Every time the Chinese holidays come around we say we should avoid the
crowds and not travel in China, yet we seem to continue to do it anyway. For
the national days we wanted to try to get out of the country to the avoid the
crowds but we found cheap tickets on Spring Airlines to Hong Kong and decided
to do it with the mild hope it would be less crowded than most of mainland
China.
We stayed in a hostel in the Chung King Mansions in Kowloon for the
first two nights. Hong Kong is really pricy so we got a somewhat crappy room
but the neighborhood is really cute. I think Kowloon to Hong Kong is sort of
like Brooklyn is to NY. Some parts felt a bit trendy like Williamsburg. There
also are little pockets of other ethnic groups, where we stayed had a big
Indian population. Hong Kong in general felt a lot more diverse than the rest
of China.
The first day we walked along the Avenue of the Stars, it was pretty
much a knock off of the one in LA but with Chinese actors I mostly never heard
of. It was pretty underwhelming but had a pretty view of the skyline.
From there we headed to Lantau Island to see the world’s largest seated
Buddha called Tian Tan Buddha. There are actually bigger Buddha’s in China
though. It involved a three hour line to get a cable car to the top. Unlike
mainland China, in Hong Kong natives are polite and generally wait patiently.
We kept noticing every time someone was rude and shoving they spoke Manderin
and turned out to be from mainland China. Hong Kong locals speak Cantonese.
Their English is generally pretty decent and you can get by there without
knowing any Cantonese, at least in the really touristy places. There also are a
lot of people who speak Mandarin and Danny kept speaking it instead of English,
which I thought was silly since most of the time their English was about as good
as their Mandarin. While we waited in line Danny read all the posters about
Falun Gong. If you never heard of it, Falon Gong is a quasi-religious movement
that a lot of people in the states seem to protest in favor of solely because
China is against them. I’m not exactly in support of China’s government, but it
seems like supporting the weird new age religion that may or may not be a cult
is a weird way to speak out against China. Even though Hong Kong is technically
part of China, since it was a British colony for so long things are a bit
different and there is supposed to be freedom of speech. It was nice to not
have the firewall for a few days. Anyway, by the line there were giant signs everywhere
saying “The Chinese government is killing Falun Gong members and selling their
organs.” “Bring Jiang e Min [the previous Chinese premiere] to justice.” “Without the communist party is how you have a
real China.” “The communist party doesn’t represent China, to love China doesn’t
mean to love the party.” As well as signs saying “Cherish your life, stay away
from the evil cult – Falon Gong.” “Li Hongzhi [founder of Falon Gong] is a
wanted person. Bring justice to Li Hongzhi.” Interestingly, when we passed by
on the way back from the the giant Buddha all the pro Falon Gong signs had been
taken down.
Once the line finally ended the giant Buddha was actually pretty cool.
There was a great view from the top of the cable cars and once we got to the
top there was a performance trope plus lots of yummy restaurants which (since
it is a Buddhist site) had tons of veggie options. I was sort of disappointed when
I looked up the site later and found out it was built around 1990 and has
very little historical value.
That night when we got back they had fireworks for National Day two
blocks from our hotel. We had to sneak in to see them by saying we were at a
different hotel closer to the water since crowd control was pretty intense.
Danny took tons of fireworks pictures because we got a new DSLR camera and for
the first time we have a good enough camera to capture fireworks. Expect better
photos from us in the future, especially if I figure out how to use it outside
of auto mode.
We left the fireworks early and went to a night market called the Ladies Market, since everyone says the main thing to do in Hong Kong is shop. On the way there I discovered Body Shop still exists, I thought they went out of business, apparently they all moved to Hong Kong.
The next day we took a ferry to Macau. Macau is sort of cool because
since it was controlled by the Portuguese for a long time it actually looks European.
Hong Kong was controlled by the British but it pretty much looks like any other
Chinese city. We walked around the tiny historic district of Macau want saw the
ruins of St. Paul’s Church, a little museum, a few historic buildings and some
lion dancers. It was really pretty there and felt like a weird mix between
China and Europe. It was really crowded because of the Chinese holidays and the
narrow streets so we didn’t stay too long.
The thing Macau is mostly famous for is its casinos. It is sort of like
China’s Vegas. When we visited Vegas two years ago I was pleasantly surprised
by all the fun non-gamboling related things to see and do in the casinos. I
really liked the theme based casinos like the Venetian, Paris, and New York,
New York. From what I’d heard the Chinese casinos are more gamboling focused
and didn’t have much else. We only really spent time in one casino, the
Venetian, which was very similar to the one in Vegas but a few fewer restaurant
choices I liked. The even offered gondola rides but I skipped it.
That night we checked into the Hyatt in the center of Hong Kong,
probably the fanciest hotel Danny and I ever stayed in together… we found a
deal to stay for free… The next day we were kind of unmotivated to leave the
hotel because it was so nice.
In the morning Danny’s mom woke us up early by calling the hotel
because she heard on the news there was a ferry crash just off of Lantou Island,
near the giant Buddha, and about 20 people died.
We had lunch and dinner in Soho, a really trendy area with lots of western restaurants. It is very hilly so they built more outdoor escalators than any city I have ever seen. I was super excited they had a Ben and Jerry's... so excited that I was so busy staring at it I tripped over my feet and Danny laughed at me.
We went to Victoria Peak, which involved waiting
in line for and hour and a half to take a cable car up and see a pretty view of
the city.
Overall, I liked Hong Kong. It seems like a very livable city but doesn't have too much of interest in terms of historical sites or a ton of natural beauty.
