Richard's Visit: Oct 2003
October 25th
Richard, Ann's oldest brother, has been our first official visitor to Hong Kong from the States and we were able to feel somewhat like 'locals' showing him some of the sites here.
We ferried over to Lamma Island and walked around through lush tropical foliage on a lovely, quiet island where there are only walking paths, no cars and no noisy busses! It reminds us of Mexico - very simple homes, friendly people, nothing upscale here. We joined the rest of the tourists for a harbor-side dinner, had a great moonlit walk up to the only other village on the island only to find out that the last ferry home had already left. Not to worry, there was still a ferry to the main district of HK and a bus to get home.
We took a day trip to Macau, a peninsula off the China mainland which until 1999 was a Portuguese protectorate and then, like Hong Kong, reverted back to Chinese rule. You take a one hour high speed ferry to get there - either a turbojet or hydrofoil. It's actually a separate entity like HK, so you have to go through customs with passport, etc. There is still some Portuguese influence and we were able to decipher many of the signs since the language is similar to Spanish. A very fun. knowledgeable and personable tour guide "Sam" took us for a couple of hour tour around the place - old fort, old catholic church, Buddhist temple, great Portuguese lunch, Pearle River with China across the river. (Sam Leong of Lotus Travel Agency) This town has more motorcycles and scooters than one can imagine - like bumble bees buzzing in and out and all around the city - and Sam told us that we hadn't even seen the height of rush hour! Here is a great, animated Macau website: Information about Macau
One day we actually got to ride in a car, (unusual for us here) and went with a friend and her son to the Kowloon side of HK to a country hiking park where we were hoping to see monkeys. We brought binoculars hoping to catch a glimpse of one or two of them and were thrilled when we saw one close to the road - THEN - there were more and more and more - right out in the country alongside the paths and walkways all hoping for something to eat. As we were hiking we had to cross a reservoir walkway that was lined with about 20 or so monkeys - we had no worries until about 3/4 of the way across one male decided that he didn't like us there and he got a couple of his cronies to start making noise and hustle us across. So we got across in a bit of a hurry with one monkey grabbing at Ann's shirt. It was great fun to watch their interactions, grooming of each other, the definite prominence of the big male, the babies holding on to their mothers as they ran, jumped, swam. It was quite amazing - and just 20 minutes outside of HK.
A Junk trip over to Lantau island was great fun. We found out that a Junk is a boat with a flat bottom and Richard discerned that they use no navigational systems - no GSP, no Loran, no radar. Oh well, they got us to and from where we wanted to go, even at night amongst the rocks. The taxi driver there appeared to be an ex-Nascar driver as he roared along a twisty mountain road. We had a great dinner with real homemade bread, escalloped potatoes, great barbeque - you can tell what we're missing here - it's really hard to find good bread in this rice nation. On the trip over to Lantau we got some good views of the huge container ships that travel from all over the world to unload and load cargo in the HK harbor. They load/unload all from barges that travel out to the ships to get everything from McDonald's supplies to cars to concrete to steel beams, to who knows what. Remember, everything has to come from somewhere.
We played tourist and went to the Stanley Market and lubricated the local economy and bought our fair share of fun stuff. Richard left his old "one way ticket" tennis shoes here and bought a new pair of shoes - better to buy them here as they are all manufactured in China anyway. We continued with a trip out to the surfing beach via high mountain twisty roads and beautiful views. While LI is in a cold snap we were on the beach and each day of Richard's visit has been warm and sunny although hazy.
Richard, the night owl that he is, has checked out the HK nightlife finding everything from people calmly fishing after midnight to the noise and beat of the Western (gwylo) area of town. He has told us when the restaurants and escalators and busses close as we are not ever out at the time of the early morning. But, he managed to get home every night - not always an easy feat with figuring out busses, and taxi drivers who don't speak English.
We are constantly amazed at the mass transit system here - Richard used his Octopus card (mass transit card) for the Airport Express train, many busses, MTR (subway), the water taxi, the Trolley, Tram up to the Peak, and ferry - we think we hit them all. We have walked and walked both city and country hiking - I don't know if we'll ever hike all the trails around here as the hills are full of them.Our last day ended with a hike up to the highest peak on HK island with incredible 360 degree views.
