WEDNESDAY, MAR 10TH--HONG KONG DAY 1

Maybe I can catch up a day on the blog posting this morning. I believe my last post was on Tuesday after leaving Xiamen and it is now Friday morning here in Hong Kong (HK). This will be Wednesday’s post. We sailed into HK’s Victoria Harbor just before noon on a beautifully sunny day. The harbor was alive with ferries, harbor tour boats, and the smaller sanpans darting about in a kind of water ballet. They all somehow managed to miss each other and get to their destinations. We were the largest ship in the harbor as we approached our docking berth next to the Star Harbor Ferry pier at Kowloon. HK is on a peninsula of mainland China and is comprised of The New Territories, Kowloon, HK Island and 266 other small islands. You will notice on my picture captions I called it a river that separates Kowloon from HK Island but it is really Victoria Harbor. Captain Dag gave the starboard side suites (that is us) an incredible view across the harbor to HK Island from our berth. We walked off the ship right into a huge shopping mall, a dangerous thing for husbands. HK Island is only 30 square miles in size with a mountain on it. It has many very modern skyscrapers which house the banking industry and many other company offices. It also has many different markets areas and interesting things to see and do. HK has a population of 7 million people and was under British control for 150 years prior to reunification with China as a Special Administrative Region in June of 1997. Kowloon also has its skyscraper office buildings but it is also a shopping Meca. All the super expensive stores that are found on LA’s Rodeo Drive are here plus hundreds more. I guess the economy is doing well as there was a line outside Channel waiting to get in. At 12:45 we boarded a tour bus for our 4 ½ hour, “HK Orientation” tour. We drove through one of the tunnels connecting Kowloon to HK Island. We arrived at the Victoria Peak Tram for our steep ascent to a viewing area 1800 feet up. Thankfully we had a sunny day to enjoy the incredible views of HK which I tried to capture in my photos. Our bus met us at the top and we drove back down to Repulse Bay on the southern side of the island where there were some beautiful beaches and then made a stop at Stanley Market for a little shopping. We discovered right away that shopping prices were much better back in Shanghai. Next stop was at the old fishing town of Aberdeen. There we boarded noisy sanpans driven by old ladies for a 20 minute ride to see the house boats, fishing boats, yachts, and the famous Jumbo Floating Restaurant. This restaurant was huge and you have to take a sanpan there to dine. Last stop was at a jewelry factory. We were running late at this point and no one really wanted to go in but our guide pretty much insisted. I remained on the bus! After we finally departed it became obvious why he wanted to stop there. I saw him slip the driver his share of the commission the store gave them. We arrived back 40 minutes late and I was not very happy about that. That night we dressed and went up to Observation Lounge to get a good window seat so we could watch the laser light show from 8:00pm to 8:13pm. The light show is every night and use to be fireworks until an accident killed someone. Just prior to 8pm I went up to the top deck outside so I could get some good pictures hopefully. The laser lights are located on the tops of several tall buildings on both sides of the harbor and go off at different times. You must see it!! After the show we headed to the dining room for our dinner. Early to bed as another tour early tomorrow.