Hong Kong, China

We left Hong Kong with mixed feelings. I'm not sure what we were expecting from this port but what we found was a very, very modern city. Due to the lack of available space, few historical buildings remain in Hong Kong. You would not believe the apartment buildings. Most of the apartments have only 700 sq feet of living space. It is really hot and humid here which makes us tired.

The tour guides spoke the best English that we have had so far and there are malls all over the place. The mall attached to the port building even had a Toys R Us. I have never seen so many people in one store and in one mall!!!!



As I look back on this port, I decided that they wanted to show us different means of transportation. We did not go by subway, car, not city bus system but you should be able to tell which ones we did take.


The first tour took us by tour bus to Hong Kong Island to the Central Pier. There we got on a traditional-style Chinese junk. This junk took us around the water and on down to where some people live on their boats. Let's just say that I wouldn't want to swim in this water. Sharon saw one person taking a bath and another bushing their teeth with the water.

We got back on our tour bus and drove to where the rich live. There was beautiful beaches and expensive apartments. Over the years there have been movies filmed there. I think the last one was a James Bond movie. There was a area nearby that was a street market. We picked up a few things.

After that we traveled to Victoria Peak for a breathtaking view of the Harbour. We took a cable train ride down off the mountain.



That night we took a tour to the Jumbo Floating Restaurant. The tour guide decided that everyone that comes to Hong Kong needs to ride the city's ferry boat across to Hong Kong Island. After we reached the other side, we boarded our tour bus to go to the pier for dinner. There we needed to ride in a small boat over to the restaurant. When we first signed up for this tour, it was suppose to be an international buffet but they changed it to a Chinese set menu. We at least tried most things served but drew the line on steamed jelly fish. Dennis was really upset because it didn't turn out to be the great experience that he had paid a lot of money for. Even Dennis had to go find something to eat after we got back to the ship.




On our last tour, we once again got on the bus and drove to Tung Chung which was on a island pass the New Territories. There we traveled about 25 minutes in a sky cable car. Wow!!!! I have never been on a cable car ride that traveled so far. Sharon insisted that we didn't move a muscle because she was sure we were going to drop and die. She was a good sport about the ride. I knew that she didn't do well with kind of ride but she did it!! There were even two Angle Stations along the ride that changed each cable car into another angle so that we reached Ngong Ping. We got out at this place and walked through the small village.




At the end of the village was a long staircase of 300 steps up to the largest outside Buddha statue in the world cast in bronze. I was the only one out of the three of us to climb all the stairs. The heat was the only bad part of the hike. When it was time to go, we took the cable cars back across and got on our buses for the trip back to our ship. We could see road signs pointing the way to Hong Kong Disney but we never got to see it.