3/29 - 3/30: Hong Kong

Day 1: Woke up early for breakfast and the diplomatic briefing. Got our passports and headed out to the Star Ferry, which takes people from Kowloon (Hong Kong mainland) to Hong Kong Island. We went searching for another ferry depot so we could find out how much it would cost to go to Macau, which is another ‘region’ of China but like Hong Kong, it’s considered separate from China so we wanted to go get another stamp on our passport. However, we found out it was $40 US roundtrip so we gave up on that idea and decided to eat lunch at a Chinese fast food chain; not the best food but it was cheap so it’s all good. Then Rhina, D and I decided to go try and find a market or something to do by following the street signs. We ended up at a café (after asking 3 people for directions) so we could use the internet, then we walked through a small market and bought a few trinkets. After that we ended up walking for 2 hours in search of something called the Western Market; well after walking uphill and in circles and asking about 5 different people directions, we finally found it. The biggest disappointment of the day; it was really just a small 2-story mall. lol BUT the adventure of looking for it was fun so we didn’t really mind. Went back to the ship for dinner and took a power nap until 8pm when Hong Kong Island’s laser light show started; the show is done every night at 8pm and corresponds to music. It’s in the Guinness World Record book for being the largest permanent light show. It’s really sweet because the lights are on the front of the skyscrapers and buildings; it looks like a giant rave! After that we took off to the famous Temple Street night market to do some shopping. Found some cool stuff and then we decided to get a snack; we ended up at McDonalds because everyone was craving some good ol’ all-American junk food. Went back to the ship, watched a movie and went to bed.

Day 2: Woke up early for breakfast and got on the bus to go to Lantau Island for an SaS trip. We stopped along the way to take pictures of the world’s longest dual-suspension bridge (or something like that) and at a beach. Then we stopped at a traditional fishing village, whose houses are built on stilts. There we saw a small temple and I met an older man named Wilfred who used to be a merchant who traveled to the U.S; my friends Elle, Emma and I made friends with him and chatted him up a while. He was a funny old man who was a bit senile and going deaf but he was great to talk to; we took a picture with him and promised we’d send him postcards and a copy of the picture. Next we went up to a statue of the world’s largest sitting bronze Buddha and then walked down the 256 steps to the Buddhist monastery where we had a delicious vegetarian lunch. After lunch we walked around a little and explored the temple and then the Ngong Ping cultural village (which is just another name for a street of gift shops) before taking a cable car back down the mountain of Lantau Island to where a bus was waiting for us to take us back to the ship. Spent the rest of the day relaxing on the ship.

Interesting tid-bits:
*There are sooo many stairs on Hong Kong Island; it’s a city built into the side of mountains so it’s all uphill as soon as you get off the ferry and a lot of the side walks are stairs.
*They have a beautiful metro system; very clean and efficient.
*The street signs are sometimes wrong and lead you in the wrong direction; so do the locals.
*Hong Kong Island’s streets and walkways are way sophisticated and efficient; they have walkways that go above the roads, connecting all the important places together so you don’t have to deal with traffic; we only found that out when we tried to walk alongside traffic. lol Also, all the roads on Lantau Island are made so that during the wet season, the torrential rains don’t ruin the roads.
*Hong Kong is made up of hundreds of islands but only about 22 are inhabited; Lantau is the largest.

I would love to come back to Hong Kong; it’s a big city (app. 7 million permanent residents) but it didn’t overwhelm me; it never felt over-crowded or dirty or aggressive. Now we have 2 No-Class days until Shanghai, China; most students stayed off the ship to go to Beijing or just spend more time in Hong Kong so there’re only about 150 students left. I’m a little sad that I didn’t get to go to the Great Wall or to see the Terra Cotta warriors but I’m hoping I’ll get to come back someday; it just wasn’t meant to happen this time. Plus now I get to spend the next two days working on my scary pile of homework; it would’ve been impossible to go do anything because of it so I’m glad I’m on the ship.