough to catch a bus to Stanley. Stanley is not far from the city. We took a bus for maybe 45 minutes through winding streets leading up steep hills with suicide drops on one side and sheer cliffs on the other, all the while the double decker bus swinging wildly around the curving road. When we arrived in Stanley we were greeted by a massive tourist market. All of the shops had something to offer, but I would say only a few were unique. Most had the same array of scarves, paintings, ornaments, and other junk that you could find in most major markets. Only a few had other wares, but overall I liked the market. After browsing for a bit we had lunch by the boardwalk and then took a walk by the sea wall. I proposed to Aya by this sea wall, but I will save that for a different thread. Safe to say she said yes.

After Stanley we returned to the city proper and went to some of the other touristy markets, the jade market, shoe street, the lady’s market, etc. Which were all fun and good. We did find some neat stuff and I was pretty happy to be roaming around these markets. One thing I especially enjoyed was a fruit, meat, and vegetable market street just a few blocks from the main action. Nothing too unusual, but a lot of fruits and veggies that I could not identify. Really makes you think about how restricted our diets are no matter how hard we try to expand them. Our second day ended with the purchase of some jade and a Tsing-Tao for me to wash down the heat of the day. Overall good trip.