Most of the previous posting on Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong was written just as the title says, on the Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong. You can get a lot written in sixteen hours in between naps and meals. The balance was filled in gradually here and there afterward, but mostly, time on the trip proper is used for doing, not writing. Later, once in China, I was concerned about not having proper access to the internet at our first stop in Guangzhou (Canton). That was partially resolved in Shanghai, where access was closer to normal, but not completely so. There was still a Big Brother element in certain internet items not being reachable. In any case, there was no time for additional research, writing, or posting. This posting is being started on the train out of Shanghai, two weeks later. (It was finished a month later, back home in New York.)

Because of the nature of how this four-week China trip was set up, I'm treating it as three separate, but consecutive trips to China, precisely because that's how it felt to me. Roughly the first week is the time on my own, the way I like it, on the plane, in Hong Kong, and in Macau. The next two weeks are the main high-speed tour, and the last week is my Tibet/Xi'an add-on, plus the return flight.

Hong Kong   Taiwan (2009/43-44) was my first introduction to China. Hong Kong and Macau are my second. My gloriously independent week before yielding to group travel to be led about like a kindergartner began with the arrival, after leaving New York on a Monday, at the Hong Kong airport on a Tuesday. Group members were to arrive the following Sunday to be met by a representative at the airport and being given an Airport Express ticket into town, plus the inevitable included transfer. I, on the other hand, had checked out in advance online what to do and how to do it, and stopped at the Airport Express counter to buy my own one-way ticket into town.

My second stop was at an ATM machine to get a little local cash. I remember the long-gone years of travelers checks, and it's been a long time since I carried large sums of cash from home. I carry a just-in-case amount of US$ in cash, and pick up what I need, as I need it, at ATMs, already in the local currency. That way I'm never carrying too much cash at once, of one kind or the other. I was quite surprised on joining the group later at the number of people with large sums of cash on them, sometimes in money belts, who went to change cash—at who-knows-what rates—rather than drawing a bits out of an ATM, as needed during the trip. Some were adamant about carrying cash as being the only way to go. And one man lost US$800 out of a jacket pocket. Another advantage of using ATMs is the elimination of nuisance change. If you change an even amount of home currency, you'll get an odd amount of the foreign currency, including tiny bills and change. If you withdraw from an ATM, it's always in even amounts of foreign currency, and the odd pennies in the exchange show up instead in your bank statement at home. I see ATMs as a win-win situation.

I made a third stop while still at the airport to get an Octopus Card. This is the all-purpose money-holder card that started in Hong Kong and has spread to many Asian cities, and also to London, at least, where it's called an Oyster Card. When you get the card, you leave a mandatory, returnable deposit, plus an initial amount, which you can add to at any MTR station. When you take an MTR train, bus, tram, or ferry, you hold the card over the reader and it subtracts the fare (reduced with the card discount), and shows you your balance. You can also use it at vending machines, and at some shops, notably the very ubiquitous 7-Eleven, which apparently has become an Asian mainstay. When you're done with it, you get the deposit and any remaining balance back, minus a small fee. It's very worthwhile. I got the "Elder" version for seniors, which slashed a lot of transportation prices considerably more. It also sounds a but more distinguished to be called an Elder rather than a Senior.

Having learned about the Octopus Card and Airport Express at home online, I was now ready to go into town. I found that the special-rate Airport Express is like all the other MTR stations in that the platforms are air-conditioned and have doors. I've found similar platform doors rarely, notably in some areas of the Moscow Metro. The platform is glass-enclosed, and the train pulls in with its doors lining up with the doors on the platform, and all open together. It's exactly the same as on an elevator, where the car's doors open together with the doors on your floor. Enclosing the platforms also prevents accidents, such as falling onto the track.

On arrival, I had a Half-Day remaining, and knew I couldn't do too much after the overnight on the plane, but I did want to start on Hong Kong Island. The train makes a stop or two, then stops at the large station at Kowloon West, then crosses under the harbor to the station at Central, on Hong Kong Island. It costs a pittance more to go the extra stop, but I did it for two reasons. Kowloon is not that large, but my hotel in the southern part of Kowloon was not all that close to the Kowloon West station. Also, if this is my first visit to Hong Kong, I'm going to HONG KONG!

The special Airport Express station at Central connected directly to the regular MTR station at Central. There were two things I wanted to do. I first wanted to step outside and get a good look at the city. I found that this is impossible. Everything is exit ramps and overhead roads. You can't "see" anything. Even a few days later when I walked around Central I found it hard to get a feeling for the place, since it's all canyons of tall buildings, even with the Hong Kong Tramway valiantly trying to give it a little atmosphere as it rolled down a main road. I found more of interest later in the back streets and roads coming down the hill, also the parks. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The second reason I came to Central was to be able to ride the famous Star Ferry from there to Kowloon—the south end of Kowloon, called Tsim Sha Tsui, much closer to my hotel. (Central and Tsim Sha Tsui are also connected by the MTR, and are only one station apart, but I'd be using that connection later.) Still, although the Star Ferry was just a couple of blocks away at the waterfront, I got an early indication of the heat and humidity I'd be putting up with as I trudged with my roller bag up to the ferry terminal.

STAR FERRY The "Star" Ferry dates back to 1880 and has provided an essential cross-harbor service for many years. Even though today the harbor is criss-crossed with rail and road tunnels, the Star Ferry remains still as a popular and inexpensive passenger ferry service, as well as an attraction for visitors. Two routes remain, but the main route is still between Central and Tsim Sha Tsui. The company has a fleet of nine ferries and carries over 70,000 passengers a day, or 26 million a year. Each ship has the word "Star" in its name.

