We arrived in Hong Kong with no smiling guide to meet us. We were on our own. It had been raining. I had been thinking of golf. I stopped thinking of golf and soon it stopped raining.
After checking in we took the subway to Prince Edward station to visit the Flower Market and the Bird Market. We returned to the subway to go to the next stop, Mong Kok. There we visited the Ladies Market and the Electric Goods Market. We returned to the subway exiting at Jordan and then walked through Kowloon Park, back down Nathan Road to the harbour and sat down to watch the 8:00 city lights show. After the show we took the Kowloon Ferry back to Hong Kong Island and the the subway to Tin Hau where our hotel was located. A full day.
The next day we were awake and out by 5:00AM although it was still dark. Our intent was to take the subway as far east as we could but alas no luck: the subway only opens at 6:00. So we walked down to the harbour to catch the sunrise from there. Later we returned to the vicinity of the hotel and found a near-by restaurant for breakfast.
Lantau is the largest island in the former British holdings. It is now the home of the new airport and is connected by train, highway and subway. When we visited ten years ago the only connection was ferry. We took the subway to the end of the line where we connected with a gondola that took us to the big Buddha and the Po Lin Monastery. As the clouds rolled in we took a bus ride to Tai O, a little fishing village on the North West shore of the island. A grotty little town, although a marginal place to take pictures of fishing boats.
Our second day started off with a light rain but it was enough to dissuade us from hiking the Dragon Back Ridge. Instead we took the tram to the Eastern end of the island to visit Lei Yue Mun Fort which now hosts the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defense. The current defense was
built in 1880 to protect the eastern approach to Victoria Harbour. However fortifications have been here or in the Hong Kong area since the Ming Dynasty to protect the coast and access to Guanzhou from “Japanese Pirates” and the Portuguese. The museum was constructed in 2000 and is quite good. It presents a Chinese view on historical events which may seem somewhat hard on the British, especially as it relates to the opium wars but on the other hand it’s a good balance to the saintly image I was given in my history studies as a youth.
We returned to the hotel to dry out and change. We put on our rain gear. This time we took the subway to the western end of the island. This is where Linda was born and raised. This is where her father had his store. Not much from her youth remains. Just a few buildings: a doctor’s shop, a restaurant, a school, and an apartment building. Her father’s store and where they lived near Water and Third streets is gone.
We met in-laws for a dinner in Sha Tin. May be the best dinner we had on our trip; not just good but interesting. To get to Sha Tin from Hong Kong island requires taking 5 subway lines: the Island Line to Tsuen Wan to Kwun Tong to East Rail to Ma On Shan to Sha Tin.
Heavy rains on Saturday resulted in cancellation of our scheduled shuttle so we took the Airport Express, a train system integrated with the subway system (albeit at an extra cost). Like the subway system the Airport Express train has modern equipment that puts our so called transit system to shame.
Click Slideshow to see more picture from Hong Kong
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