09-31-2005 / 10-03-2005

We arrived about 24 hours after leaving home, it is Friday night and we left Thursday morning. Leslie’s bag didn’t make it; it’s on the next flight which will get in tomorrow night. Saturday we took short bus tour of city. We went to top of Victoria Peak where I'm sure the view was spectacular if you could see through the haze. Then we went to "Repulse Bay" named for the British attempt at repelling the Japanese invasion of WWII. A better name would have been ‘retreat bay' given the outcome of the battle. A small park-like area of the beach is set aside with a collection of various statues of gods covering just about anything you could pray for. All of them were pretty recent and adorned with their donors names on plaques. This is also a local public beach and due to it being a national holiday – China National Day – it was quite busy. We then proceeded to the Aberdeen district where we rode a sampan around the inlet. Lots of fishing boats going in and out of the harbor. There is a large floating restaurant called “Jumbo”; the front side all ornate and lit up; back side looked like a dump. This is a fairly poor section of Hong Kong. There are lots of hi-rise apartments reminiscent of “projects” in the states. Most of the fishermen also live on their boats which likely isn’t much worse than the apartments. Saturday night there was a large fireworks display over HK harbor. Streets were closed and what was estimated as close to a million people crowed the shoreline and nearby roads which were closed. We couldn’t find a good vantage point so didn’t see too much. Amazingly the streets and shore were immaculately cleaned by the next morning. Sunday I took ferry and bus to 'world's largest copper Buddha' while Leslie and some other women set out for some serious shopping. The ferry ride was about 45 minutes followed by a half hour on a crowded bus with very narrow seats. The long winding ride made it a challenge to maintain the small purchase I had on the isle seat. The haze was so bad you could hardly make out Buddha on the hilltop. Once you climbed the hundred or so steps you could see how impressive the statue of Buddha was as well as his supporting characters around the perimeter of his perch. While waiting for the ferry back to HK I enjoyed a most splendid double cheeseburger at the pier-side McDonald’s. While munching my lunch I watched the bartering between a NZ lady and the proprietor of a fishing boat that had recently docked. Neither spoke the other’s language but after many hand signals, waving and weighing of fish and crabs and a bit of feigned indignation on the part of the fisher-woman a deal was struck. On my meandering walk back to the hotel from the ferry I came upon a park with large colorful statues of dynasty type women. They were like huge dolls standing in small ponds. Monday we went to the China History Museum, very nice exhibits of everything from geological history to customs, war period etc. We then enjoyed a Dim Sum lunch with Elissa Chohen, Helen’s friend and local jeweler. She was very nice host. Lots of traditional dishes served on large lazy-susan. I finally found the CPL filter I had been searching for. We walked about town and shoreline prior to heading out of town for Guilin. General: Hot, humid, crowded, sticky-hot, hazy, crowded, unbelievably clean, no litter anywhere. An incredible mixture of smells, good and bad, mixed with omnipresent diesel fumes. I’m sure there was much more but from what I saw there wasn’t much to do or see but shopping and eating and nightlife. The hotel was very nice. Shangra-La Kowloon. The district we were in was Tsim Sha Tsui.