They are instead three islands near Hong Kong, which my wife and I took whirlwind tours of this week. All three deserve more time, alas our time is limited.
I suppose if we were 25 again, we would sample the night life in Hong Kong, which I hear is responsible for this smile on Buddha.
Happy is as happy does!
First, Kowloon.
Yes, believe it or not it is pronounced just like it looks like it should be pronounced. I have not delved into the history to find out who named it that, or why. Instead I will just assume it was where mad Cow Disease originated.
Kowlooning around!
Kowloon Is a five minute ferry ride across Victoria Harbor from Hong Kong proper. By the way, when the Chicoms take over in 35 or so years, there will be no more English names for things. No Queens Blvd. or Prince Albert’s can. Nope, all the names will change to Mandarin. This will be tough on the locals as well, because they speak Cantonese. So to get to Kowloon one can take the ferry, or go under the channel in an automobile tunnel, or take the metro in another tunnel. We purchased what they call an Octopus card which is good on all local public transportation except taxis. Public transportation, including taxis, are one of the few bargains in the SAR. The what? The Special Administrative Region, the official name for “one country – two systems” rule in existence today. After buying our card, we walked for ages, it seemed like miles, underground to get to the metro platform. The first thing you notice after your sore feet, is that there is not as much as a gum wrapper on the ground. Hong Kong is CLEAN. No one litters. The fine for littering is 5000 HK dollars. (1US$=7.80 HK$, you do the math)
Keeping Hong kong clean is everyones job, not just the thousands of people who get paid to do it. You really do NOT see people litter here.
Kowloon is supposedly the bargain shopping area for greater Hong Kong. The most famous of the various shopping destinations is called Ladies Street. This is a six block long pedestrian walkway with hundreds of booths on each side of the walkway. Once you have walked a couple of blocks you notice that every 10th booth or so is selling the same junk, And I Do mean junk.
Ladies Street Block after block of junk
Not that I like any Yankee cap, but this one on Ladies Street is the ugliest I have ever seen!
Now the only hawkers in all of HK are for tailors. There are probably more tailor shops in HK than any other city in the world. I thought Bangkok had a lot of tailors, but HK has BK beat. I hate being tall and white in Asia. The hawkers see me a block away and make a move for me. I have my radar out now. If I see a guy with a handful of business cards head toward me, I duck into a storefront, vitamin store, bathroom fixtures, lingerie, it does not matter. But they wait for me outside. They follow me at least a block telling me I am dressed like a beggar and should have a suit made, or three, special price for three! They pester me until I enter the hunting area of the next hawker for the next tailor. My wife had already decided she would have a suit made in Hong kong to go with the half dozen she had made in Thailand. She had already chosen her tailor, who happened to be in Kowloon, so the day was not a complete waste.
At this point in the process, Mary Ann turned to me and said she had lost interest. Then the sales lady said something like 3 suits for the price of 1!. All I know is now we need an extra suitcase to get home.
Lantau Island.
Our next day in fab HK was spent on another group tour. we like tours. Usually we hire a private car tour, just the two of us and a hopefully all knowing guide. But in HK they are prohibitively expensive, so we ride on buses with 20 or so other people. At least most of these people are so old that I feel relatively young.
Lots of old people, and us! There was one guy on this bus I refused to be anywhere near because he was sniffling sneezing and hacking. Luckily I did not catch whatever exotic disease he had!
Lantau is the home of the worls “largest- outdoor- sitting -bronze Buddha”. Of all the buddhas I have seen in my travels he s the largest. I still do not know where the largest Buddha in the worls is. I think I will find out and put him on my bucket list.
He was very big, but where is the biggest? I'll have to Google that one.
Maybe this is a better photo. I am still learning my camera, and it was a grey day. We spoke to a tourist who went the next day and he said that it was so foggy that you could not see Buddhas head!
Buddha sits on a hill over a very nice temple that is well used. Every temple sells incense for people to light and make prayers. This temple sold the largest incense sticks I have ever seen.
I hear these burn for a week. They only sell them in packs of three, for about 700 HK dollars. You must really need to pray hard!
Lantau also has an amazing aerial cable ride which takes about 30 minutes to go from Lantau all the way to Hong Kong. It passes right near the HK airport, giving an excellent view of all the planes taking off and landing. This is a very busy airport as you might expect.
