we were fortunate on the next leg of our Southeast Asian journey in that there was no good way to make it by overnight train, and even though we didn't get to fly Singapore's reportedly awesome airline, we did plump for a plane again. the destination was the "Special Administrative Region" of the People's Republic of China known as Hong Kong, a former dependent territory of my own native land, Britain. Hong Kong is an intense visual experience, with all the stereotypical images of bright, neon east Asia, like all that we had seen at that point in our international experiences taken to the next level and squared.
the hustle, bustle, neon and glow of Nathan Road's famous Golden Mile in Kowloon.
of course the best way to see the view and the lights of Central is from Victoria Peak on Hong Kong Island. getting up there means either a long, hard walk or a short, scenic ride on the Peak Tram, a tourist attraction in its own right. with a rise of almost a quarter of a mile over less than a mile of track, and maximum gradients of nearly 50 percent, the ride can feel pretty hairy at times, but the views are spectacular.
the 120-year-old Victoria Peak Tram that winds its way through the densely populated hills of Central. below, Jill and i wind our way through the densely populated star chambers of Madame Tussaud's Hong Kong wax museum, clockwise from top left: Jill gets intimate with her longtime hero, Indiana Jones--who knew?; i take a moment to catch up with my old buddy Tony Hopkins; then get my just desserts for listening to Madonna; finally Jill and i get to know the (sort of) locals, taking the time to hoop it up with Ming Yao.
before we get to those views, however, i should mention the cool views we got at the Madame Tussaud's wax museum in the Peak Tower at the top of the tram. you can't see many stars in the sky with all the light pollution emanating from the Central skyline, but they're all visible inside, and up close and personal. they even have some displays with closed-circuit cameras pointed at them so you can see yourself on TV giving a speech with George Bush or stepping off a plane to greet the crowds with Hu Jintao. but we soon had to leave our friends to continue our tradition of watching the sunset from a high spot in a world city, so we stepped outside and staked a great vantage point complete with a piece of railing to steady the camera so we could take pictures as the lights came on in all the buildings. there are a lot of them on Hong Kong Island, and that view is a sight to see; it's a little boggling to think of all the people that live and work in such a small space.
the awesome Central skyline at dusk, taken from Victoria Peak. below, a shot taken from sea level of the afternoon moon rising over the coolest looking building ever, the Bank of China Tower. it was designed by I.M. Pei, the same architect who did the Louvre pyramids; apparently he's a fan of triangles.
when we had had enough of funiculars and skyscrapers we decided to take in some of the shopping for which Hong Kong is famous. first we took a bus down to the south side of Hong Kong Island to see Repulse Bay and Stanley, site of a famous outdoor market known for its silks. Repulse Bay, as the name hints, was initially important for its maritime connections, including both piracy and naval maneuvers. now however, it may be better known for having a wide building with a huge hole running right the way through it, put there on purpose apparently so that the feng shui spirits would be better able to pass through on their way from the hills to the ocean. or something like that. closer to where we were staying, we checked out the Golden Mile of Nathan Road, which began right about where our hotel, the Eaton, stood. incidentally, the Eaton is a really nice hotel, with a great buffet dinner and particularly pleasant, if a little small, restrooms; the reason i feel qualified to mention that is because the only time i got sick on these travels was after eating a mango-sauce covered soft-serve ice cream at McDonalds on Nathan Road, and i spent the next several hours hugging the bowl in my bathroom at the Eaton. in any case, the Golden Mile seemed like a bit of a bust, being principally a place for overpriced cheap electronics and overpriced expensive jewelery, but there were a lot of 7-11s, which always had a supply of Hi-Chews and my favorite drink from Britain, Lucozade. i was pretty much in heaven, and must have had about three or four of those delicious concoctions each day we were in Hong Kong.
