Once again I sit watching, in this case, the sea below me, getting further away as we leave yet another wonderful City, Hong Kong this time and the last place for us to leave in our travels through China.
It's with heavy hearts, we leave this land of smiling, happy, rude, helpful, cheery and most of all, kind people. I have to say, that with only a couple of exceptions, China was a great country to visit and a pleasure to view!!!
With all its challenges, what, with so many people, various cultures and being communist(if only on paper), it works, in an uncomplicated way, whether it be the traveling or staying, places were easy to get to and breathtaking to see. My favorite place, mmmmm, I would say, will have to be JiuZhaiGou, the reason for that being the green, open feeling I had whilst there, but what more could you expect when you are literally in one of the highest places to see, with the obvious exception of Tibet. I do hope to see Tibet before I die, as if the people of JiuZhaiGou are representative of the Tibetan culture, what a wonderful world it must be!!!
Anyway, again I digress; I was going to tell you of the time we had in Hong Kong.....Ahhhhh, a place that never seemed to sleep, let alone be without a person, at every turn. This city doesn't just tick, it whizzes, if there is such a thing. Never have I seen SO many people be able to move around, whether it be by ferry or bus, taxi, helicopter or train, there is a way to get to and from anywhere. The other thing I was gob-smaked with, were the amount of stores and the walkways and tunnels that allowed you to get to them. In fact, for us to get to the Victoria Peak Tramway, a good 3/4 of the walk was either under ground or in/on some sort of a walkway; and all of these, had shops on, under or above them. Inside the countless Malls, you'll find the most amazing restaurants and food stands too, selling anything and everything, including the ridiculous and the sublime and when you do get to the actual 'open air', you're again bombarded with people and even more stores!!!
The views from the top of the Tramway are out of this world, as you stand on a platform, above ALL the buildings, that are clustered together like Penguins in the cold(ha, let's just say, the platform is a flat roofed building with an almost unending set of escalators, running down its center) and the Tram itself is great, considering it was built by the Brits, almost as soon as they arrived in Hong Kong. The funniest part of the Tram is that you go up the mountain facing up the hill and come down, facing the same way, ie: backwards, I told you it was built by the Brits!!! It had it's own Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum and at the top, was a figure of Michael Jackson(may he rest in peace), that everyone was getting their picture taken next to. There too, was a 'computer land' where we lost Tayler for a couple of hours whilst Nancy, with me in tow, did some, yep, you guessed it, shopping(and she says she didn't shop), in the many stores that were nestled on either side of the escalators!!!
Speaking of escalators and walk-ways, take our visiting the Big Buddha on Lantau Island for example. We started by walking via a covered bridge-way from the Hotel, to a Mall, where we descended a couple of levels into the belly of the MTR Station. Having bought our tickets, we then descended yet another two floors to the platforms, where we boarded the cleanest underground train that I've ever caught, yes, swine flu did cross our minds a few times, whilst we hopped on and off the various escalators!!! After about a 45 minute ride(going past the Disney Station, complete with a Mickey Mouse Train), we arrived at Tung Chung, where upon exiting the station, walked a bit(about a quarter mile), to yet another escalator, which took us to the ticketing booths of the Crystal Cars(namely glass bottomed cable cars). We climbed aboard our own car and were wonderfully transported to a green valley oasis, 25 minutes away called Ngong Ping. As you can see by the photos, it was drop dead, breathtaking; but because of the reverence of this place to the Buddhist Faith, cameras were not allowed in, so what I'm unable to show you unfortunately, were the Religious Relic, Buddha Statue and Bell that were housed inside the Big Buddha itself!!!
Some other artifacts on display were unbelievably beautiful drawings(done in blood), of varying times in Buddha's life and miniature scrolls and pictures, only visible under a magnifying glass(think Jewelry Loop) and seeing these relics, further cemented in my mind, the unbelievable contrasts that happen everywhere in China, a land of complete Yin and Yang!!!
Take for example when you buy your tickets to the Buddha. At the Crystal Cars, you pay more to 'get' to it and when you get there, find that to 'go' there, need another ticket, oh and not only does this ticket allow you to see the Relics but also gives you a free bottle of water and ice-cream once you've gone 'through' it. The example, if you didn't quite get it, was that you can't take photos because of it being a highly religious place , but can charge 3 times because it's a highly religious place, let alone swill water and eat Ice-cream ; well actually, the water and ice-cream were needed after the stairs and the heat(someone did their marketing homework!!!)
Anyway, a good time was had by all and the journey home was one filled with Australian Ladies, out for a good old.....you guessed it, SHOP!!!
Ades
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