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Full Gallery of Gerry Parenti's Hong Kong photos
I'm back in Nanning after an exciting and adventurous weekend in Hong Kong. I arrived in town at about eight o'clock this morning, took the public bus to the campus, and got home at about 9:15 a.m. Next, I took a bicycle taxi to my apartment, quickly dropped off my stuff and then biked to my college in time to supervise the ten o'clock writing exam.
Yup, I was cutting it a bit close.
Yesterday afternoon, Stan and I left Hong Kong to go to Macao for a brief stay, but the border lines out of Macao and another into ZhuHai were much busier and slower to get through than we planned. I ended up missing the overnight bus from ZhuHai to Nanning by a few minutes. So, I had to take another route and ended up needing two buses to get back home.
What can I say about Hong Kong? Well, if you haven't been there, it's a bit hard to explain. If you've been to Mexico City, New York City or Sao Paulo or Brazil, I figure it would be similar. The bottom line is it's hard to imagine the scope and magnitude unless you've actually been there.
The island has a population of about seven million, but it feels more like 20 million because a lot of the land is unsuitable for living. The main island, Hong Kong Island, is loaded with tall skyscrapers -- one part, I was told, has the highest population density in the world.
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Other islands have a more natural surrounding, including beaches, forests and a lot of park reservations.
Because Hong Kong has only been independent from Britain for about eight years, there's still lots of British influence. For example, double-decker public buses abound and cars with the steering wheels on the right drive on the left side of the road.
The biggest differences I found between Hong Kong and mainland China are that Hong Kong is much cleaner with stricter littering policies, much more organized and modern, and it has a better public transit infrastructure (buses, subway, tram).
Also, there were a lot of fancy cars -- BMW's, Mercedes and Jaguars. I even saw a Lamborghini dealership and a Ferrari Testarosa that was driving up an inclined street filled with pubs, so it was stop and go... and I never heard the tires squeal once.
Fortunately, I was able to spend this weekend with two close friends: Stan, an American that I taught with last year who goes on many adventures with me in China; and Iris, Stan's wonderful girlfriend, who was born and raised in Hong Kong.
So, I was able to see many different parts of Hong Kong and experience much more than I would have if I had been traveling on my own. Plus, Iris was able to make the trip much cheaper since she knew where to find cheap hotels and how to get around using public transportation.
On Thursday night, I took the overnight bus from Nanning to ZhuHai to meet up with Stan. If I haven't told you yet, many overnight buses in China are sleeper buses with bunk beds across three rows and a narrow hallway between each. The beds aren't quite long enough to stretch out in, but are still much more comfortable than sitting upright for this 12-hour ride.
Stan and I arrived in Hong Kong on Friday afternoon after taking a ferry from ZhuHai, and we met up with Iris in Kowloon. She showed us to our hotel -- the Tai Wan Hotel in the Chung King Mansion -- and then we went to a part of Hong Kong called Mong Kok because I wanted to buy a new digital camera and this was a good place to find a good deal.
Afterwards, we took a short walk to a building about 20 stories high and full of shops with everything you could possibly imagine. This building was built in a "deconstructive" style of architecture, so it had no consistent pattern to the structure of the building. Plus, inside was the world's longest escalator.
After spending a bit of time walking around this huge shopping mall, Iris and Stan took me to a place called the Peak on Hong Kong Island. We took the world's steepest tram up the mountain and saw an amazing view of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.
Then we went back down the mountain and over to the Central District which had a night street full of pubs that was overflowing with foreigners from all over the world.
On Saturday morning, I got up a bit earlier than Stan, so I started playing with my new camera and reading the instruction booklet.
After a late breakfast, we took a ferry and met up with Iris. Then we took second ferry to another part of Hong Kong called Lamma Island, which is very different from Hong Kong Island with older, smaller buildings (usually three stories or less), and much more nature.
We took our time walking around part of the island and stopped at a scenic beach for about an hour. Then we had a rushed walk back to the ferry port to try and catch the 4:30 p.m. ferry back to Kowloon, followed by another ferry to the Central District and then a bus to another part of the island called Stanley, where we stayed for dinner. The restaurant overlooked a beach and a bay, and there was a heavy wind accompanying us on the patio as a storm was forecasted.
Then we were back on a bus heading to our hotel. I decided to go by myself to the "Avenue of the Stars," which was close to our hotel. It featured another breathtaking view overlooking the harbour. There were a lot of tourists and the tall buildings sparkled.
Sunday was another relaxed morning. We did a bit more walking before Stan and I headed towards Macao on a ferry.
We didn't have much time in Macao. Since Stan lives in the neighboring city of ZhuHai and he's been to Macao a few times, he took me to a popular area and we walked around for a bit -- long enough for me to get a feel for the city.
Macao is also quite different from mainland China. It has more of a European type of architecture throughout the city since the Portuguese had control of it until fairly recently. A lot of the signs have Chinese and Portuguese.
Then, like I said at the beginning, a rushed trip through the Macao/ZhuHai border to get to the ZhuHai bus station for my overnight journey back to Nanning.
So that, in a pretty big nutshell, was my weekend in Hong Kong. I hope you found it interesting. The three of us are planning another reunion in Hong Kong at Christmas -- hopefully, I can get extra days off work for the holiday.