20231023 AAAA Trip - Hong Kong touring

2023 Alaska, Asia, Australia, Arabian Peninsula Trip 
Day 37/105 - Hong Kong

The Chinese flag is on the left and the flag of Hong Kong is on the right

Today is the first of three days in Hong Kong.  This is the end of this leg of the trip - the Tokyo to Hong Kong leg.  Tomorrow, about 620 guests will disembark, and about the same number of new passengers will join for the Hong Kong to Bangkok segment.  

We were pleased this morning as we expected China immigration to be a pain to deal with.  Since we are remaining on the ship after Hong Kong, we were treated as "in-transit" passengers, just like crew, and we didn't have to do anything with China immigration.  Winning!  

Today, we opted for the included Postcards of Hong Kong tour.  The roughly five-hour tour took us all over the area, giving us an overview of Hong Kong.  We made stops at (1)Victoria Peak, (2)Aberdeen Marina, and (3)Stanley Market, all on Hong Kong Island. We are docked at the (S)Kai Tak Cruise Terminal.  It is huge, mainly because this used to be an airport.  The dock was a runway.  It is seriously big.

This was, by a large margin, the longest we have ever had to walk to get to ground transportation.  The return walk at the end of the day seemed even longer.  That's one way to get steps in, I guess.

Victoria Peak

Victoria Peak is a mountain on Hong Kong Island. A main attraction is the funicular tram that takes passengers up 396 meters above sea level.  The incline is so steep that buildings appear to be leaning on a gradient of between 4 to 25.7 degrees.  It was visually weird.

The camera was level as I was standing - you can see that the buildings appear to be leaning severely left

Sky Terrace 428 is 428 meters above sea level, hence the name - there is shopping, dining, and a casino here

There were many footprints oriented in the direction of famous cities around the world.

The views of the city were spectacular

There I am, capturing images for you, dear readers :-)

I can see our room from here!

After our visit, we were off for a drive to the marina in Aberdeen, toward the south of Hong Kong Island.

Aberdeen Marina

Here, we took a 20-minute boat ride around the marina area, taking in the sights.

This used to be a floating restaurant until it sunk a couple of years ago

This is a sampan, the type of boat we traveled on

One boat had fish hanging to dry

Yes, that's a tree growing in the bow of a boat

We returned to our starting point

Walking back to the bus, we could hear loud birds - it was a whole bunch of black-collared starlings.

Stanley Market

Next up was a visit to Stanley Market. This is a semi-covered street with all kinds of vendors selling everything from small drones to silk robes, to t-shirts, to paintings.  It was interesting browsing the shops.  We also walked over by the water so Arlona...well...you know.

The shopping was surprisingly diverse

That's the South China Sea out there

Look - reachable water!

We saw several shrines as we walked

After about an hour, we boarded the bus for the ride back to the port.  Here are more things we saw throughout the day.

The American Consulate

Hong Kong supposedly has more Rolls Royce automobiles than anywhere on the planet - we didn't see any but we did see a Ferrari, an Aston Martin, and this Bentley

Hong Kong requires that all construction scaffolding be made from bamboo - it is strong, flexible, environmental, and lasts for 30 years - its use is a required class in architecture school

Back on the ship, we were treated to a beautiful sunset behind Hong Kong.

After sunset, the Hong Kong skyline comes alive.

A couple buildings had animations running while others just had cool lights.

We waited until 8 p.m. when a laser show was supposed to happen.  Our tour guide today warned us that we might be disappointed, and we were.  We really didn't notice much.

We did make the effort to stay up for tonight's destination performance, Chinese Cultural Extravaganza.

The first act was two performers, one on a two-string violin-like instrument and the second on something resembling a dulcimer.  The amount of music they could produce was incredible.

Next was the dance of the fans.  The performers walked in such a way that they appeared to float across the stage.  It was mesmerizing.

The final act was Changing Faces.  The main performer's mask changed almost instantaneously, multiple times.  It was very creative and entertaining.  The second performer was an acrobat who did several awesome tumbling passes.

We enjoyed the performance and appreciate Viking making the effort to bring on special performances that feature the culture of the area that we are visiting.

Tomorrow is disembarkation/embarkation day.  We plan to take the shuttle into town and tour the shopping areas.