Hong Kong

I'm booked at the Regal Airport hotel in Hong Kong, because there are no hotels at the IBM rate that have available rooms in the city. The Regal calls itself the "Best airport hotel in the world", and I must admit the room is pretty nice. I'm on the top (12th) floor of the hotel, and my room has a vaulted ceiling. I have not heard any airplanes since I've been here, even though I can see the end of a runway from my window. Unfortunately there is a fog horn or something that blows every so often. It's barely audible, but when I'm trying to fall asleep it's the only thing I can hear. Staying at the airport means I have to take a 30-min train into Hong Kong to do sightseeing, $50HKD each way (about $7US), bummer...

Yesterday I wasn't too ambitious, just wanted to ride into Hong Kong and get some pictures from The Peak, which is a viewing platform at the top of the mountain overlooking Hong Kong. I was able to find it, and got there just before sunset. The sun sets over the ocean on the back side of the Hong Kong island. It kinda settles into the smog over the ocean and gets swallowed up:


I got a few photos of the city before the sun set, here's the best one:


and a few more after it got dark, because that's when the city turns really interesting, with all the buildings with their special lights:




The next day I bought an unlimited rides pass to the subway, and did some exploring. There's a guilded statue of a flower that was presented to the city when the UK relinquished control of Hong Kong back to China in 1997, and there's a flag-raising ceremony every morning at 7:30am at it:


There are a number of markets around town, little streets that are pedestrian-only where dozens and dozens of shops are set up to sell everything from live fish, fresh meat and produce, to shirts, socks & underwear. Notice the ox tongue in the middle of this photo:


Across the harbor is a part of town called Kowloon, and I spent most of the day there. One popular attraction is the Avenue of Stars, the Chinese equivalent of our Hollywood Walk of Fame. There are apparently a lot of Chinese cinema stars, but I only know a few, like this guy:

Kowloon also has the Jade market, two buildings with rows and rows of little stalls of people selling all kinds of jade pieces, mostly jewelry. I haggled with a couple vendors just for the fun of it, but didn't buy anything.


They also have a Flower market, and the Goldfish Market, with dozens of vendors selling all kinds of aquarium fish and supplies.


Every night at 8:00pm, 40 of the sky scrapers in Hong Kong and Kowloon get together and put on a light show. Their building lights are programmed to change in time with some music, that is broadcast over FM radio and played on speakers outside on the harbor. I saw a bit of it from the Hong Kong side the first night, but went to the Kowloon side to video tape the whole thing from there tonight. It's really a great show! Here's what the Hong Kong side looks like from Kowloon at night: