Hong Kong

Nei hou from Hong Kong! (We have switched from Mandarin to Cantonese.) We came over from Zhuhai on Monday, crossing over the South China Sea by high-speed ferry in only 70 minutes. Hong Kong is a Special Autonomous Region made up of several islands. They have their own currency, they drive on the left side of the road (the British colonial influence), and we can finally drink the water. We are staying in a beautiful hotel in Kowloon, across the water from the main business districts on Hong Kong Island, pictured above. In fact, the two photos above were taken from our hotel suite. Pretty cool, huh? (BTW, the building at right with the illuminated girders is the famous Bank of China building designed by I.M. Pei, quite a scandal when it was built because its stark, angular lines go against all rules of feng shui.)

Jon has been working, teaching at the University of Hong Kong (the Harvard of China, he tells us), and meeting again with some of the people he met there. We hope to start sightseeing (and shopping) in earnest tomorrow (although Jon has managed to buy one new suit already, and we briefly found the Temple Street Market, which is similar to the old world market we had gone to in Shanghai. Believe me, we'll go back there again.)

The funniest thing we've seen so far is that everything here is decorated for Christmas, and I mean everything -- entire sides of huge buildings, every inch of our hotel, etc. It's a bit disconcerting, this being a supposedly non-religious country (or at least a Buddhist one), but it makes for good sales at the stores.


The buildings pictured above are 12 stories tall. That's a lot of Christmas lights!

Stay tuned for more Hong Kong photos coming soon!