The first day I spent applying for my visa, and exploring the city! What an incredible place. Truly a modern marvel. The whole city has been built up just in the last generation. WOW! Towering buildings spanned the entire harbor, sandwiched between steep mountains and water. I went to all the major tall buildings, and also ventured into one of the world's best places to celebrity-watch (according to Yahoo News), the Mandarin Oriental. I felt very uncomfortable surrounded by rich foreigners wearing business suits and drinking tea, so I darted out of there! In fact, it seems that the entire city population is businessmen/women wearing fancy suits, carrying briefcases, and speaking........ENGLISH! YES! I was able to speak English everywhere in HK. Everyone knows it. After walking around the city below I took the tram up to the top of the mountain for a bird's eye view of the city. I spent half the day up there, hiking the mountain trail with skyscrapers immediately below, and eating western food (McDonald's and Burger King). After watching the sun set, and looking at the city lights, I headed down and to Katie's (a WELS Kingdom Worker in HK) apartment to spend the night!
The next day I went to the visa office, picked up my visa, and had the entire day to explore some more! So I went across the river to view the harbor from the other side. Walking along the pier I enjoyed the cleanliness of HK. They have extremely strict laws of no spitting, J-walking, littering, or eating/drinking in public transportation. HK doesn't want to become like mainland China, dirty and polluted. I then hopped onto the extremely convenient-easy to understand metro (one of the most advanced in the world, I once saw a history channel special talking about HK's metro) out of the city and into the mountains, to check out the world's largest Buddha! I took the 3 mile tram into the mountains, and started exploring the little commercialized "Disney World" of a village atop the mountain. It was a tourist trap. In the map it said you could see the tree Siddhartha famously sat beneath when pondering life's questions. I figured it would be a very religious/well-known site. So I found the tree, took some pictures because I figured it was a very historical site, and then felt one of the leafs. It was PLASTIC! I immediately started walking away. They flat out lied on their brochure! Oh well. I then checked out the Buddhist temple where monks sang and chanted away to their golden statues, as tourists stood nearby taking pictures, and then I headed to the big Buddha.
Sitting atop a hill the world's largest Buddha was quite a cool site! I decided to run up all the stairs. It was fun, but I ran on the opposite side that I should have, and after reaching the top I noticed some people praying/bowing their heads to the Buddha. I feel kind of bad, but it was good exercise. I walked down, caught the gondola back down, and headed back to HK for dinner with Katie. I ate a delicious shrimp curry with rice. We then checked out the light show on the harbor. The entire city skyline's night lights have been synchronized to music. I've never found beauty in a city until this night. It was truly beautiful! Seeing such a bustling, busy, huge, clean, technologically advanced city flashing and blinking to music was mind blowing. Beautiful. We then headed back and hit the hay. The next day I relaxed, watched TV, and went shopping to buy western food I can't find in mainland China (Doritos, Twix, tortilla chips, and a New Zealand beer I've been looking for forever, Speights!) Yummmmmmmmmm....I hopped on the train in the evening and headed back to Wuhan. Great trip!
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