Asia

This morning we met our ride at 5:30 a.m to head to the airport. We’re getting used to these early starts!! Our flight to Hong Kong was about two and a half hours. We hit our first snag here when our driver was not here to pick us up but it was easily fixed. Ernie arranged for us to take a bus into town and to the YMCA Hotel where we were staying. We were just across from the UN building and not far from the water. We were on the 8^th and 9^th floors and enjoyed our view of the city lights at night.

We headed out as soon as we unloaded to get an overview of the city. We walked to the central ferry and took the ferry across to the other side. We caught a double decker bus on the other side to ride to the top of the mountain that overlooks the city. It was a wild and crazy ride with a totally different perspective!! At the top we walked along the path along the rim and stopped often to take pictures. We enjoyed watching four hawks soaring in the updrafts.


Ferry	Public Transportation	Hanging on!

This is the smoggiest city we have run across this trip and we were wishing for a clear sky to really see the beauty of the area. Hong Kong, described as a 'barren rock' over 150 years ago, has become a world-class financial, trading and business centre and, indeed, a great world city. Hong Kong has no natural resources, except one of the finest deep-water ports in the world. The harbor here is gigantic and filled with all kinds of boats and ships. The miles of containers to be loaded on ships were staggering. In 2005, Hong Kong handled 22.6 million TEUs (20-foot equivalent units) of containers, making it the world's second busiest container port.


Hong Kong Light and Laser show	The Peak Tram	Hong Kong Harbor

Hong Kong's population was about 6.94 million in mid-2005. The population density was 6,420 people per square kilometer. This city appears to be so dense. The high rises are so high and so close together and there are so many. Chinese and English are the official languages. English is widely used in the Government and by the legal, professional and business sectors. Hong Kong is the world's 11th largest trading economy, the world's sixth largest foreign exchange market, the world's 15th largest banking centre, and Asia's second biggest stock market.


Can you hear me now???	The view from the top	in Hong Kong

We rode The Peak Tram down which is a double reversible funicular railway. The track is only 1.4 km long but with a gradient of up to 27 degrees. You ride down facing backwards or you’d fall off the seat!!! It was first built in 1888 and was powered by coal fired steam boilers. It has been renovated in 1926, 1948, 1959 and then in 1989 to it’s current microprocessor control technology and brand new tramcars that carry 120 passengers.

We had reservations for dinner in a high rise building not far from our hotel. Our table by the window overlooking the harbor gave us the opportunity to watch the laser and light show that operates every night from the buildings along the water line. It was quite showy!! The group ordered a number of entrees to try. We didn’t realize there was a minimum to order when seated at the large window tables so we kept having to order something else trying to get to the magic number. We ordered two dessert platters to get us over the top…. and that means in every way!! We were pretty stuffed!