we had a great time in Hong Kong. we had good accommodations, as we had almost everywhere else on our big trip, mostly thanks to our travel agent in Taipei, Jeannie Leng. incidentally, while we usually think of travel agents as being a lot more expensive than making the arrangements yourself, in Asia the opposite seems to be the case. apparently, the agents have networks in each of the other Asian countries that they use to get better prices, and there aren't a whole slew of discount booking sites, at least that are available in English. so if you want to travel around while you're there, just get a travel agent. anyway, back in Hong Kong, most things are written in English, so even though hearing Cantonese was very strange to our Mandarin-accustomed ears, we could generally understand where we were and what to do from the good signs. we got to visit the LDS Temple in Kowloon, which is a lot more boxy looking than most of the others, and which our pictures, and those on the Church website, manage to make look both small and uncrowded, even though neither of these is a correct impression. it's a very efficient space, but really crammed in.
the Hong Kong Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, crammed in on Cornwall Street in Kowloon. below, one of the double decker buses that took us (and our stuff) all over Hong Kong, literally. the Eaton Hotel is the red brick and glass building just to the rear of the bus in this picture.
we also got to take a small side trip out of Hong Kong, one that was supposed to be a day trip to the other SAR, but that ended up being so much less, in every way. i may write about it in another post, but i won't spoil the mood here. because when the time came to make the short flight back to Taiwan, we became very pleased with our sojourn in this administrative region, and with one of its people in particular. we had taken another double decker bus on the long ride from Kowloon to Lantau Island, where both the world's largest seated buddha and Hong Kong Disneyland live, along with the new Chek Lap Kok airport, so we could catch our plane. the airport is the bus terminus and it was only after we and the other passengers were all disgorged from our carriage that we realized that Jill's prized souvenir umbrella, heretofore strapped to her backpack since its purchase all the way back in Thailand, was still on that bus as it trundled back into town. after checking in for our flight we went to the offices of the bus company and asked them how we could get the item back, and basically when the two agents sitting like bank tellers selling tickets to folks out on the sidewalk determined that lost and found wasn't in their job description, they suddenly became a lot less proficient in English and started ignoring me. now you have to understand this about Chinese people in general: that they don't like conflict, and in my experience will do anything, including pretending you're not there, to avoid it. thus being ignored may have made me more contentious however, and soon they were sending out a manager to try to get me to calm down, though not to fix the problem. how could he if we were leaving the country in a couple of hours? he reasoned. i wasn't so concerned about this problem of his, and i realized we may never see the umbrella again, but the least he could do would be to just tell us he would try to get it back or send it to Jill, even if it wasn't true. later on, that's what i thought was happening, after i had secretly followed that manager back into the office while the locked door was still swinging closed behind him. i needed better answers than he had given me, but the folks on the inside got in a real flap that i had come into their space and they didn't seem to know how to get rid of me. eventually, they called in a supervisor from somewhere else, whom they used to lure me back outside for a meeting, and he told me that he would get the umbrella, even before we left the island. finally, someone was at least pretending to take us seriously, so we went along with what we thought was just a placation and grabbed a Lucozade in the terminal building to pass the time until we were due to check back on his progress.
we did check back with the office, a couple of times, each time with the remaining staffers telling us he had not returned, confirming, we supposed, our hunch that he had been putting us on. but then, not many minutes before we were to board our aircraft, an empty double decker came roaring into the bus depot--empty, that is, except for that lone supervisor and Jill's umbrella! this guy had taken a whole bus and sped it all the way out to Hong Kong's mainland to track down our bus, stop it and get our left item! what a guy! that was customer service, at least if it wasn't self preservation. i did feel a bit sheepish when he actually delivered the item, but i guess all my pushiness paid off. so we still have the umbrella, and at one time it was actually decorating a room, but the moral of the story is, if not taking care of your belongings, that using intimidation to get what you want from Chinese folks who have a hard time saying no often works. but be careful, there may not always be a guy who understands Western negotiation with a spare bus hanging around. good luck!