The National Geographic Traveler named the Star Ferry crossing as one of 50 places of a lifetime. The Frommer guide to China that I used on the trip listed 14 "best experiences" in China, and the ferry was among them. While the lower deck is cheaper, the 1st Class upper deck, which includes a blessedly air-conditioned section, only costs HK$2.50, (which is 33 US cents), and that's before the discount for using the Octopus card. I felt it was a no-brainer to start my visit to Hong Kong by using the ferry, and to get to my hotel at the same time.

The Star Ferries (Photo by Greg Hume) are smaller than I expected, and do show their age. They cross in just a few minutes, but you do get views of both sides of the harbor. Click to enlarge to note the name of this ferry, the Twinkling Star. This is the view of the upper deck (Photo by CUMBELEE), with the enclosed air-conditioned compartment up front beyond the windows. I was glad to cross a second time later with the group to repeat the experience. Here's a short YouTube video about the Star Ferry.

I made my way for a few sweltering blocks to the Sheraton on Nathan Road, which I'd booked free on Starpoints for five nights. It was very comfortable, and although my room looked north on Nathan Road out front, a side window had a view of the western half of Hong Kong Island, including Victoria Peak. That made it easy to not only check the weather, but to see if Victoria Peak, the highest point on the island, was socked in, as it was the day I arrived. That evening I took a walk to see the lights of Nathan Road, and went to bed early.

HONG KONG MUSEUM OF ART I had flown on a Monday, my half-day was Tuesday, so Day 1 of my five full days was Wednesday, a day of rain. I was so glad I'd packed my small collapsible umbrella, but was also glad that Frommer had recommended, in addition to a number activities (temples, gardens), two museums I'd planned on seeing in any case. Even better, the Hong Kong Museum of Art was across the road from the Sheraton, and the Hong Kong Museum of History about a 15-minute walk to the north. Even though the entrance fees were low, and even lower for "elders", on Wednesdays, museums were free for all, so it seemed sort of preordained that this day would start as a museum day.

While Asian art is not my preferred artistic style, when one is in China, all of a sudden it seems obvious that Chinese art is what one should be looking at and caring about, and it immediately becomes more captivating. The most interesting museum sections covered Chinese Antiquities and Chinese Fine Arts, such as painting and calligraphy. These included porcelain and ceramics, such as urns and pots, also robes. They're all decorated with Chinese fantastic creatures, including the most popular two, the dragon and the phoenix, which are creatures of power. Other decorations are animals of the human realm, such as the bat, deer, crane, and Mandarin duck.

All the painted art, also calligraphy, was on scrolls, presented either horizontally on tables or vertically as wall hangings. The scrolls typically show nature, such as mountains, snow, rivers, landscapes, flowers, animals, fish, and butterflies, also costumes, and often tell a story. Much of the art comes in colors, other pieces are black and white, often with a beige background. Outside one exhibition hall was an animation on a plasma TV of a contemporary young woman in jeans fantasizing she was taking part in an ancient, legendary love story on a scroll inside the hall, an interesting juxtaposition of present and past. In addition, the museum had good view of Hong Kong across the harbor.

HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY The history museum covered everything, with areas for the Natural Environment, prehistoric Hong Kong, the Dynasties, Folk Culture in Hong Kong, the Opium Wars and Cession of Hong Kong to Britain, the birth and early growth of the city, the Japanese occupation, the Modern Metropolis, and the Return to China. The topics that for me were the most interesting started with the ethnography. There was a life-size replica of a junk (Photo by Ziko van Dijk) set in what was made to look like a dock area above artificial water. You could walk across the small deck and peer into the tiny cabin to see a mannequin of a woman preparing dinner. There were spectacular costumes in cases, displays of red lanterns, explanations of festivals, mannequin men as dragon dancers in a New Year's Parade (Photo by Ziko van Dijk).

There was an extensive display on Cantonese opera, with music playing in the background. Videos showed performers dressing backstage, first with a white body suit underneath to keep the costumes clean, and then putting on the spectacular costumes themselves (Photo by Ziko van Dijk); note very carefully the two HUGE plumes coming out of either side of the male figure's headdress, spanning a distance much wider than the two figures standing side-by-side. Videos also explained how stylized eye movements indicate emotions; how the stylized hand gestures each have their own meaning; how merely holding a whip means riding a horse; how walking around stage, often in a circle, indicates travel. So much of Chinese opera involves coded messages such as these and it was fulfilling to learn some of them.

The British takeover of Hong Kong after the Opium Wars was beyond what I'd ever understood. Displays showed how, for almost 3 ½ centuries after Portugal arrived in Macau in 1498 there was nothing but peaceful trade there, but with the British, it was the Opium Wars in the 1840's where trade changed to war, and Hong Kong eventually was ceded to Britain.

It seems that, while Chinese tea was always in demand in Britain, British products were not popular in China, so that the balance of trade was in China's favor. To counter this, Britain started shipping opium grown in British India to China. What started as 4,000 chests a year in the early 19C became 35,000 chests a year in 1838. The trade imbalance was totally reversed, but the Chinese economy was drained, and addiction spread to 10 million addicts in China. The situation gave rise to the Opium Wars, which China lost, and eventually had to cede Hong Kong to Britain.

At another location, a typical, traditional Hong Kong street from the past was reproduced, showing a pedicab, a grocery, a clothing store, a teahouse, a bank, and a pawnshop. Pawnshops thrived for financial purposes, especially before the banking era began. A traditional herbal medicine shop was shown. These still exist, although Western medicine has gradually been adopted alongside traditional medicine.

