Hong Kong Island

After a lovely breakfast of coffee and croissants, I crossed the border from Shenzhen into Hong Kong and through customs to get the stamp on my passport. Visa taken care of. One check on my list taken care of.

The night point of order was to take an hour-long subway ride into downtown Hong Kong on the Kowloon side, in order to don my tourist cap and find a city bus tour. Luckily, it didn’t take long to track down a worthy vessel.

Our tour guide was Roger – Londoner of Hong Kong parents and one who says of his tourists: “You are all the same to me.” The British accent made for comforting narration. But the first thing I noticed when I hopped on the bus was a “no spitting” sign just above the driver. It’s the first I’ve seen in Asia and thank goodness for it. One whole day without hawking loogies. Bliss.

Roger’s motto of equality didn’t last very long when he was burdened by an Indian family who thought it perfectly acceptable to run an average of ten to fifteen minutes late each time we disembarked on a port/point of interest. After three rounds of this, Roger got fed up and passed a petition around for the rest of us to sign. “I hearby give leave for us to depart at the agreed times, with or without all group parties.” Or something very like. When the head of the family was shown the petition, there was no more tardiness and the day went on rather smoothly. Roger means business. After all, he has been a tour guide for 31 years. Well done, Roger.

The other passengers seemed quite docile and content to follow the leader. In front of me was an adorable Spanish-speaking couple from Colombia. Having never taken Spanish in school, save for half a semester in grade seven, I was surprised at how many words I knew and how much of their conversation I could follow. Granted, I couldn’t identify entire sentences or even long phrases, but quite a lot of words. Most of this, of course, is from its close relation to (and my foundation in) Français. The Romance/Latin-based languages would be easier for me to learn than Chinese, for sure.

This led me on a brief tangential daydream. I have pushed Spanish away for so long, thinking I always liked French better, that it was the superior language. Now, though, I find Spanish more and more beautiful, and French more and more pretentious. This, coupled with the reality of living in the United States, is one of the many reasons I really think I should learn Spanish. Its functionality, for starters. It would be useful, especially in the Southwest.

Enough of that. Back to Hong Kong. We took the harbor tunnel to the island, where our first stop along the way was Man Mo Temple, dedicated to the gods of literature (Man) and martial arts (Mo). In this particular temple, there is a large red pole. Atop that pole is a brass hand, holding a brass pen. Legend has it that if you rub this pen, you will be rewarded with literary inspiration and receive good scholarly marks. I took two turns.

Second highlight was an incredibly steep (the world’s steepest, so I’m told) tram ride up to Victoria’s Peak. Unfortunately, as our tram climbed the mountainside, so did the fog. When we arrived at the top, I felt as if Irish weather had blown all the way over from the Emerald Isle. Luckily, it didn’t completely impede the photo ops.

At the peak, I was told I would find the highest Starbucks in the world. He could not have mean story-wise, because it is on the ground floor of the building and Shanghai’s is number one on that front (or it could be Seoul, South Korea – not 100% on that one). Did he mean elevation? I’m sorry, Roger, but Vicky’s only goes up to a little over 1,800 feet. There are definitely plenty of cafés at higher elevations. Laramie, Wyoming, for instance, is over 7,200 feet, and they’ve got two. But I Googled it, just for kicks, and the highest store elevation is at 9,600 feet in Breckenridge, Colorado. I should audition for Mythbusters.

Moving on. Point of interest number three and my favorite part of the tour: Aberdeen fishing village. Took a little ride on a sampan (Chinese flat-bottom boat) and toured the harbor. It felt great to even be near water again, let alone on a boat. I turned into a shutterbug and here snapped the most photos. I do have a thing for water and boats. This was definitely worth it. By the way, the water here is surprisingly more turquoise than I thought it would be. Still wouldn’t swim in it, though.

Next stop: the jewelers. We toured a factory and I realized that I do not need a $1.2 million dollar diamond. Only one around $2,000. I’m a simple girl.

We then drove up and down around the mountainside and looked out of the bus windows to the bay that led into the South China Sea. By this time, the fog had lifted and we had only one more destination to go: the Stanley Market. For me, this was a bit of a drag, since I’ve come to know (all so well) the markets in China. This one was nothing special and, as far as I’m concerned, highly priced, even after bartering. However, I did indulge my scarf addiction and purchased a long, tan and dark brown pashmina with paisley design. I’ve got quite the collection going. I’ll have one from each city: Hangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong…

Alas, one stop we omitted from the designated itinerary was “Deep Water Bay Lookout” at Repulse Bay. We drove by it and stopped along side the road to try and snap a few photos, but the sun had gone down and the light was gone. The beaches looked lovely, though.

So, at the end of the day, all was well. I headed back to the Chinese border, got another stamp on my passport, and made my way back to the hotel in Shenzhen. Tomorrow morning: back to Beijing. Another twenty-five hours on a train. Seat choice: I got smart again – soft sleeper.

An interesting fact I learned from Roger today: According to the Chinese, evil spirits cannot turn left or right. “Chinese people are superstitious, not religious.”