the hustle, bustle, neon and glow of Nathan Road's famous Golden Mile in Kowloon.
of course the best way to see the view and the lights of Central is from Victoria Peak on Hong Kong Island. getting up there means either a long, hard walk or a short, scenic ride on the Peak Tram, a tourist attraction in its own right. with a rise of almost a quarter of a mile over less than a mile of track, and maximum gradients of nearly 50 percent, the ride can feel pretty hairy at times, but the views are spectacular.
the 120-year-old Victoria Peak Tram that winds its way through the densely populated hills of Central. below, Jill and i wind our way through the densely populated star chambers of Madame Tussaud's Hong Kong wax museum, clockwise from top left: Jill gets intimate with her longtime hero, Indiana Jones--who knew?; i take a moment to catch up with my old buddy Tony Hopkins; then get my just desserts for listening to Madonna; finally Jill and i get to know the (sort of) locals, taking the time to hoop it up with Ming Yao.
before we get to those views, however, i should mention the cool views we got at the Madame Tussaud's wax museum in the Peak Tower at the top of the tram. you can't see many stars in the sky with all the light pollution emanating from the Central skyline, but they're all visible inside, and up close and personal. they even have some displays with closed-circuit cameras pointed at them so you can see yourself on TV giving a speech with George Bush or stepping off a plane to greet the crowds with Hu Jintao. but we soon had to leave our friends to continue our tradition of watching the sunset from a high spot in a world city, so we stepped outside and staked a great vantage point complete with a piece of railing to steady the camera so we could take pictures as the lights came on in all the buildings. there are a lot of them on Hong Kong Island, and that view is a sight to see; it's a little boggling to think of all the people that live and work in such a small space.
the awesome Central skyline at dusk, taken from Victoria Peak. below, a shot taken from sea level of the afternoon moon rising over the coolest looking building ever, the Bank of China Tower. it was designed by I.M. Pei, the same architect who did the Louvre pyramids; apparently he's a fan of triangles.
when we had had enough of funiculars and skyscrapers we decided to take in some of the shopping for which Hong Kong is famous. first we took a bus down to the south side of Hong Kong Island to see Repulse Bay and Stanley, site of a famous outdoor market known for its silks. Repulse Bay, as the name hints, was initially important for its maritime connections, including both piracy and naval maneuvers. now however, it may be better known for having a wide building with a huge hole running right the way through it, put there on purpose apparently so that the feng shui spirits would be better able to pass through on their way from the hills to the ocean. or something like that. closer to where we were staying, we checked out the Golden Mile of Nathan Road, which began right about where our hotel, the Eaton, stood. incidentally, the Eaton is a really nice hotel, with a great buffet dinner and particularly pleasant, if a little small, restrooms; the reason i feel qualified to mention that is because the only time i got sick on these travels was after eating a mango-sauce covered soft-serve ice cream at McDonalds on Nathan Road, and i spent the next several hours hugging the bowl in my bathroom at the Eaton. in any case, the Golden Mile seemed like a bit of a bust, being principally a place for overpriced cheap electronics and overpriced expensive jewelery, but there were a lot of 7-11s, which always had a supply of Hi-Chews and my favorite drink from Britain, Lucozade. i was pretty much in heaven, and must have had about three or four of those delicious concoctions each day we were in Hong Kong.
we had a great time in Hong Kong. we had good accommodations, as we had almost everywhere else on our big trip, mostly thanks to our travel agent in Taipei, Jeannie Leng. incidentally, while we usually think of travel agents as being a lot more expensive than making the arrangements yourself, in Asia the opposite seems to be the case. apparently, the agents have networks in each of the other Asian countries that they use to get better prices, and there aren't a whole slew of discount booking sites, at least that are available in English. so if you want to travel around while you're there, just get a travel agent. anyway, back in Hong Kong, most things are written in English, so even though hearing Cantonese was very strange to our Mandarin-accustomed ears, we could generally understand where we were and what to do from the good signs. we got to visit the LDS Temple in Kowloon, which is a lot more boxy looking than most of the others, and which our pictures, and those on the Church website, manage to make look both small and uncrowded, even though neither of these is a correct impression. it's a very efficient space, but really crammed in.
