This day I spent with Alison, John and Donna, and we were also joined by two friends of theirs presently living in Hong Kong. When Alison and I got to breakfast at the hotel that morning it turned out that they had a very unsympathetic looking Chinese breakfast, nasty looking soup and some not so tempting dumplings. But in the breakfast room we got to say goodbye to several of the other people in the group. So there were hugs, good wishes, and I have a standing invitation to visit Hobart - which is nice! . After that we went to McDonalds for breakfast. Then we went back to the hotel to wait for Brett and Jodie. We had our plan ready, we would be following a recipe from the bible – Lonely Planet. The mission for the day was to explore Hong Kong Island. We started by walking down Nathan Road, all the way to the Star Ferry Terminal. The ferry goes from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island, and only takes a few minutes. But the trip is worth taking, you have a good view to the Hong Kong skyline on both sides. So Hong Kong Island is as the name tells you and island, while most of the remaining parts of Hong Kong are part of a peninsula attached to mainland China.

When we got off the charming old ferry and out of the terminal, we went right over to the bus stops to take the bus to another well known market called the Stanley Market. Hong Kong is full of double-decker buses, and this bus was one of them. (There are many double-decker street cars in Hong Kong as well.) We found our seats on the second level. This turned out to be an excellent way to explore the island. Not only could we easily get where we were going, but we got to see a lot on the way. When you take the ferry over you get to Central, a business district full of skyscrapers. When you get outside this area, however, Hong Kong Island is surprisingly green. The island is full of green hills, not covered by threes, but mostly impenetrable bushes, or so it looks like. The island has a large amusement park, Ocean Park, with a long cable car route going up and around and along a hill. Other than that you see clusters of more or less tall buildings, and there are also several beaches. They are not particularly large, but look very nice. The beach communities look like real beach resorts, the prices must be enormous. Many of the houses have swimming pools, and there are plenty of flashy cars around.

The Stanley Market turned out to be my favourite Hong Kong market. It was large, lying in narrow streets, with a roof, a closed in world. Here you not only had the usual tourist junk, but also art and clothes. I bought three pictures and a painted plate. We all went our separate ways inside the market, but met up later to have lunch at Deli France. After that we jumped on another double- decker to get to Aberdeen Harbour. This place is known for its charming old sampan boats, small, rounded wooden boats which you can rent and get a trip around the harbour. We rented one for half an hour for 35 HKD per person. It was plenty of garbage in the water, but other than that it was a fun trip between the others sampan boats, house boats of different kinds, floating restaurants, old iron hulks – and we also drove by the yacht harbour close by. The harbour is surrounded by skyscrapers. So there are a lot of contrasts. (On the shore you could get a glimpse of the old China in the old men gathering in the shade to talk, smoke and play cards/chess/mah jong.) The lady who owned the boat obviously slept there too, at least going by the bed made up in the middle of the boat. She had some straw hats which we borrowed to take silly pictures of each other. In the middle of the posing John managed to lose his glasses over board, and it was impossible to retrieve them. The boat-woman almost laughed till she cried, she thought it was so funny. It was too bad for John, but being the funny-man that he is he managed to get quite a few jokes out of it.

After the boat trip to Aberdeen we caught the bus back to Central, and from there we took a bus going to the well known lookout-point Victoria Peak. First we had to go and buy something to get some more change. In Hong Kong you need exact change on the buses, and you put this change in a box by the driver. The busride to the peak was great. First we drove around a bit in Central, before we started making our way up the hill. The fancy skyscraper office buildings in Hong Kong look like they would look anywhere in the world. A bit more special are skyscrapers which as far as I can see are houses where people live, some of them are so narrow that they can’t possibly give room to much more than one flat on each floor. Other than that you also see plenty of buildings that look more standard Chinese (grey, tired, air con on the outside). We drove past a large race track, lying there surrounded by skyscrapers the way Central Park is in NYC, only the terrain wasn’t flat. There are some greenery around, but it all seems very ”groomed” and not particularly user friendly. Many places you can see trees sticking out of holes in concrete slopes. We also drove by a few cemeteries, all wonderfully situated in the hills with a view of the sea. The tombstones were standing very close, in a terrace system. 

The buildings stood further apart from each other as we got closer to the top. All the time we had a wonderful view over Kowloon and Central. In what is obviously the typical Hong Kong fashion, there is a large shopping center at Victoria Peak. The first thing we did was to go to the lookout-points, the view is absolutely incredible. In one direction you look down on Hong Kong Island and the skyscrapers in Central on one side of the river, and Kowloon on the other side. In the other direction you see flowing green hills – and the ocean. Afterwards we decided to go into one of the restaurants and have some dessert. We found a very nice restaurant where we got a table by the window, with glass from floor to ceiling, and with the marvellous city view. I ate a lavish ice-cream creation, the others ate cheesecake, strawberry tart or similar. Then it was time to head back to the hotel. To get back down we took the Victoria Street Pram, very steep and with a great view. At the last station we jumped on a bus which took us to the closest subway station. The subway has a system of colours and letter codes which is very easy to understand. We took the subway to a station on Nathan Road, and walked from there to the hotel. There we made a short stop, before we went one more time to the night market in Temple Street. But I was very tired, it was very hot, it was closer to 9 o’clock, and I hadn’t finished packing, so pretty soon I left the others to go back to the hotel. It was strange saying goodbye.

We had been pretty lucky with the weather this day. It didn’t rain a drop, but changed between sunshine and light clouds. I was very happy about having such a ”productive” last day in Hong Kong. The day was actually such a success that by now I was sorry I wasn’t staying longer. Hong Kong is pretty expensive, though. I didn’t even spend 2 whole days there, and I used 100 USD (plus the airport tax). In comparison, I spent 230 USD on the rest of the trip.