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Hong Kong - Day 2 in Hong KongApr 13, 2005
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The Star Ferry to Central Hong Kong
Victoria Peak View Point
Victoria Peak View Point
Day 2
On our second day we focused on visiting local attractions starting with Victoria Peak - a viewing point on top of a mountain downtown Hong Kong. The ride there was quite interesting; we took a ferry to get across the harbour, then a double decker bus and then the steepest tram up the mountain. Even though the weather did not cooperate (it was rainy and foggy) the views were still spectacular. Despite heavy population and busy business districts, Hong Kong is a very green city with lots of parks, trees and exotic flowers.
Later in the afternoon we went for dim sum and it was surprisingly similar to dim sum at home. Dishes were delicious and flavourful, everything was fresh and ladies with carts kept yelling out names of dishes in Cantonese. Interestingly they just walked by us if the dish was too authentic for us. We noticed this attitude towards tourists in a few other places. Locals almost make the choices for you - their explanations of directions are dead simple and they just seem to know what tourists like to do.
Infrastructure in Hong Kong is very advanced and developed. Vertical space is used where possible, all buses are double decker, sky scrapers are triple the size of those in Canada. Main shopping is still located on ground floors, but restaurants can be found on 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors.
People are very friendly and everywhere you go there is at least one person who speaks very good English. There are a lot of street hustlers promoting bespoke clothing (custom tailors), fake watches, sexy massage parlours and strip clubs. Maybe it is because I have a "f*** off" look on my face when I see them approaching or because I am not their target market, the hustlers seem to focus on David and he does his best to shoo them off in a friendly and polite Canadian way.
Another concept that stands out here is their constant attempts to "save face". For example, we went for breakfast in the restaurant at the hotel. Our breakfast was supposed to be included in the rate, but our room number was not on hostess' list. Instead of letting us know at the hostess stand, they proceeded to seat us and act as if everything is fine. I know if this were the case in Canada, it would have been handled differently.
Shopping I found that they are very tough negotiators and unless you "offer" a reasonable price they won't even bargain with you. Overall prices here are very reasonable, but are not consistent.
Last night we watched an amazing light show over Victoria Harbour. We uploaded some pictures - be sure to take a look. It was quite spectacular and looked very dreamy because of slight fog. I did some low lights photography with my brand new tripod. The show was put up by the Hong Kong tourism authority and was free.
Natalya