I think every international carrier in the world flies to HK. Why not? It is rated as one of the top airports in the world. The thing I liked about it was that the immigration lines were well staffed and that they had a single line to stand in which fed all the stamping stations, so you do not feel like you got "in the slow line again."
It also passes over an example of typical housing ing in BK. People here live in high rise buildings for the most part. One of our guides says the typical apartment is 500 sq feet. A person does not own an apartment ,only big companies. However if one chooses, you can rent a government subsidized apartment, but they are not as nice as these.
Buildings like these are all over HK. Crowded together. In mid town they are much dingier, and do not have the view. Our guide showed us the most expensive apartment building in HK where the apartments are 5000 sq. feet and rent for...US$21,000 a month. Plus a big dollar amount for a parking space. If you drive to work, you pay another huge monthly fee to park in a building in town. Therefore, public transportation is inexpensive and very well used. The buses and metros at rush hour are crowded as a beehive in spring. I think that the best business to have in HK must be elevator maintenance and repair.
On to Macau.
Macau was a magic name to me when I was 8 years old because that was where all the really good firecrackers were made. That was all I knew about it. Now that is not the case. The fireworks industry has gone away and is replaced by casinos. In fact Macau now makes more money from wagering than Lost Wages, Nevada. It is another SAR. It pays no taxes to the Chicoms. In fact there are no taxes in Macau at all, which makes it a shopping haven. It is a separate government from HK and you must pass through immigration and customs going both ways. (Just a bit of a brag…I counted my the stamps in my passport while standing in line returning to HK. When I get back to the UAE, they will have the honor of applying the 100th stamp in my precious blue book. Wow.)
Honk Kong is a very strict place. they have rules and rules and rules. They are serious about them and fine you on the spot for violating them. Littering I have mentioned. They also restrict smoking to little permitted smoking areas. You can always find them because they have groups of people puffing away. But the weirdest rule I have run up against is the customs regulation about how many cigarettes you can bring into the country. Get this, the number is 19. One short of a pack. If anyone can explain that I will be glad to hear it.
Rules at a park in town.
Rules at a beach. Check it out...there is nothing left to do!
Macau being the gambling capital of the world,is now waging a civil war to build the largest casino. An old guy named Dr. Ho used to have the monopoly on casinos in Macau. He also owns half the airport,docks, and other infrastuctures. Now, American and Australian companies are moving in.
This is your first view of Macau from the ferry. It is one of many American and Austarlian casinos in the SAR now. MGM and Wynn also have built monstrosities.
This is Dr. Ho's latest attempt at having the biggest gaudiest casino in Macau. Rumor is, it will be surpassed very soon. With all the money the Chicoms drop at the tables here, there is just no limit .
There is another type of gambling one can do in Macua. The stakes are your life, or maybe just your sanity.
From the top of this tower, you have three options. First is to walk around an un-barricaded sky walk. Next is to bungie jump off of it. Or you can just jump, attached to a rope that finally slows you down as you approach the ground. The height is 764 feet, the worlds highest bungie or free fall site. I just bough the t-shirt.
Macau was settled by the Portuguese. There is a long historyof Christain in-fighting in Macau with Dominicans, Franciscans and of course the Jesuits all trying to reign supreme. One of the iconic structures of Macau is the remains of the church of St. Paul.
All that is left of a church built in the late 1600's. On the street next to it were two groups passing out literature, one of them was the church outlawed in mainland China"fong garonadinggong" or something like that.
And of course there are Buddhist temples and any tour in this part of the world will take you to a Buddhist temple. It must be in the licensing contract. Finally after visiting enough temples to start feeling outright religious, I found something unigue.
This is a singing water bowl. First you throw a coin in the bowl which is half full of water. Then you rub your palms quickly back and forth across the two handles until the water starts to actually bubble, and the the bowl sings. It is supposed to bring you good fortune. I was hoping it would help me take back some of Dr. Ho's money.
Our last stop was a casino, and thank Buddha we only got a half hour to gamble. I did not win any money…singing bowl or not. But I only had a half hour to lose. My wife went to a facory outlet next door and further burdened our suitcases for the return trip with some really nice and very inexpensive brand name clothes. If you come to this part of the world, HK is just fine. It is exciting and vibrant. But for better deals and more fun, be sure to visit Macau!
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