Hong Kong, Hong Kong

My 2AM flight out of Vancouver arrived in Hong Kong at 6:30AM Hong Kong time. I feel like I got a bit of sleep on the plane, but hoping 9 time zones and landing at the 6:30AM certainly is still brutal.

After taking the MRT downtown and figuring out how to escape Kowloon station (which was quite a challenge; I never should have tried to walk from there), I walked all the way down to Victoria Harbor to see some absolutely incredible views of Hong Kong island. I was immediately struck at just how enormous this city is - really compares strongly with Manhattan when it comes to skyscrapers.

Much to my leg's dismay, I spent the rest of the day walking all over Kowloon including up and down Nathan Street (HK's Broadway) and throughout several markets. I stopped for some Japanese ramen for lunch/dinner (already had a Chinese breakfast at the airport). So far, I've found food in Hong Kong to be extremely cheap - at least compared to other large cities of its size.

I am really enjoying the vibe of Hong Kong; this city is teeming with commerce. Everyone's getting something done, but not to an almost rude degree that you tend to find in New York City. There's just an incredible number of food stalls, restaurants, shops, and advertisements packed into small areas. It's interesting seeing the average Hong Kong resident go about their daily business. I'm excited to see tomorrow what Hong Kong Island brings.

I spent the second day of my visit exploring Hong Kong Island, the portion of the city south of the harbor. To get there from Kowloon I took the Star Ferry, which for only 35 cents is once of the most scenic boat rides I've taken anywhere.

From there I spent a good deal of time just wandering around the streets and buildings and meandered from the International Financial Tower (IFC) to the Bank of China tower into Hong Kong Park. Hong Kong's skyline is renowned for it's architecturally-unique skyscrapers and seeing buildings like the Bank of China Tower up-close was pretty amazing.

I crossed the street out of Hong Kong Park into the tram station for Victoria Peak, the high mountain overlooking Hong Kong. The views from above were absolutely stunning; everything you see in the pictures and more. Since I arrived early, I got a great seat at Pacific Coffee with the entire skyline in view directly behind me. Taking advantage of the special moment, I called my family via Skype and did a video call over wifi. Victoria Peak isn't just a look-out tower but an entire mall for shopping and eating; one could easily spend a day there.

SOHO and Hollywood Boulevard area hosts a great many small side-streets filled with restaurants (primarily foreign) and shops, and reminded me of the similar streets in Kowloon I saw the day before. I also ascended the famous "mid-levels escalator" from the base of SOHO to the top. The entire journey up the escalator takes 25 minutes! I grabbed a quick bite to eat at a Thai bistro and then set off for the eastern part of Hong Kong Island: Causeway Bay.

Causeway Bay is roughly equivalent in class (and price) to New York's 5th avenue or London's Kensington with loads of people and high-end shopping areas galore. After making my way through the crowds, I took a short break in nearby Victoria Park and watched some people play tennis.

By this time I was rather exhausted and took MTR (and then the star ferry again) back to Kowloon and relaxed along the water until the "symphony of lights" show began at 8PM in Victoria harbor - a coordinated music-lights show involving lights on the skyscrapers.

One my way back to the hostel I ate a small dinner at a seafood restaurant and decided to try "shark fin soup", since apparently shark fin is a delicacy of Hong Kong. The shark fin had a somewhat fishy taste with the consistency and color of ham.

Today I decided to spend me day *out of* the city of Hong Kong. I started by taking the fast ferry to Lantau Island and a bus to the village of Ngong Ping, home to the famous "Big Buddha" (world's largest Buddha statue) and Lo Pin monastery. The bus ride up the mountain to Ngong Ping was extremely scenic with lots of great views of the water, but pretty scary with a number of hairpin turns.

Though I wasn't very impressed with the monastery (it was undergoing restoration work), climbing the 125 steps to Big Buddha was quite an experience. Aside from the statue, the high elevation provided some outstanding views of Lantau island. Afterwards I ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant in the nice (though touristy) village of Ngong Ping.

I decided to take a different route back and chose to take a cable car from Ngong Ping to the closest MTR station on the north side of Lantau island, and I was glad I did. The cable car ride provided even more outstanding views of the island, the water, and even Hong Kong International Airport.

From there I took the MTR back to Hong Kong Island and immediately boarded a bus for Stanley, a small fishing village on the southern side of Hong Kong Island. This bus ride was similarly scary and similarly picturesque, providing a different vantage point of Hong Kong as we left downtown. Stanley had a nice market and a number of boats, but felt a bit too touristy for me. I decided to spent the rest of the day back at the hostel to relax my legs, which were still strained from my epic walking tour of Hong Kong Island from yesterday.

Today I decided to take a rest and spent a lot of time at coffee shops using the internet. Later I went back over to Hong Kong island to walk around again - this time at rush hour on a business day - for a whole new experience of Hong Kong (hustle and bustle). At night I walked through SOHO again and at dinner at another Thai restaurant. This city really lights up at nights, from the skyscrapers to the neon signs illuminating the markets.

Walking transportation in this city is quite different from what I'm used to. In a normal city there are a number of streets and pedestrians use the streets and crosswalks to get to where they need to go. In Hong Kong there is much less direct use of streets for pedestrians and many streets don't have sidewalks or crosswalks at all. Rather, the city is built-up vertically with lots of walk-ways, escalators, indoor malls, and underground tunnels (called subways like in the UK). At first this is confusing as looking on a street-level map to find where you need to go isn't all that useful in Hong Kong, but after you're used to the system it's very efficient and keeps pedestrians away from traffic and in areas where they can be people-moved with escalators and other automations.

Also, unlike most other cities, in Hong Kong most walkway areas double as shopping malls. Rather than just build a series of walkways under or above a street intersection, it's instead lined with shops and restaurants. Walking from one part of Hong Kong to another without public transit could take you through 10+ self-isolated "mall-like" areas that in other cities would be bland walkways with advertisements.