NOTES ON DAILY LIFE Let's pause for a moment on this first full day in Hong Kong to list some items noted down that were of interest to me.

MTR I left the two museums in Kowloon, and since the rain had let up, I felt I could easily complete the day with three rail activities plus one temple of interest, even though the heat, and especially the rampant humidity, continued. This plan would get me across the harbor to Hong Kong Island, starting with a ride on the MTR to Central (the Airport Express is a special branch of the MTR).

The Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway (MTR) opened in 1979 and is being continually expanded. Owing to the concentration of population, the convenience of its use, and the dedication of the population to mass transit, the MTR is one of the most profitable metro systems in the world. This is a map of the MTR system in 2009 (Map by Sameboat). The Airport Express to Central is shown again. "My" line was the red line coming down from Tsuen Wan via Tsim Sha Tsui (my hotel) to Admiralty and Central, both of which were useful to me. Lines I used as extensions were the dark blue line west from Admiralty and Central to Sheung Wan (for the Macau ferry), and the green line northeast to both Wong Tai Sin and Diamond Hill.

[To jump ahead for a moment, note this. The Octopus Card works on all lines with one exception. Look at the light blue line starting in Hung Hom. It goes up to the Shenzhen border at two points, including Lo Wu. While the card is valid on this line, it isn't valid for those two border-crossing stations, where connections could then be made, after a walk-thru at customs, to subway lines in Shenzhen. Once I'd joined the group days later and we were ready to leave for Mainland China, we toured the building under construction in West Kowloon where the new high-speed connection would later be made to Guangzhou (Canton), but that wasn't ready yet. I therefore assumed that some regular train would take that same route out of West Kowloon. To my surprise, we were bused to Hung Hom, where a regular train (not MTR and not high-speed) took us to China via Lo Wu using the surface MTR tracks and not making a single MTR stop on the way. Still, I ended up viewing the scenery along the blue line in any case. While our train didn't stop at Lo Wu and instead cleared China customs on arrival in Guangzhou, this is the Lo Wu border crossing into Shenzhen for those using the MTR.]

CENTRAL-MID-LEVELS ESCALATORS The purpose of my taking my first MTR ride (other than the Airport Express), to Central, was to experience a rather unique mode of transportation, a series of outdoor covered escalators climbing the side of a mountain. When I arrived at Central, taking the Li Yuen Street East exit left me only a few blocks from the lower end of the escalator system.

Little on the north side of Hong Kong island is flat, and what there is, is largely landfill. The mountainside up to Victoria Peak starts rising within a few blocks of the harbor. Historically, Victoria Peak itself had always been a favored neighborhood for the wealthy since colonial times, since it was cooler, but the area half-way up the hillside, appropriately called the Mid-Levels, has also been a sought-after neighborhood, and still is today.

Copy-and-paste in a separate window this street map of Hong Kong:

You should be able to recognize quite a bit. In Kowloon, find the Airport Express line stopping in Kowloon Station (in the west), and then in Hong Kong; my Sheraton is on Nathan Road at the convergence of MTR lines at Tsim Sha Tsui; the Hung Hom station from which we eventually went to Mainland China is to the right; and the former Kai Tak Airport should be obvious. Now look down to Hong Kong Island and note how narrow the flat area is along its north shore. Now find on the lower left Victoria Peak, with the Peak Tramway arising from Hong Kong Park going up near the summit, all of which we'll discuss in a moment. Finally, to the left note the zigzag line going halfway up the peak, up to the Mid-Levels, and you've found the Central-Mid-Levels Escalators.

This series of covered, outdoor escalators (Photo by Ian and Wendy Sewell), connected by walkways as needed and with a parallel staircase adjacent, was built in 1993, and solved a commuting transportation need that required much less than a funicular (such as the Peak Tram). Guinness World Records reports that these escalators together, forming a single system, form the longest outdoor covered escalator system in the world. Since they opened, they've had a great influence on maintaining the pedestrian nature of the entire neighborhood, since the distance they cover is the equivalent of several kilometers/miles of zigzagging roads up the hillside which would otherwise be served by cars and buses. To show their popularity, the initial projected daily use was 27,000 people, but today the daily traffic exceeds 55,000.

The system is 800 m (2,600 ft) long, and rises 135 m (443 ft). It takes over 20 minutes end to end (30 for me, to allow for stopping and gawking). It's a single one-way system with a staircase on the side to accommodate foot traffic in the opposite direction. In the morning rush hour, 6-10 AM, the escalators do run DOWNHILL to assist commuters, but from 10:30 AM to midnight, they run, logically, uphill. I was surprised to find that the first three units at the bottom are in actuality travelators (Photo by K.C. Tang), or moving sidewalks such as one finds at airports, but on an uphill slope. Following the three travelators are not fewer than 20 escalators.

For my visit, I made my way over from Central, then entered the first unit. Much of the system is raised above ground (Photo by WingLuk), and passes over cross streets on bridges, here Robinson Road (Photo by CandyRobin), as one moves from escalator to escalator. Occasionally, one actually does cross a side road at grade, such as this crossing at Elgin Street (Photo by Maucaine). You pass shops and cafés on the way up, and the street life is vibrant, as shown here at Elgin Street. Toward the top, the neighborhood becomes more and more residential. It should surprise no one that I did travel the system all the way to its upper terminus at Conduit Road (Photo by Daniel Case), opposite the parkland leading up to the peak. However--I should have realized—one sees NOTHING. Hong Kong is so overbuilt with tall buildings, that from no spot on the way up do you see the harbor, not even from the uppermost end, which is surrounded by very tall, upscale apartment buildings (look again at the apartment buildings on Robinson Road, with is almost at the top). Pity.

