A Whirlwind Tour

Ok, so I was wrong about having more posts to come. Sorry about that. Things got so busy with the aikido seminar and traveling the blog fell by the wayside. No matter! Be prepared for a whirlwind tour of Hong Kong! (Japan will be another retrospective post.)

We went to a nice park on the upper east side of Kowloon called Nan Lian Garden. It is next to the Chi Lin Nunnery.

It is a relatively new park, opened to the public in 2006, but built in the classical Tang style.

You can see the many skyscrapers in the background which nearly surround this very tranquil park.

Next, we headed off to a different temple.

Later, we made our way to the park that sits upon what once was the Kowloon Walled City.  A lawless patch of Hong Kong known for prostitution, gambling, and illegal dentistry.  Today, it is a very nice park.

A model showing the walled city before it was demolished.  Notice how tightly packed the buildings were.  This was all built without any assistance from the city.

A picture showing a cutaway view of the city.  After all the tenants were evicted, the city conducted an extensive survey to enable reconstructions such as this.

Later, toward the end of the day, we headed over to the Peak tram to head up.

Tram arriving (although we boarded the next one).

A nice view of Hong Kong from the Peak.  :)

Welcome to Hong Kong!

Welcome to Hong Kong! Sorry for the intermittent updates, but the Internet at the hotel was on the fritz yesterday.

Nathan Road is the main drag on Kowloon (the peninsula north of Hong Kong Island). It runs north and south.

View from my hotel room on the 17th floor, which is nowhere near the highest floor. For someone from DC, though, the 17th floor is pretty high!

Yesterday morning, I decided to walk down Nathan Road to the waterfront. At first it is packed with shops and restaurants on the sides of the street, but then it opens up a bit and has large trees.

This is the view of Hong Kong Island from Tsim Sha Tsui.

Next to the waterfront is the Avenue of Stars which pays tribute to Hong Kong's movie history. At the time (early morning) there weren't a lot of people crowded around Bruce Lee's star. However...

There were tons of people all around his statue (which isn't near his star).

A map of TST (as it is called).

I decided to walk to the Hong Kong History Museum, which also just happened to have free admission on Wednesdays. Here is a view on the pedestrian walkway.

I had to wait a bit for the museum to open. Here was a very interesting building that was nearby. I believe the TST Public Library is at the base.

Also while walking around and waiting, I walked by the Mosque on Nathan Road.

The History museum was really good! It started with Hong Kong's history 400,000,000 years ago (with a display and rather good movie) on the rock formations, and moved all the way up to present day. It had a lot of displays on the native people and their ceremonies. My favorite was the bun mountain festival, which shows two recreated bun towers about 3 stories tall (actual size). On the last day of the festival, people climb up and try to get lucky steamed buns.

The museum talked about how in the late 50s and early 1960s, Hong Kong started promoting tourism and how it remains a major source of income to this day.

The military garrison building over on Hong Kong island.

The legislature building on Hong Kong island.

The Cenotaph in Hong Kong, commemorating the dead from WW1 and WW2.

The HSBC lions (one behind me). These are printed on all the currency that HSBC prints for Hong Kong. Two other banks and the government print currency as well.

A nighttime shot of the historic Marine police barracks back in TST.

This was all my sightseeing before rushing off to the airport to pick up Emily. I made it just in time!

More posts to come!