 |
| Arriving at Hong Kong Early Misty Morning |
As I’m sure
you all know, Hong Kong reverted to Chinese
sovereignty in 1997. Actually it was not
Hong Kong island that we had on lease – that had been claimed as a British
colony in 1841, and the Kowloon
peninsula, the area directly opposite on the mainland, was taken in 1860. It was the land surrounding Kowloon
(known as the New
Territories) that we had
on lease for 99 years from 1898.
Margaret Thatcher apparently toyed with the idea of keeping the island
for a military base, but this was impractical as the power and water was
supplied by China!
The last
governor, Chris Patten, worked very hard
in the years leading up to handover to install a more democratic form of
government into Hong Kong which allowed representatives to be elected who were not entirely under the
influence of China. The Chinese took
over with the promise of “One Country, Two Systems” allowing the Hong Kong
Special Administrative Region a degree of autonomy. This has apparently been
working quite well but I did read in the paper when I was there in October that
the huge influx of people from ‘mainland’ China, plus some re-arranging of
administrative regions had meant that in the last elections some of the local
‘liberals’ had lost their seats. It remains
to be seen how things work out, but I have noticed, from my limited experience
of visiting Hong Kong for work, that there are
an increasing number of people who do
not speak English (especially the taxi drivers, some of whom don’t seem to know
where anything is). However, at the
moment it still has a very familiar feel compared with mainland China
with all signage in both English and Chinese.
 |
| One of the Star Ferries |
The boat
docked in a very central location – on Kowloon
next to the Star Ferry for those of you who know. The waterfront at Kowloon
houses many luxury hotels and also provides a wonderful view over the harbour
to the high-rise profile of Hong Kong
centre. There is a fantastic laser light
show every day at 8 pm which lights up all of the buildings in different colours
and sequences – accompanied by music and a commentary, in English on some
nights – we were able to watch it from the deck. It is easy to get from Kowloon onto Hong Kong
island – either by the efficient metro system or, more fun, on the old Star Ferries
which roll across the harbour about every 10 minutes – it is fascinating just
to see the amount of traffic they have to weave their way through, and if you
happen to get on in a typhoon as I did once, quite scary!
 |
| One of the narrow streets in Soho |
On our
first day we headed for the History Museum to view The Hong Kong Story – the
whole museum is dedicated to describing the history of HK from the creation of
the land to the present day. It is a
super exhibition, all very interesting, but becoming fascinating when it gets
to the time of the opium wars and the British occupation. They have preserved some whole shop interiors
and recreated some of the old buildings to give a feel for the pre-war days
– of course there is not too much left
on the island now.
 |
| Trams |
We spent
the afternoon walking around Soho – the area at the back of the town which can
be reached by a long outdoor escalator – there are all sorts of little shops
and markets and you can find whole streets or alleys dedicated to one trade
e.g. shoe mending or the sale of material – also lots of little bars and
restaurants to sample.
After a
couple of drinks in the Happy Hour we headed off to Happy Valley
for an evening at the races. We had been
to the big race course at Sha Tin (on the mainland) but Happy Valley
is unique, being surrounded by sky scrapers and close to the town centre, it
has a much more intimate feel. We went
by tram which was an experience in itself – they are very tall and thin and
wobble a lot, quite scary sitting upstairs in the front with an open window in
front of you! After getting a winner in
the first race we didn’t manage any more but it was great fun anyway and I
don’t think we spent more than 20 pounds in the whole evening (the entrance fee
is less than one pound!).
 |
| Jumbo's Floating Restaurant at Aberdeen |
On our
second day we took the bus round the island to Stanley – one of the first areas
to be settled by the British and the home of a garrison for many years because
of threats by pirates. It is now a nice
little seaside town known for its market selling clothes and souvenirs –
touristy but still some things which are good value. We then carried on to Aberdeen, a fishing
port, as we wanted to re-visit Jumbos, a huge floating restaurant which can be
reached by their free ferry – worth going just to get a close-up view of the
harbour. I persuaded Keith to sample
some rather posh Dim Sum and he had to agree that they were rather delicious.
We found a supermarket in Aberdeen
and stocked up on wine and snacks for our cabin. A very enjoyable two days and surprisingly
the more I see of Hong Kong the more I want to
go back.
We are now
coming up to a busy period around Vietnam, Thailand
and Malaysia,
hopefully I can keep the blog up to date as we go!
Sounds great. The man I used to work for had the brainwave to build the first international airport in Hong Kong by reclaiming land from the sea due to the difficulty of descent. He was invited back in 1991 for a ceremony as 'Father Kai Tak'. This airport has since been replaced but it was down to his persistence to spend the extra on an international airport which made Hong Kong
ReplyDelete