I found a gem of a YouTube video that brings you all the way up the escalator system in high speed. You'll zoom up the travelators, then escalators, and walkways, over bridges or level street crossings, looking longingly occasionally at bars and cafés on the way, all the way up to the Mid-Levels terminus on leafy Conduit Road.

From the upper end of the escalators, what a bore it would be to just come down the steps. Having gained altitude, it's more fun to explore the adjacent neighborhood as one works one's way downhill. The upper area is upscale, and courtyards seem like mews. Further down, there are the cafés and curio shops in narrow winding streets, and at the bottom is the market area near the main roads. But I didn't go right to the very bottom immediately. I'd had a plan all along to go see the Man Mo Temple located about halfway down the walk from the Mid-Levels.

MAN MO TEMPLE The Man Mo Temple (Photo by Michal Osmenda), although fully surrounded by today's high-rises (what else?) is the oldest and most important in HK, dating from 1847-1862, built by Chinese businessmen. (Remember that "old" in Hong Kong is not "China-ancient", since the area was rural until developed by the British in the 19C.) The temple is dedicated, rather unusually to my way of thinking, to both Man, the god of literature, and Mo, the god of war.

One could already smell the incense from outside, and on entering, the most interesting area is the one that had multiple coils of incense (Photo by Elisa.rolle) hanging from the ceiling in two levels (I had seen similar in Singapore and Thailand), with rows and rows of adjacent Chinese lanterns (Photo by Elisa.rolle), seen more clearly in this detailed picture.

One more memory that's less "cultural" that I retain from Man Mo is the fact that it was still so brutally hot, and I was dripping sweat, literally. I sat down on a step in the courtyard, and lo and behold, there was, of all things, a soda vending machine, right in the courtyard. In need of hydration, I doubted I had pocket change, but then I noticed—of course, what else—I could use my Octopus Card to buy soda from the machine. I punched the button for orange soda, flashed my card at the reader, which deducted the price, and my salvation plopped into the chute. Thus, my memory of Man Mo is not only of incense coils and Chinese lanterns, it's of sitting on a step in the courtyard and cooling off, drinking my blessèd orange soda thanks to my Octopus Card. Priceless. Travel memories come on all levels.

HONG KONG TRAMWAYS We referred to the long east-west strip of flat land (much of it landfill) on the north shore of Hong Kong Island at the foot of the hillsides. This layout was ideal for the establishment in 1904 of the Hong Kong Tramways, one of the earliest forms of public transport in HK, running 13 km (8 mi). The trams today continue to run along this route plan (Map by The Port of Authority), with only selected stops shown here. The system—you use your Octopus Card, of course--is easy to follow, and all the stops in each direction are numbered and clearly named with the cross streets.

You may wonder why I would point out, and would go out of my way to travel on, what seems to be just another tram system, but in HK it's special. Not only are the trams all double-decker (Photo by Richard Gallagher), but Hong Kong Tramways is the only exclusively double-decker tram system in the entire world. Not counting heritage systems, that is, systems just using occasional antique trams, there are only three regular systems in the world that use double-deckers. The other two are in Alexandria, Egypt, and Blackpool, England, but Hong Kong's is the only one using double-deckers exclusively. For that reason, these trams have become a major tourist attraction.

Coming down the hill from the Man Mo Temple, I caught a double-decker at Sheung Wan and rode it to Admiralty, where I took the MTR one stop to Kowloon. (When I re-rode it several days later with the tour group, we went from Happy Valley to Sheung Wan.) Of course I sat upstairs, and got a seat near the front. I was glad to see that stop numbers and names were also indicated on the stop kiosks for viewing from the upper level of the tram.

This is a typical pair of tram stops (Photo by Matthias Süßen). If you wanted to catch a tram to go straight ahead from this view, would you run to catch the black or orange one?

Do not forget you're in Hong Kong where left-hand traffic prevails. The black tram on the left is about to proceed straight ahead, and the orange one on the right will be coming toward you. Click to enlarge the picture so you can read the small sign above the right-hand kiosk telling passengers on the tram's upper level that this is stop 46 W(estbound) at Pennington Street. Who knows, I could be among that crowd in the upper level of the tram. (Kidding.)

We have two YouTube videos on this subject. The first is a selection of trams in various advertising liveries transiting the area around Central. Pause at 4:12 to inspect the statues of Chinese Imperial Guardian Lions "guarding" a building. We'll discuss these in the future.

The second video shows the view from a tram's upper-level of other trams, stations, general traffic, and HK street life on a major road.

WONG TAI SIN TEMPLE On Day 2, Thursday, I looked out my hotel window at the angled view I had of Victoria Peak across the harbor and saw that it was still socked in, and the weather was generally overcast, so I used another alternative, and the day ended up consisting of two stops, both in northern Kowloon. I took the MTA north from Tsim Sha Tsui, making connections, to the Wong Tai Sin Station, and later on, rode one stop further to Diamond Hill. Both visits were very memorable and enjoyable.

The Frommer guide had given the temple two out of three stars. I'd seen plenty of temples before, in Japan, Singapore, Thailand, and even in Hong Kong (Man Mo), so just visiting a temple wasn't enough of an attraction. But it was two things that made Wong Tai Sin special. It had a strong emphasis on fortune telling, and had an interesting garden.

