Hong Kong

Thursday, April 22, 2010
Hong Kong
The city is the definition for contrast between old and new. Very tightly packed matrix of small streets lined with shops or street vendors next to highrise bank buildings or shopping malls. We are staying in the Central District on Hong Kong Island which is hilly and has a roadway system that is full of corkscrews to get up to the next levels. Mr Toad's Wild Ride. Out for a walk when a rain downpour sends everyone running for cover, so we head for the covered escalator system that descends for hundreds of feet and over a mile through town down to the waterfront.

New Construction

Packed with lunch hour crowds, the pedestrian streams branch off to other overhead covered walkways and into office buildings and shopping malls. Later to Man Mo Temple, an older building with a beautiful nest of incense coils overhead.

Temple Incense

Then shopping for dodads along a street of antique shops.

HK Street5

I am surprised that Hong Kong is still very separate from Mainland China, even more than 10 years after “The Handover”. Customs controls at the border, the Hong Kong dollar is still a separate currency (very handsome with a tendency to display buildings and bridges), English is pretty universally spoken, and internet sites that are blocked on the Mainland are open here.Sun is out this morning and it looks like a good day for the ferry to Kowloon (wonderful name).