Fabulous Hong Kong !

Hong Kong itself is divided into four main areas – Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, the New Territories plus the Outlying Islands. We arrived in Kowloon in glorious sunshine and after a walk along the famous Nathan Road which is packed with little shops, we took the Star Ferry across to Hong Kong Island. The Star Ferry service operates four lines across Victoria Harbour and has been in operation for over 120 years, providing a panoramic view of Hong Kong's skyline for its 53,000 daily passengers. It's incredibly cheap and a fun way to travel. There are also loads of tunnels and overhead passes and the traffic, albeit plentiful, runs very smoothly. Amazing selection of cars (Maserati's, Mercedes, BMW's) most of which are chauffeured driven. People in the business areas are very well dressed in suits and ties and the women wear very expensive looking oufits.

The height of some of the skyscrapers is just amazing (the International Finance Center is 88 storeys high - 1,362 ft tall) We took a walk around three of the lower floors which are filled with very upmarket restaurants and shops, plus enormous water features and flowering plants) Helicopters are continuously flying over the bay dropping off businessmen at their various offices.

Our SA friends collected us and we firstly went to Aberdeen which is on the south shore of Hong Kong where we had tea at the Boat Club. I had been in Aberdeen over 30 years ago and remembered it to full of boat people living and working on junks. These have since been flushed
out and very luxurious yachts and motorboats are there now. There's also a floating seafood restaurant which is very popular.Our friends then took us for a lovely drive around the area - fabulous views of the many various bays and islands (as well as the Kowloon peninsula there are over 236 islands surrounding Hong Kong which are very popular and easily accessible) We then went to their lovely townhouse in the New Territories area which is more of a peaceful rural area in Hong Kong, as opposed to the incredibly hectic area of Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon peninsula.
The New Territories is a very picturesque with loads of trees and certainly a much slower pace of life. It's very easily accessible to get down to a very nice little beach. In the evening we all went down to the local village of Sai Kung which has a number of restaurants and bars. The blocks of apartments in some areas are amazing - just thousand upon thousand of enormous blocks. I think the first impression one gets of Hong Kong is the number of people - they're just like "ants" - everywhere. The streets are packed and most have brightly colored advertising signs strung across the roads.We were dropped off at the Stanley Market the following morning.This market was great fun - full of small stalls selling anything from goldfish to flowers to every article of clothing one could imagine. It attracts all the locals who buy
their daily fresh fruits and vegetables. After a good look around we returned to Kowloon on the top of a double decker bus which was a very interesting 30 minute ride through spectacular scenery.

Hong Kong's education system roughly follows the system in England, although at the higher education levels, both English and American systems exist. The medium of instruction is mainly spoken Cantonese, written Chinese and English. The city's transit system, MTR, has 150
stations and serves 3.4 million people a day. We discovered it to be amazing - very fast and clean and relatively easy to understand.

Our last evening we found a wonderful restaurant overlooking the harbor after which we walked up to the The Peninsula Hotel which is rated as "one of the world's legendary grand hotels". Gosh, it was like stepping into another world - wonderful furnishings, high very ornate ceilings, fabulous, enormous flower arrangements. We sat in the lounge beneath the neo-classical arches and had coffee while listening to a great string quartet who were performing in the minstrels gallery. The hotel has a fleet of signature Rolls-Royces, which can be hired by guests plus a helipad for those arriving by helicopter. (We walked !!) All too soon it was time to leave Hong Kong - we could have spent much longer as it is a fascinating very vibrant place to visit. We are now en route to Shanghai.