The temple is not ancient. It was founded in 1921, but has become HK's most popular Daoist (formerly spelled Taoist) temple, attracting Daoists, Buddhists, and Confucianists wanting to know their fortunes. It's also a major tourist attraction. It's so popular that even coming up out of the modern MTR station (I was directed quite precisely to exit B2) I could smell the incense in the air. While there are a number of smaller buildings and pavilions all around, the temple entrance (Photo by Chong Fat) is up a staircase and through an archway. Beyond this is a large plaza, and beyond that, the temple itself. Both in this last photo and in this next one you see kneeling people (Photo by Sengkang), and they are praying on the open, outdoor plaza. No one actually enters the temple's altar area beyond, but instead, people walk up to it. When doing so, they usually carry a handful of lit joss sticks, usually at least three, as you can see in the picture. All the burning incense from the many people coming here causes a smoke cloud (Photo by Sengkang) to form. When I was there, they needed an industrial-size fan, the height of a person, set up on the side to blow away the smoke, even though it was outdoors. In all these pictures note the traditional style of the temple, including the red pillars and two-tiered golden roof. Also note in this last picture the two Chinese Imperial Guardian Lions. This is a detail of the female lion with a paw on her cub (Photo by Elisa.rolle).

This short YouTube video concentrates both on the people walking up to the altar with joss sticks and also those praying on the plaza, many with food offerings, often oranges.

But you'll also note many shaking boxes of sticks, waiting for one to fall out. This being a temple that specializes in fortune telling, these people are participating in the practice of kau cim (Photo by Ted Chan), which sounds like "cow tsim". Kneeling before the main altar and lighting the joss sticks is part of it all as they make a wish for good fortune and shake the bamboo cylinder filled with fortune sticks until one falls out. A Western nickname for these is Chinese Fortune Sticks, and they are reminiscent of, but apparently not related to, the game of pick-up sticks.

The stick that falls out, which is numbered, is exchanged for a piece of paper with the same number, and later a soothsayer will interpret the fortune on the paper. Often the same paper is taken to multiple soothsayer booths to verify the interpretation. The interpreter, who charges a fee, doesn't exactly give a direct answer. Instead, he or she has a book of Chinese poetic phrases and historic stories, certain of which are quoted and re-told in a modern context to see what can be understood from them. Wong Tai Sin Temple is by far the most popular place for this practice in HK, and draws huge numbers of annual visitors.

Afterward, I wandered into a neighboring building and was shocked at the dozens and dozens of soothsayer booths (Photo by WiNG). This arcade is one of four on this level, and there were at least four more arcades on another level. I wondered just what was said in such a meeting, and am delighted that I found this YouTube video of an interpretation session. The interpreter quotes two prices for varying services. HK$ 500 is US$ 64, and HK$ 20 is only US$ 2.60.

Part of the temple, and directly adjacent to it, is the relatively new, and rather small, GOOD-WISH GARDEN (Photo by HK Arun), whose very name seems to relate to the fortune telling practiced here. Like the temple, it's surrounded, as is apparently everything in HK, by many, large apartment buildings. The garden is a series of circular, square, octagonal, and fan-shaped pavilions attached to each other by long covered walkways and bridges over ponds. As you can see here in the larger, two-story Water Pavilion, the temple's theme of red columns and green tile roofs is continued here.

By the time I'd reached the garden, a light rain had started, but in many ways it added to the coziness of the views from the protected covered walkways. I was going to report on something that I now see is shown in this last picture. Click to enlarge the lower columns in this pavilion, and you'll see through them, in purple and green, the sloped, huge (maybe 3 meters/yards across) yin and yang design made out of shrubbery. A very pleasant place to watch the drizzle.

There was one last thing I sought out in this garden, the Nine-Dragon Wall, also called a Nine-Dragon Screen, since its original use (not here) was to screen a temple's entry way from evil spirits coming in. While in China, I learned to understand the imperial significance of the number nine. If ten was reserved for heaven, the number nine, one below it, was reserved for the Emperor. In palaces and gardens, one could count nine little statues on roofs, or perhaps nine decorative knobs (3 by 3) on the center of a door. Thus the nine-dragon wall was also reserved for imperial use. There are two such walls in Beijing, one wall that I didn't see, in the Forbidden City, and one multicolored one, in Beihai Park, which I went out of my way to see. There are not many of these walls around elsewhere. I understand one is in Chicago's Chinatown and one in Canada. And one in the Good-Wish Garden of Wong Tai Sin Temple, which I most certainly went looking for.

I found it on an island in a pond (Photo by WiNG), near an artificial waterfall. This being a relatively new garden, it's only a replica of the one in Beihai Park, which dates from 1402 and has nine dragons on both sides, and in color. The Nine-Dragon Wall here (Photo by Callmesim) is monochrome, but I was glad to find it.

NAN LIAN GARDEN (in the rain) I went back to the MTR for one more outward-bound stop to Diamond Hill to visit the Nan Lian Garden, a replica garden of traditional style only a few years old. By the time I got there, the drizzle had become a downpour, and I appreciated my umbrella. I did the full one-way circular tour in the rain, and did get some cozy views from pavilions, and from under some banyan trees, but couldn't savor the full experience properly. Fortunately, the next day, the sun was out and I had time left over after my scheduled plans, so I came back to Diamond Hill. More information below.

HONG KONG PARK On Day 3, Friday, I finally saw Victoria Peak out of my hotel window rising majestically on Hong Kong Island, and I was finally ready to go where I wanted to go on the very first day. The MTR one stop to Admiralty allowed me to connect across the street to Hong Kong Park. Normally, one wouldn't get too enthusiastically about another park, but the reason that this one exists is special. The park site used to be government land under the British, and housed the military garrison, Victoria Barracks, so there are historic buildings there. In any case, a walk through the park lets one out at the far end at the Peak Tram.

