Hong Kong

Paul didn’t teach on Tuesday and Wednesday, so we decided to take the seventy minute ferry from Zhuhai to Hong Kong.  We landed on Hong Kong Island, which was very busy on the main streets along the harbor.  We actually blended in for the first time in weeks – there were lots of Westerners, some speaking English.  There were many business people rushing around the downtown streets, but you see families as well.  We followed a walking route through some interesting neighborhoods, visiting Man Mo temple and an antique and shopping district.  We also spent some time just watching the people on the street.

Man Mo Temple

We ate lunch at a vegetarian restaurant located in a small alley off a busy street – we’d found the restaurant through HappyCow.net, a world-wide vegetarian restaurant site.  It was quite small, with only a few round tables with tiny stools.  A few spaces opened, and we sat down.  A woman next to us helped us order from the numbered list posted by an opening to the kitchen.  It turned out the woman is a marketing officer for the Thailand tourism authority in Hong Kong.  She kindly helped us navigate the restaurant, showing us where to get rice and soup from large containers near the kitchen.  A man and woman sitting next to us were talking in Chinese, but then the man spoke to us in perfect English – he’d grown up in Portland, Oregon.  We had a nice conversation with the three of them while we ate.  The man was surprised that we had found the restaurant – apparently not many Westerners make it down the alley.  The food was very good, and we too quickly said goodbye to our three new friends.

Fook Luk Su vegetarian restaurant, No. 8 in the alley

We took the double-decker tram through town and back – it was fun to see a variety of neighborhoods as well as many more people, especially from the top of the tram.  We then took the Star Ferry, an old ferry line running since the 1800s, over to the Kowloon peninsula and walked to our hostel.

Star Ferry

That night we walked along the promenade on the Kowloon peninsula, including walking down Avenue of the Stars, a walkway with hand prints and statues related to Chinese film stars of the 1960s era.  We watched the Symphony of Lights, a laser light and sound show involving sophisticated lighting systems on a number of skyscrapers on both sides of Victoria harbor.

On Wednesday we took the MTR (subway system) to Lantau Island, and took a local bus up a mountain to Lan Po monastery, home of the Tian Tan Buddha, the largest sitting Buddha statue in the world.  At over 100 feet

tall, it’s visible from airplanes landing at the nearby Hong Kong airport.  There is a cable-car going up, but we decided to go earlier on the bus to miss the crowds.  This turned out well, as we were able to walk up the stairs and visit the statue with few other people around.  Later there were many people posing for photos in front of the Buddha statue.  We ate lunch at the temple’s vegetarian restaurant, and headed back to the city for the ferry ride home to Zhuhai.

 

 

Our day was not to be over yet.  After getting off the ferry, we took our regular bus 99 back to our apartment.  We managed to hit rush hour, so instead of a 45 minute ride, the trip took 1½ hours.  The trip was crowded and bumpy, with many starts and stops.  We were back to standing out as the only two non-Chinese on the bus.  Two high school girls shyly talked to a woman who then talked to us in English.  The girls wanted to take a photo with us.  We agreed, and then took a photo of them.  We talked more to the woman who was translating for us, and it seemed like ten others were watching and listening to us talk and laugh.  It was a good end to a good trip.