Pacific Coast Drifter

Hong Kong's airport is on an island about thirty miles from the main island. For only a few bucks their high speed train zooms across the island, through a tunnel to the mainland, stops in Kowloon, then through another tunnel to the main island and Hong Kong Central. Central is the main business district that you see in all the movies, and is where I got off.

I started hiking toward the docks, the hot muggy air felt like a sauna. This is one of the best looking cities in the world - huge buildings everywhere with modern steel archetecture.The Bank of China building has a triangular cross section, the Hong Kong Bank building has the gridwork on the outside, the Jardine building (where I had lunch) has 1700 round windows and the locals call it "the building of a thousand orifices". Several were above 1000 feet, and some were close enough together that it seemed like a person could jump from one to the next.

The streets were narrow and busy, but an elevated walkway connected all the buildings in the busy harbor area. It's a fun way to get around and follows the streets without crossing traffic. And it was covered and kept me out of the rain. I got off at the north end of the walkway, which was right in front of the dock for the ferry to Kowloon.

Hong Kong Central is on an island, only about a mile from the mainland. I hopped on the ferry for a real nice cruise across the harbor to Kowloon. For about two dollars, this was a lot of fun for the money. On the Kowloon side, the ferry docks right next to the riverfront park. This made a nice place for a stroll, with people doing Tai Chiin the grassy areas and elevated decks where I could watch the boats in the harbor and get a wide angle view of the skyline across the way.

Hong Kong's business district reaches right up in to the mountains, and is really a spectacular sight. Looking across the harbor, the China Bank building is on the left and Bank of China is in the middle. Those are both over 1200 feet, according to my guidebook, but on the right is a new building that's not finished yet and it appeared to be 50% taller than either of those.

I took the ferry back to Central and wandered around for a while. I wanted to see some of their parks, but I couldn't figure out their bus system. The busses were different colors and sizes, and go to different places but they all stop at the Jardine building, so I had no idea which one went where. One of the parks has a tram that goes to the top of the mountain just south of downtown. From the top, it looks down on the skyscrapers, directly below. My big mistake was eating at the Jardine building. It took a half hour to figure out what I wanted and then even longer to eat it because I used chop sticks. (I wanted to blend in with the locals) I should have eaten at McDonalds, across the street, but I figured that would be a sacrilege in Hong Kong. So I started wondering around town.

It's kind of exciting walking around Hong Kong alone. I followed the raised walkway to a small park and checked out a few stores. But being short on time and not knowing the busses, I didn't go anywhere exciting.

So anyhow, I got back to the airport two hours before the flight and wandered through their shops for a while. The Hong Kong airport is huge. I'll bet it's a mile from the front doors to the farthest gate, which happens to be where my gate was. The lobby area with the stores is several floors, and for some unknown reason the esculators only go down - to return to an upper level I had to take the elevator. I snapped a few pictures then started walking to my gate. I used the moving sidewalks and walked fast, and it still took ten minutes. I don't know why, but every time I got on or off a plane during this trip, I was at the far corner of the airport.