Ferry and a slow tram — Hong Kong, China
Where I stayed
Hotel ICON Hong Kong
Hotel ICON Hong Kong
This morning we could see The Peak (the top of Hong Kong island) for the first time. The forecast was for showers but things were looking better than the first two days. After another large breakfast we set off for Hong Kong island and headed to the Star Ferry. We had a rather bumpy crossing but soon arrived on the island. Once one of the few ways to the island, there were then road tunnels and now there are two MTR tunnels. Many of the buildings around Central and Admiralty (where the bulk of the offices are situated) are linked by walkways that are above street level. This makes getting around much easier as you are not always trying to compete with the traffic, but it is not always obvious which way to go to continue in the same direction.
Our first mission was to climb up some of the levels to Hollywood Road to look at some of the art shops - though most turned out to be rather expensive antique shops. Next we headed east going from shopping plaza to shopping plaza. Most are on the bottom 4-6 floors of the tall office blocks seemingly with many of the same shops. Quite why a city of 7 million people, many quite poorly paid, needs so many shopping malls, and perhaps tens, if not hundreds, of individual brand name shops is not clear; one can only presume that they are making some money!
Shortly after we passed the Legislature Building we passed what was HMS TAMAR, though its distinctive shape was hidden by scaffolding and obviously it was no longer the tallest building on the waterfront. (It is now used by the Chinese Armed Forces.) We next decided to take a tram to the eastern end of the line and visit the Coastal Defence Museum. Whilst not far in terms of miles the trip took about an hour thanks to the traffic and the number of red traffic lights. At the end of the line we had a 15 minute to the museum in an old Coastal Defence Fort.
The Museum had been set up very well with a very good series of displays on the history of the coastal defence of Hong Kong. This included the Japanese invasion in 1941 and was right up to date with the Chinese arrival in 1997. There was lots to see - including a Brennan torpedo, which was fired from land against any ships trying to enter the harbour. As we came out of the fort (much of it underground) we found ourselves in sunshine, with blue skies.
We returned to the end of the tram line, but went to the near MTR station and travelled back to Kowloon in less than 25 minutes - a trip that took well over 90 minutes on the way out. We then returned to the hotel for our evening cocktails.
Following drinks we decided to visit the Temple Street Night Market - though the street is actually full of shops, that spill out onto the street, almost throughout the day. The trick here was to bargain for everything, starting at under 50%, and expecting a greater discount if buying more than one of anything. After an hour here we headed back to the hotel for a light supper in the Ground Floor restaurant called 'Green'.