the Hong Kong Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, crammed in on Cornwall Street in Kowloon. below, one of the double decker buses that took us (and our stuff) all over Hong Kong, literally. the Eaton Hotel is the red brick and glass building just to the rear of the bus in this picture.
we also got to take a small side trip out of Hong Kong, one that was supposed to be a day trip to the other SAR, but that ended up being so much less, in every way. i may write about it in another post, but i won't spoil the mood here. because when the time came to make the short flight back to Taiwan, we became very pleased with our sojourn in this administrative region, and with one of its people in particular. we had taken another double decker bus on the long ride from Kowloon to Lantau Island, where both the world's largest seated buddha and Hong Kong Disneyland live, along with the new Chek Lap Kok airport, so we could catch our plane. the airport is the bus terminus and it was only after we and the other passengers were all disgorged from our carriage that we realized that Jill's prized souvenir umbrella, heretofore strapped to her backpack since its purchase all the way back in Thailand, was still on that bus as it trundled back into town. after checking in for our flight we went to the offices of the bus company and asked them how we could get the item back, and basically when the two agents sitting like bank tellers selling tickets to folks out on the sidewalk determined that lost and found wasn't in their job description, they suddenly became a lot less proficient in English and started ignoring me. now you have to understand this about Chinese people in general: that they don't like conflict, and in my experience will do anything, including pretending you're not there, to avoid it. thus being ignored may have made me more contentious however, and soon they were sending out a manager to try to get me to calm down, though not to fix the problem. how could he if we were leaving the country in a couple of hours? he reasoned. i wasn't so concerned about this problem of his, and i realized we may never see the umbrella again, but the least he could do would be to just tell us he would try to get it back or send it to Jill, even if it wasn't true. later on, that's what i thought was happening, after i had secretly followed that manager back into the office while the locked door was still swinging closed behind him. i needed better answers than he had given me, but the folks on the inside got in a real flap that i had come into their space and they didn't seem to know how to get rid of me. eventually, they called in a supervisor from somewhere else, whom they used to lure me back outside for a meeting, and he told me that he would get the umbrella, even before we left the island. finally, someone was at least pretending to take us seriously, so we went along with what we thought was just a placation and grabbed a Lucozade in the terminal building to pass the time until we were due to check back on his progress.
we did check back with the office, a couple of times, each time with the remaining staffers telling us he had not returned, confirming, we supposed, our hunch that he had been putting us on. but then, not many minutes before we were to board our aircraft, an empty double decker came roaring into the bus depot--empty, that is, except for that lone supervisor and Jill's umbrella! this guy had taken a whole bus and sped it all the way out to Hong Kong's mainland to track down our bus, stop it and get our left item! what a guy! that was customer service, at least if it wasn't self preservation. i did feel a bit sheepish when he actually delivered the item, but i guess all my pushiness paid off. so we still have the umbrella, and at one time it was actually decorating a room, but the moral of the story is, if not taking care of your belongings, that using intimidation to get what you want from Chinese folks who have a hard time saying no often works. but be careful, there may not always be a guy who understands Western negotiation with a spare bus hanging around. good luck!
2 comments:
Awesome! Were you able to do a session in the Temple or just look at it?
I have a tradition that when I go to a Temple for the first time I get a schedule card and stick it in my temple bag. I have about 20 now. Good times!
Jill Nelson Ball!
Wow, I hope you don't mind that I found you. It's Sarah Boblett (Ogle). It looks like you are having a great time!! Check out our blog. boblettfamily.blogspot.com. Love to hear from you!!
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