I started at the Greek Revival Flagstaff House (Photo by Tksteven), the former Military Headquarters and the oldest existing Western building in HK, dating from 1846. Today it houses the (free) Museum of Tea Ware as a branch of the HK Museum of Art. While not exactly my cup of tea (sorry), it was nevertheless interesting to see the history of tea, various ways of making it, and a selection of pots, cups, and saucers.

The park had a conservatory with first dry, then humid garden plants, and it was followed by an open, walk-through aviary (Photo by UCLARodent) showing a typical rain forest of the region, specifically of the East Indies and the Philippines, with tropical birds flying freely. To enter, one walked through three separate curtains of plastic chains to keep the birds inside, and again to leave at the other end.

VICTORIA PEAK & the PEAK TRAM Victoria Peak, at 552 m (1,811 ft), is the highest point on Hong Kong Island (but not in all of HK—a mountain in Kowloon is higher). It's located on the western half of the island. Since the British arrived, its cooler temperatures made it the preferred destination and residence of the wealthy and powerful. A century ago, the rich reached it on a three-hour trip zigzagging up the mountain on sedan chairs, carried by coolies. Since 1888 it's taken only eight minutes via the Peak Tram (Photo by Jon Parise), which was the first funicular in Asia. It has a maximum grade of 48%, although the gradient varies considerably during the ascent. Actually, six funicular routes were approved, but priority was given to No 6, which ended up being the only one ever built. Until 1926 it ran by a steam-powered winding machine.

Today, over seven million visitors a year are attracted to Victoria Peak and the Peak Tram, HK's most popular attraction. The route is 1,350 m (4,429 ft) long rising some 400 m (1,312 ft) with four rather cute stations along the route, since it still serves local residents, but they are relatively infrequently used. I saw a guy get off at a local stop with the car so tilted that the staircase he stepped out onto looked like a series of Vs. It's a single track route with a passing loop, and two cars. Its history reflects the times of yore. There used to be three classes, and now there's just one. Also, from 1908 to 1949 there was brass plaque on the first two seats saying they were reserved for His Excellency the Governor, but could be used by others starting two minutes before departure, once it was clear the Governor wasn't showing up. Could there be anything more British Colonial than that?

This is a YouTube video of the Peak Tram. Note the graceful local station it passes at 0:14 and another at 0:39, and the passing area at 1:36.

You'll never get a Hong Konger to admit it, but the name of the Peak Tram encompasses two lies, one in each word. It's not a tram, it's a funicular, and trams run on the flat straightaways down near the harbor. And it doesn't get you to Victoria Peak. The upper terminal is located at a small mountain pass called Victoria Gap (Photo by Daniel Case), which is some 150 m (450 ft) below the summit, as shown here, which is, however, hikeable, if it weren't for the blasted heat. Instead of calling it the Peak Tram, it should more accurately be called the Victoria Gap Funicular, but who am I to quibble.

Built atop the upper terminal is the eight-story, wok-shaped (!!!) Peak Tower (Photo by WiNG), where, for an extra admission purchaseable with your tram ticket, you can visit the Sky Terrace, the Tower's roof, with the best views, Unfortunately the Peak Tower contains floor after floor of a shopping mall, a Ripley's Believe it or Not, a Madame Toussaud's, and next door is another mall, the Galleria. I find this carnival atmosphere unfortunate. From the roof, you could see everything on the north side of the island, Central, the Harbour, Kowloon, as well as the south side, often from the same spot. Below the Tower (in the background) there's also an attractive Chinese-style pavilion (Photo by Chong Fat), but with only north views.

But it's the views that one comes here for. Look at this magnificent panorama of Central, the Harbour, and Kowloon (Photo by chensiyuan). Whoops. Maybe I misspoke. In the distance, you can see the pretty mountain layering, and you've got a pretty good view of Kowloon, but you can see only half the harbor, and there's no hope of actually seeing Central directly below given the extent of overbuilding of apartment buildings right up to the park's edge.

Let's look instead at this view from a tall building on the Kowloon side (Photo by WING), so that we're looking toward Victoria Peak and Hong Kong Island, and can also see the harbor. In the foreground is an ocean liner at Ocean Terminal (which Kai Tak will be supplementing), and you can see a little red Star Ferry right above it.

NAN LIAN GARDEN (in the sun) I had time on my hands once I came down on the Peak Tram so I took the MTR back to Diamond Hill to revisit Nan Lian Garden, this time in the sun. Actually, I enjoyed comparing the atmosphere of the garden between my rainy and sunny visits.

The Chinese Garden, as I now learn after the fact, is a landscape gardening style, that has evolved over three thousand years. These gardens can be large ones built by emperors and other rulers both for pleasure and to impress. They can also be more intimate gardens created by scholars, poets, merchants, and others, meant for reflection and as a refuge from the outside world. They attempt to show the harmony there should be between man and nature, and typically consist of an idealized miniature landscape. They typically have walls around them and include ponds, rocks and boulders, trees, shrubs and flowers, everything connected by winding paths. They also include a number of judiciously placed pavilions and halls. To an extent, the modern Good-Wish Garden I had seen at the Temple reflected these precepts. The affect that these carefully arranged mini-landscapes is supposed to have is to present scenes, such as are seen on landscape paintings on scrolls.

I never knew much about Chinese Dynasties, but have now learned more about four important ones I've chosen whose names kept coming up as I visited China. The summary of these four will be presented in a later posting. It was on entering the Nan Lian Garden that I first learned about one of them, the Tang Dynasty, which existed, in Western terms, between the 7C and 10C. The Tang, I now know, is considered the first golden age of the classical Chinese Garden. The Nan Lian Garden is a modern garden, dating from 2006, but it was specifically built in the classical style of a Tang Dynasty Garden. We know that "nan" means "south", and I now find that Nan Lian means "Southern Lotus".

