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=0=| Our next stop on our way home Hong Kong. This is street scene with double decker buses and even a double decker trolley car. These buses were quite common in central Hong Kong. However, as you got further away into the suburbs would would see more regular buses as the roads weren't so congested and had more curves and hills (and presumably double decker buses aren't as stable on turns and rough roads). We found Hong Kong to be almost like going home with signs in English (see the street sign along the right) and much cleaner than Korea. |
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| The scene above was a little unusual in that it was hard to get a good view of the streets and buses as they were normally very close together and you never really got a good view of them. This is a picture taken from one of the doulble decker buses and would be a more normal street scene. Below on the left is an view of downtown Hong Kong from the mountain top of the center of the main island. It looks a little similar to New York City with skyscrapers and ships in the harbor. The island was the original Hong Kong colony, but then a neighboring peninsula, Kowloon was added (shown below on the right) and is highly developed. After that more territory was added and that territory is not nearly as developed. There is now a tunel between the peninsula and the main island, but it is mostly used by trucks and cars. However, most people would take buses to ferries that were pretty inexpensive, perhaps 4 cents a piece. Hundreds of people would get on as a mass (perhaps even a thousand) and the gates would close and they would be off only to be back a few minutes later for another trip. All very efficient. And there were several ferries leaving from several points around the island and going to several points on Kowloon. |
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| The temples in Hong Kong were quite similar to those in Taipei with a quiet garden like atmosphere in the center of an otherwise bustling city. |
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| The interior of the temple had the traditional three statues of Buddha with a barrier between them and the crowds and various decorations all around, much like Taipei, Taiwan. |
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| There were two slide number 295's and it wasn't until 301 that I noticed. As the scanner always numbers sequentially, this slide will have to wait until my second pass. It is the only slide that we have of the Hong Kong zoo which was also a botanical garden. In taking out the film at the end of the roll I forgot to rewind it back into its canister and ruined most of them. Doh! As this was also a botanical garden the enclosures for the animnals were in a garden like atmosphere. |
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| One of the things we particularly enjoyed about Hong Kong was that there was good literature about different things to do in Hong Kong. One of the brochures was different things to see via the city buses, which was exactly what we wanted to do. The main Hong Kong island is volcanic in origin and has a very high central peak. There was a bus that would take you almost all the way up to the very peak and then there was a path that went around Victoria peak giving you a very good overview of Hong Kong. This is another view of Hong Kong island from Victoria peak (and a virtual clone of one of the previous views). |
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| Much of Hong Kong is untilled land (mountain peaks and sides) though the flat lands close to the river are densely populated. Here is a view of some of the sections of Hong Kong which are not developed as well as many other islands which would also be part of Hong Kong but not very heavily populated. |
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| This is another view of the island on the side that faces Kowloon which is the most developed side. As you can see most any level land (close to the coast) is heavily developed. |
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| Most of the route around Victoria peak was a narrow road wide enough for a car, but only one lane wide. However, after we had gotten about two thirds of the way around the peak (which was actually a pretty fair walk) we encountered signs saying 'Danger', 'Proceed at your own risk', etc.. We didn't want to go back as we had already seen that part of the trail, so we went ahead anyway. The road seems to have been in poor repair and was supported by the bamboo scaffolding that was so common throughout which didn't comfort us very much. However, we figured that if it could withstand storms with high winds and rain it ought to be able to caryy our weight, but we did walk gently. |
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| Another area that was suggested to visit via bus was the san pan village which is where the boat people would live. It would be a area with wharves that row on row of san pans would be tied to (and then to each other out over the water). There were also some pretty nice restaurants which were on boats moored there. We got there just before sunset and so the restaurant was lit making it brighter. |
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| The restaurants were very finely decorated in Chinese style with much gold and red. We expected that with the fine decorations they were pretty expensive and so didn't actually eat there (and find out just how exepnsive they really were). |
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This page was last updated on October 14, 2005.