Cheers to all - love from Ann and Billy
Richard, Ann's oldest brother, has been our first official visitor to Hong Kong from the States and we were able to feel somewhat like 'locals' showing him some of the sites here.
We ferried over to Lamma Island and walked around through lush tropical foliage on a lovely, quiet island where there are only walking paths, no cars and no noisy busses! It reminds us of Mexico - very simple homes, friendly people, nothing upscale here. We joined the rest of the tourists for a harbor-side dinner, had a great moonlit walk up to the only other village on the island only to find out that the last ferry home had already left. Not to worry, there was still a ferry to the main district of HK and a bus to get home.
We took a day trip to Macau, a peninsula off the China mainland which until 1999 was a Portuguese protectorate and then, like Hong Kong, reverted back to Chinese rule. You take a one hour high speed ferry to get there - either a turbojet or hydrofoil. It's actually a separate entity like HK, so you have to go through customs with passport, etc. There is still some Portuguese influence and we were able to decipher many of the signs since the language is similar to Spanish. A very fun. knowledgeable and personable tour guide "Sam" took us for a couple of hour tour around the place - old fort, old catholic church, Buddhist temple, great Portuguese lunch, Pearle River with China across the river. (Sam Leong of Lotus Travel Agency) This town has more motorcycles and scooters than one can imagine - like bumble bees buzzing in and out and all around the city - and Sam told us that we hadn't even seen the height of rush hour! Here is a great, animated Macau website: Information about Macau
One day we actually got to ride in a car, (unusual for us here) and went with a friend and her son to the Kowloon side of HK to a country hiking park where we were hoping to see monkeys. We brought binoculars hoping to catch a glimpse of one or two of them and were thrilled when we saw one close to the road - THEN - there were more and more and more - right out in the country alongside the paths and walkways all hoping for something to eat. As we were hiking we had to cross a reservoir walkway that was lined with about 20 or so monkeys - we had no worries until about 3/4 of the way across one male decided that he didn't like us there and he got a couple of his cronies to start making noise and hustle us across. So we got across in a bit of a hurry with one monkey grabbing at Ann's shirt. It was great fun to watch their interactions, grooming of each other, the definite prominence of the big male, the babies holding on to their mothers as they ran, jumped, swam. It was quite amazing - and just 20 minutes outside of HK.
A Junk trip over to Lantau island was great fun. We found out that a Junk is a boat with a flat bottom and Richard discerned that they use no navigational systems - no GSP, no Loran, no radar. Oh well, they got us to and from where we wanted to go, even at night amongst the rocks. The taxi driver there appeared to be an ex-Nascar driver as he roared along a twisty mountain road. We had a great dinner with real homemade bread, escalloped potatoes, great barbeque - you can tell what we're missing here - it's really hard to find good bread in this rice nation. On the trip over to Lantau we got some good views of the huge container ships that travel from all over the world to unload and load cargo in the HK harbor. They load/unload all from barges that travel out to the ships to get everything from McDonald's supplies to cars to concrete to steel beams, to who knows what. Remember, everything has to come from somewhere.
We played tourist and went to the Stanley Market and lubricated the local economy and bought our fair share of fun stuff. Richard left his old "one way ticket" tennis shoes here and bought a new pair of shoes - better to buy them here as they are all manufactured in China anyway. We continued with a trip out to the surfing beach via high mountain twisty roads and beautiful views. While LI is in a cold snap we were on the beach and each day of Richard's visit has been warm and sunny although hazy.
Richard, the night owl that he is, has checked out the HK nightlife finding everything from people calmly fishing after midnight to the noise and beat of the Western (gwylo) area of town. He has told us when the restaurants and escalators and busses close as we are not ever out at the time of the early morning. But, he managed to get home every night - not always an easy feat with figuring out busses, and taxi drivers who don't speak English.
We are constantly amazed at the mass transit system here - Richard used his Octopus card (mass transit card) for the Airport Express train, many busses, MTR (subway), the water taxi, the Trolley, Tram up to the Peak, and ferry - we think we hit them all. We have walked and walked both city and country hiking - I don't know if we'll ever hike all the trails around here as the hills are full of them.Our last day ended with a hike up to the highest peak on HK island with incredible 360 degree views.
Cheers to all - love from Ann and Billy
