City Tour Hong Kong

On Saturday 10. sept, my university had arranged a city tour; much similar to the tour the previous Saturday, except this time it was heading in towards the downtown, and not outwards towards the New Territories. We left in the morning in a small bus and headed downtown to Avenue of the Stars; Hong Kong’s Hollywood Road, a trip that takes approximately 10-15 minutes given the rush hour traffic. (Should be noted Hong Kong experiences rush hour traffic daily from 5AM to 10PM, and the three tunnels running below the Victoria Harbour to Hong Kong Island are blocked by cars 24 hours a day! I’m not joking! We were stuck in traffic at 4AM returning home from a night out.)

Walking along the Avenue of the Stars, we saw the icons and stars of Asia such as Bruce Lee, Jet Lee and Jackie Chang memorized and carved in concrete. From there, we went to have lunch a Chinese Restaurant where I met a guy from Guangdong province and a girl from Inner Mongolia. We had dim sum for lunch, and while they taught me about life in their home towns, we made our way through some 10 dishes from steamed vegetables and grilled scrimps, to chicken fried rice and mushroom noodles.

After lunch, monsoon rain hit TST, Tsim Sha Tsui, and we could not see anything as we crossed Victoria Harbour by the famous Star Ferry line (http://www.starferry.com.hk/). Then, we headed to Stanley, a small old fisher town, at the opposite side of Hong Kong Island. There we saw the Stanley market, and enjoyed the view over the Pacific Ocean, where many ships, especially container ships sail by to enter Hong Kong waters to discharge and load exported products to the western countries of the world. In that sense, Hong Kong is the discharge port, along with Guangdong and Shanghai, for mainland China to the West.

Having spent some hours at Stanley, we left for the Peak. The Peak, as the name suggests, is the peak of the tallest mountain of Hong Kong Island, and it offers the most spectacular view over Hong Kong. A tall building has been constructed, allowing you to rise some 70 meters over the top of the hill with virtually nothing in the way of the full view of Hong Kong from a height of 450 meter! Despite a few tall buildings reaching above 400 meter from down at harbour level, the view is clear to see across the harbour over Kowloon city, and Kowloon Tong, where my university lies. See picture! Once again, the lights are fantastic and the city below seems calm and in peace, but in reality the life is bustling and abrupt below, with hundreds of people eating, working and enjoying Saturday night out.

This was the highlight of the tour, and we returned tired to campus of a long day with plenty of impressions and experiences.

Anders