As introduced in the posts about Tijuana, Joseph has been developing a relationship with a Chinese manufacturing company. The headquarters of the Tijuana company is in China. So when Joseph told me that he had to go to China for work I informed him that I'd be tagging along. So we booked two tickets to China with the entry point of Hong Kong and the departure city of Beijing. Where we were to go in between was a bit of a mystery as the Chinese company wanted to show Joseph some factories throughout the country. As a result what follows are my posts about a China trip we really did not plan for.
We flew into Hong Kong because its airport was the largest near our first business stop, Shenzhen China. Fortunately we had a full day and a half in Hong Kong to ourselves before any business meetings were to occur. I booked us two nights at Ovolo Noho in Central Hong Kong. I chose Ovolo based on it's location, price and glowing reviews on Trip Advisor regarding its customer service. Great customer service is something I'm always after in a place where I don't speak the native tongue. While researching hotels in Hong Kong I was warned that the rooms are tiny due to lack of space. I can vouch for a tiny room at Ovolo Noho and the service at the hotel was outstanding.
After arriving at the hotel, showering, and changing our clothes we realized that our clothes smelled like a campfire. Back home in Tennessee we had recently started wood burning stove season and I seemed to have forgotten how to build a fire. This temporary loss of skills resulted in smoking out the house pretty heavily a few times. Unfortunately it took a trip to the other side of the world for us to realize that we had been walking around for the past two weeks smelling like campfires.
Jet lagged and campfire fresh we explored our neighborhood. Hong Kong is home to more than 7 million people and is one of the most densely populated places in the world. As a result it feels like a real city. There are a truly amazing amount of skyscrapers. If I had to compare Hong Kong to an American city I would say it is like a combination of New York and San Francisco. Hong Kong is gritty, not that friendly, super hilly, very Asian, but also somewhat International. Hong Kong was also previously a British colony and we saw evidence of that via double decker buses, advertisements for "high tea" and British/Asian accents in those who spoke English. All the buildings that were not skyscrapers felt old while the skyscrapers were very modern creating a perfect juxtaposition of old and new.
The next day I decided we should go to Victoria Peak because the internet told me it was the best thing you could do in Hong Kong. We decided to walk to the entry point as it did not appear far from our hotel. On our way to the peak entrance we toured the Man Mo Temple. The Man Mo temple was built in the mid 1800's and is dedicated to the gods of literature and war which to me is an unusual pairing. In any event it was a great experience full of color, candle light and incense. Our campfire clothes fit right in.
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| Man Mo from outside in front of Bamboo covered skyscraper. |
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| Man Mo Entrance. My glasses blend well with the color scheme. |
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| Those cone thingys on the left contained incense |
The entrance to Victoria Peak proved a bit elusive as we navigated the windy and hilly streets of Hong Kong. Neither of us were in a ideal state due to the jet lag and after about an hour of walking with the entrance no where in sight I asked a man tending to leaves in a park where we could find the entrance. He mumble yelled at me in Chinese and threw up both of his hands in the universal sign of "I don't know!!!/ what can we do??" Joseph laughed at me and we continued to wander eventually stumbling upon the entrance.
Victoria Peak is a place of high altitude in the city and home to a 120 year old tram that will bring you to said Peak. We spotted the entrance by observing a mob of tourists, many of which were causcasian. After buying our tickets we shoved our way onto a tram ride that was a little bit terrifying for a person afraid of heights, roller coasters, and ferris wheels. We were deposited inside of a mall where we took a series of escalators to make it to the peak of the peak.
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| Escalators to peak |
Once outside the view was amazing as advertised. As I looked down at the skyscrapers I felt as though I was looking at a video game image and not a real city.
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| Windy peak whips tourist's hair |
We left the peak hungry and tired and Joseph googled us a Chinese vegetarian restaurant. The theme of that restaurant seemed to be mushrooms, one of my favorite foods. We ordered mushroom stew which came out with it's own Bunsen burner, mushroom dumplings, and other mushroom delights, all full of mushrooms I didn't know existed. Little did I know mushrooms would become a theme of this trip.
Tomorrow: More Hong Kong
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