Day 2: Hong Kong

Didn't get to write again for a bit - had to get around the Great Firewall! We got on the early train from Guangzhou to Hong Kong our second morning, hoping to get to the Burmese embassy early enough to try to apply for our visas, only to find out it was Saturday and therefore all the embassies and consulates were closed! I guess it's easy to get a bit confused when you lose an entire day on the journey across the Pacific. Anyway, we were slightly relieved to have the entire rest of the day to explore Hong Kong rather than be wrapped up in visa business. As one of the world's biggest financial centers, HK doesn't initially seem that different from any of the world's other huge and wealthy metropolises, but does have some individual attributes such as a fantastic public transportation system and many unique buildings of ridiculous height. HK is like Guangzhou, in that the surface area of the city is not any greater than large cities in other countries but the buildings are 5-10 times as tall, or even more. Strolling through HK Island is a dizzying trek through towering buildings, both commercial and residential, upscale and crumbling, old and shiny-new. Our hotel, the Island Pacific, was a skyscraper right in the middle of where mainland Chinese immigrated to, and that means a less polished and more exciting part of town, but unfortunately also meant the heart of shark fin distribution territory. Environmental disaster aside, we enjoyed the luxurious hotel and fantastic harbor views from the 15th floor, and the other aspects of our busy neighborhood. Some streets seemed to specialize in one or two particular products, such as deer-antler-and-hoof-street, or bird's-nest-street. On every street in our neighborhood there were several open-front shops selling dried food items, most of which were unidentifiable by sight or smell. We continued our walking tour of China with a hike across HK Island: from Western, we walked through Sheung Wan, Central (stopping for a delicious dim sum lunch on the highest floor of a 4-story restaurant, Treasure Lake), Soho, and around the Peak area, which is a small mountain covered in trees and greenery right in the middle of Hong Kong Island that affords some incredible city and harbor views. You can take a decades-old tram to the top of the Peak, which is ridiculously crowded, of course, but also is quaint and has a long and interesting colonial history. At the top was a ridiculous mall-type monstrosity that we finally managed to escape, and were then able to enjoy a walk through the woods and the zoological and botanical garden. We then made our way over to Kowloon to watch the light show, an incredible exhibition set to music where each of the massive skyscrapers on HK Island (International Finance Center, China Tower, HSBC, etc) light up in turn and then in a synchronized display of variously colored spotlights and lights all over the buildings. Quite the experience. It wasn't too chilly, despite being on the water at night. We crossed back over by Star Ferry to HK Island, stopped for a drink on the terrace of the IFC, and had a late dinner after at a tiny Cantonese restaurant whose name I can't remember, but which was completely delicious: garlic steamed eggplant, roast-pork-stuffed soft tofu with spring onions, garlic-sauteed bean shoots, etc. A very satisfying end to our second day in China.