Perhaps it's because it was a relatively new garden in particularly good repair, but it was also the traditional style, that made me think of the word "perfection" as I walked around its rather expansive, one-way circular path. I had entered through its handsome Black Lintel Gate (Photo by Chong Fat). Like most areas in the garden, it had had one personality in the rain and another in the sun, but its beautiful woodwork was typical of what was to be found in the outbuildings in the garden.

Don't picture a flood of flowers in this garden. It isn't that sort. As I walked the path, the word that came to mind to describe the trees and shrubs (Photo by Teemeah), all placed just so, was "manicured". Also notable were the boulders (Photo by Deror_avi) placed between the shrubbery. I'd been warned in advance about a technique incorporated in classical Chinese gardens, particularly those in the style of the Tang Dynasty, known as "borrowed scenery", which you can see in the last picture. Behind the trees is a hill, located within the garden. Behind that, in light green, are other hills, but these are outside the walls. In laying out such a garden, sight lines are placed just so, so that external scenery is "borrowed" so that it looks like it's part of the garden, and so that the garden looks larger than it really is.

I again came across the banyan grove (Photo by Mk2010) of about a dozen trees, with seating beneath. It had offered some scant protection from the rain the day before and had a different personality in the sun.

There were a number of vernacular buildings within the garden that were purposely placed to blend into the man-and-nature ambiance. They included a small museum of porcelain, a watermill, a restaurant. One of the most attractive structures was beautifully and judiciously placed, the Pavilion Bridge (Photo by Chong Fat). But the first one I went into, near the entrance to the garden, was most unusual. It was called the Chinese Timber Architecture Gallery (Photo by Chong Fat). Inside, in the same, deep brown wood as the building itself is in, it had maybe a dozen models of buildings across China built to traditional standards, pagodas, palaces, and more. While I don't have a picture of any of the models, the building itself bore witness to the craftsmanship involved, as evidenced by this interior view of a wooden lintel supporting the roof (Photo by Clément Bucco-Lechat).

Nearby, signs led to a building called the Rockery (Photo by Chong Fat). What do you suppose that was all about?

This is Asia, and rocks can be art. As many boulders as there were outside, the Rockery contained special rocks and boulders on exhibit (Photo by HK Arun). It explained that these boulders were from a special quarry where this naturally glossy, wet-looking rock occurred. Many rocks were exhibited on displays of raked sand (Photo by HK Arun). Click to examine the unusual surface of these multicolored-multilayered rocks on both pictures.

I had seen something in the rain that I had never seen before, and wouldn't have noticed if I'd been there only on a sunny day. There were several buildings that had unusual, narrow columns in the front, like the pair here (Photo by Chong Fat). Any idea what they're for?

In the rain, it had been obvious. They're ingenious rainwater downspouts, consisting of little cups, one hanging below the other. Each cup has enough holes in its base so that it lets just the right amount of rainwater through, so that you seem to be looking at a column of water gracefully descending in front of your eyes in a most orderly fashion. I didn't even notice any splashing. The effect was hypnotic, such as when watching ocean waves, or a waterfall.

The most spectacular display in the Nan Lian Garden is in the center, on an island in a pond, the colorful building with a most memorable name, the Pavilion of Absolute Perfection (Photo by Michal Osmenda), with the vermilion bridge leading to it. I had to smile when I found out the name, since "perfection" had been a word on my mind here from the first time I set foot in the garden. But, for obvious reasons, the building is also known as the Golden Pagoda (Photo by Chong Fat). In the second picture you'll note that all the hills in the background, both near and far, are "borrowed scenery". Unfortunately, an apartment building sneaking into the view is a part of modern-day borrowed scenery, since it's been a millennium since the Tang Dynasty.

Behind the Golden Pagoda is a bridge over a main road which leads across the street to the Chi Lin Nunnery (click) (Photo by Sengkang). This is also not ancient (not much in Hong Kong really is). It's a large Buddhist temple complex, including gardens and cloisters that dates only from 1934, but which was reconstructed in the 1990's in the ancient Tang Dynasty style of traditional architecture. This style builds without nails, but instead uses special interlocking systems cut into the wood to hold them in place. These nunnery buildings, needless to say, are the only ones in this style in modern Hong Kong. Actually, it was the Chi Lin Nunnery that joined together in 2006 with the Hong Kong government to build Nan Lian Garden, so the two complexes together evoke the Tang Dynasty.

Day 4 in Hong Kong, Saturday, was when I took a full-day trip by hydrofoil ferry over to Macau. It was just as interesting as the rest of my week on my own—maybe more--but I'm going to describe Macau as a side trip, and it will be the subject of the next posting.

Day 5, Sunday, was my last independent day. I had seen what I'd wanted to, and it was the day I was supposed to transfer over to hotel to join the group tour, so I treated it as a rest day. I'd gotten a late checkout at the Sheraton, and used it to work on the first posting on Hong Kong.

The group trip had been put together by the agency with whom I've done a lot of travel business, but then coordinated with the director of the high-speed rail organization, who added his technical stops and high-speed rail routings. From the Sheraton I'd emailed the agency to find out when on Sunday the group would be getting together at the next hotel, and was told that several others were already in town, but the final arrivals would be coming in mid-afternoon. Therefore, I checked out and walked about 15 minutes with my wheeled bag over to West Kowloon to check into the Royal Pacific, which was also a very nice hotel.

