HK: Streets, Trams, Clocktowers, and Walk of Stars

Our flight left at 6:15 AM so that meant waking up bright and early to get to the airport. It's just shy of a 4-hour flight. So after customs and taking the airport train into the city, Samara was ready for a nap. We were on our way from the train station to the housing and she desperately wanted her #1 comfort--sippey cup. It was packed away so I said she should just cuddle me since snuggles are better than sippey anyway. She replied very seriously, "No mama, no. Water is better than hugs."

After unloading our stuff and an unsuccessful attempt at getting her to nap we headed out to explore the streets of Hong Kong and ten minutes later she crashed.

The alleyways between the buildings were oddly appealing. You'd see all sorts of life (and mischief?) going on back there, people taking breaks from work, kids in their school uniforms smoking, old people sleeping.

Always good to know Coke has made its mark in the world. I love the butcher's expression too.

I thought this drug store was so interesting with the traditional medicines on one side and the modern ones on the other.

Ben contemplates our next move.

A yummy fruit dish with black glutinous rice. Though it was tasty, I was slightly disappointed because it was supposed to come in some funky 'trendy cup' but instead came in a regular styrofoam container.

Ready to conquer the underground, or MTR, not to be confused with the MRT as it's called in Singapore. One thing that really surprised us was, despite Hong having a population of 7 million compared to just shy of 5 million in Singapore, the trains, although very crowded at times, seemed less crowded in general than Singapore's. Also, the malls we walked through were far less crowded than here. As a country/city-state Singapore has a higher population density but as a city Hong Kong is more densely populated, which makes sense. Moreover, I had commented to Ben that it seemed like there were a lot fewer children in Hong Kong than Singapore, which already has a low birth rate. When I was looking up the population density just now I learned that Hong Kong has the lowest birth rate in the world at 7.42/1000 persons, so there you have it. I did get an "A" in Population Geography.

We rode on a tram and thought they were quite fun. Hong Kong has the world's largest double-decker tram fleet still in operation. The tramway dates back to 1904. They reminded us of Russian "tramvai", except those are only single story.



The skyscrapers were amazing. I love the other buildings reflected in this one.

We took a little ferry ride across the harbour from HK to Kowloon for $2.50 HKD so about .25 USD. There are all sorts of ferry rides/tours--from a cheap ride like we took to nice dinner cruises as well as trips to outlying islands. The skyline is so impressive, but we were surprised how gray it was. It was hard to get a nice picture during the day because of the gray cast overhead. Debbie told me the pollution is mainly coming down from China and not necessarily due to emissions and HK pollution by itself.

The clocktower, a famous landmark and the only remnant left of the former railway station, and the YMCA. The YMCA is a hotel and reasonably priced for its super location. We were going to stay there and even through we didn't, we nonetheless highly recommend it.

The skyline gets prettier in the evening but wait until you see it at night!
They had a little walk of stars along the promenade on the Kowloon side. Hong Kong is famous for its films and has a long, proud history of stars. Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan were the only people we recognized but, seriously, who else is there? After the long day of travel and all the walking around we were beat and all crashed at 7:30 that night.