Sorry for taking so long to start posting again, I have sick pretty much this entire month.

Anyways, I recently made a couple trips to Hong Kong as it is the closest city to Shenzhen where I am currently living. Hong Kong is a harbor city of 7.2 million residents on a small series of overly crowded islands. While originally belonging to China it was taken by British during the Opium Wars in the 1800s and was returned to China in 1997 under the guidelines of One Country, Two Systems in which the political system is slowly becoming the same as the rest of China. While Hong Kong did take me a while to get use to, I really have to say the last couple of times I thoroughly enjoyed it.

On my various trips to Hong Kong I went shopping at a couple of their numerous malls, visited Victoria’s Peak to see the city from atop, went to a couple outdoor markets, rode around the tram, and did a lot of walking in general. People in Hong Kong speak a mix of languages though the top three are Chinese, Cantonese, and English, so it was never a problem with language.

On my first trip to Hong Kong. It had 18 people per room but really did not seem like it. I immediately fell sleep and woke up when nearly everyone was gone, it could have been only myself for as much as it mattered to me. Out of my first trip the two experience that stick in my mind are visiting Victoria’s Peak, and eating dim sum. Victoria’s Peak is the highest point inn Hong Kong and overlooks the city. There is a trail you can walk in the wooded area so a nice get away from the city, however getting there was an issue. While one could walk uphill (mainly stairs) I had enough walking upstairs to last a life time, and my knees could not take it anymore, so we had to get a ride going up. The tram had what looked to be a couple hour wait, and the taxi line was not moving. Just then a random guy asked if we needed a taxi and we said yes and he told us to wait, sure enough within a minute we had a taxi, though we never waited in the line for taxis. The guy then asked for around $400 HKD for what should have been a $30 HKD ride. We paid as otherwise we would have been waiting the entire day otherwise. The taxi driver never turned on his meter and before we knew it we were there. It was a beautiful sight and well worth the illegal taxi drive.

 

The next morning we ate dim sum at a traditional restaurant. Dim sum is the traditional food of Hong Kong is small dumplings and other dishes that are steams in baskets. The restaurant we went to was quite crowded and many people were there to relax, read the paper, and maybe get a bite or two whenever they felt hungry. This made it was extremely hard to get open seats. Eventually we found large table and sat with an elderly Chinese man, and a couple other people. To order food one must

On another trip to Hong Kong I went and visited the Tian Tan Buddha. It is a rather large Buddha at a top of a mountain with a working monastery and temple nearby. One can hike there on a rather long and mountainous hike, but we took the cable cars which was only about a 30 min hike. The place was beautiful and I believe should be on everyone’s list of places to visit in Hong Kong. The Buddha is enormous, and while you can go inside there is not much to see inside, but it is a worth the stairs to experience it up close. Apparently you can eat there too, something I did not do. The nearby temples are astonishingly elegant and people are burning large amounts of incense some that are so large they look like small logs. We could see the smoke from all the incense burning from the cable cars and I thought there was a  small brush fire.

On my last trip to Hong Kong I stayed in a pretty pricey ($800 a night) hotel on the harbor and watched the New Years fireworks while enjoying a meal with friends. Though fireworks lose some of their appeal watching through windows while indoors. While at first I was hesitant about Hong Kong as it is a crowded city with stairs and hills everywhere, I am starting to find a liking to it, and seeing its appeal. There are a couple things really worth while doing here, and I no doubt will be back to do some more street shopping, maybe ride a junk boat, and I am sure there are many other things I have missed.