I want to make it perfectly clear that, even after I surrendered my independence to living and traveling with a group, I still had an excellent, informative, and enjoyable trip, including many (not all) of the technical aspects. However, I will also be honest, and not all was perfect. I continue to have respect for the director as a leader in the field of high-speed travel, and as a proponent of its expansion to the US. However, I was not comfortable with his role as a group travel leader.

As I registered at the desk in the Royal Pacific, I fully expected to see a sign-in table nearby for the tour, but there was nothing. The clerk knew nothing about it either, so I mentioned the director's name, and she said she'd call his room. He answered, and I spoke to him. No, there was nothing at all going on this, the first day of our tour when we'd all be in the hotel. He'd talk to me at breakfast. Thus, a perfect opportunity for the group members to get to know each other that entire remaining half-day, possibly have dinner together, possibly to learn about some of the technical visits—nothing happened. It was not a propitious beginning. I had dinner alone at the hotel and spent the rest of the day writing.

It was now Monday again and the two-week group tour had started, so it was Day 1 (Group Tour) again. At breakfast the director and I figured out who we were so we could say hello, but there was still nothing planned for participants to meet even at breakfast. He said we'd get together in an hour to start the one-day "public transportation" visit of Hong Kong. It's therefore easy to compare this day's experience to what I'd already done regarding visiting transportation facilities earlier in the week.

Still not having met each other as a group, we boarded a tour bus (also known in my dictionary as a damn tour bus) and drove nearby to the director's first technical visit, one hour at the new high-speed station being built in West Kowloon for high-speed train travel to Guangzhou and Beijing. The whole hour was befuddling for me and I really didn't understand why we were visiting a facility that wasn't operative yet and where there was "nothing to see". The building is close to complete, and I, for one, was still under the impression that even regular trains, like the one we'd use the next day, would leave from here. Only later did I find out differently. It was my further introduction to the travails of following the travel plans of another, and not my own.

We then started our transportation tour of Hong Kong. We started with everyone missing out on the experience of taking the MTR (deduct one point), since we were wedded to that behemoth of a tour bus. We ended getting on some highway into a tunnel under the harbor and made our way to the Peak Tram, which we all took on the upward trip. We did not visit the Sky Terrace, which has the best view, but did stop at the Chinese-style pavilion, which is sufficient. We then had a two-hour lunch at which we each got up, introduced ourselves, and told of our interest in trains and high-speed travel. The lunch included in the day tour was outstanding, as were all of them, which were high points of the tour. I'll describe the meal situation in another posting. As good as this lunch was, though, it still took two full hours out of an already shortening tour day, and would have been, in my opinion, better done as a dinner in the evening.

After lunch, the local guide shocked us by not walking us back to the terminus of the Peak Tram, but instead leading us to the tour bus, which had apparently followed us up here in order to drive us down instead (along perhaps, a former sedan-chair route). I would have been outraged, if I hadn't already done the round trip earlier. I spoke to the director about this; he said he liked the ride down in a bus (deduct ½ point). He had also in the past expressed an interest in the Mid-Levels Escalators, but he now told me the guide had said there'd be too much walking if we did that, a fact the director didn't share with the other participants. (Deduct another point.) We then took the HK Tramway ride described earlier, and the Star Ferry. I calculate that I had done all five public transportation items on my own, but this group tour missed 2 ½ of them, or 50%. If I hadn't done what I'd wanted already, I'd have been upset. Still, I was able to use this experience as an indication of things to come.

Day 2 (Group Tour), Part 1 was the day we entered Mainland China. I've already talked about being driven over to that Hung Hom Station (otherwise an MTR station), and crossing the border at Lo Wu into Shenzhen, on our way to Guangzhou (Canton) at the head of the Pearl River Delta. After the upcoming posting on Macau, described as a side trip out of Hong Kong, the posting after that will move on to Guangzhou, that is, Day 2, Part 2, and beyond.

Language Mini-Pleasures   The basic premise of this website involves something I've always said, that travel and language go hand-in-hand. If you know the language of a country, it's invigorating, but even not knowing a thing about the local language, which would be the case in most countries for most travelers, also has its exciting moments. I remember in particular my last visit to Finland, not knowing a word of the language, yet reveling in the description of some words I saw on signs and in bookstores (2006/9).

Something similar happened in China. I do not know a word of Mandarin, nor do I know a great deal about the hànzi, Chinese characters in the writing system. But we've all reviewed a few of the easiest ones, and meeting these symbols on signs was like meeting an old friend.

Chinglish   We've all heard of language blends where an underlying language influences another, superimposed one, such as franglais and Spanglish. Frequently, the results are humorous, and I found many, many examples of Chinglish in Hong Kong, Macau, and Mainland China. I made a careful list of the best ones, and will present some here, and, since too much of a good thing all at once "gets old" fast, I'm going to sprinkle the remaining ones into future postings in places where they actually occurred throughout the trip.

We will all smile at them, but the astute observer will note two things while smiling. First, there is more than one way to express human thought, and they vary from language to language. For instance, in some languages you ARE an age, and in others you HAVE an age. Secondly, while the phrases are unusually expressed, you will probably understand them all nevertheless, which again illustrates that human expression cannot be contained within the confines of one language. Appreciate both these thoughts while smiling.

We can start with something that is NOT Chinglish, but which seems to have become standardized throughout Hong Kong. When nature calls, you look for signs with the standard designation of "Male Toilet" or "Female Toilet". These are the regular terms here, but I haven't seen them anywhere else. Smile at first, and wonder: is gender intrinsic to the structure or to the users? But that's the way it is.