11th April 2010 – Day 1 in Hong Kong

11^th April - Hong Kong

We have just endured a 14 hour and 20 minte plane ride on a flight that did not have one empty seat. No I have not missed a day on purpose we just lost one as we crossed over the date line. It s now Sunday 11 April at 6.30 am but it is Saturday 10^th April at 6.30pm. We are exactly 12 hours behind you guys.

We arrived at the Harbour Grand Kowloon Hotel. It takes after its name and its very Grand with an entire vista of the sea. Gorgeous. We were given a couple of hours to bathe and change, after all we had just had a 14hour 30 minute flight. We needed to ease out the kinks. Pamela I am so sorry that I didn't know you were leaving us. I really wanted to spend more time talking to you. I look forward to you rejoining us at some point.

At 11.00 am we were given our Scavenger Hunt books and we set off. I never dreamt that it was going to be so tough, don't get me wrong we had a terrific day but boy was it difficult and long.
We had to be back by 10.00 pm. What a long day we walked miles.

These were the Scavenges that we did:-

1)Locate and visit the Noonday Gun – at noon! (25 points)

2) Visit the Hong Kong Museum of Art and become an instant art critic by creating a 15 second video short explain the piece – have fun! (35 points}

3)Today is Sunday, take the Start Ferry ( upper deck) go and engage some of the groups of ladies picnicking about the Star Ferry terminal area in Central. Why are they there?? Who are they? Get a team photo with a friendly group. (25 points)

I thought that this was a fun one. Most of the nannies and housekeepers in Hong Kong are from the Philippines, they come over here and live in the house with their families but Sunday is their day off. They don't have homes to entertain each other in so the ladies get together and have picnics. They are hundreds of these women sitting in groups, playing cards, eating, listening to music, chatting, watching DVD's. I mean hundreds and hundreds. It is amazing. They are NO men evidently they stay and work in the Philipines.

4)Have a traditional dim sum lunch at City Hall (25 points)

Doesn't sound hard except on Sundays there is a 1 hour wait for a table. Here is Lily eating the din sum

5)Explain the wounded beasts at the base of the HSBC building (25 points)

These are 2 big bronze lion sculptures that were made in 1935, one is named Stephen and the other Stitt. They have bullet wouds in them from the battle of Hong Kong in 1941. If you look over nLily's shoulder you can see one of the ""wounds".

6)Take a poll by asking 5 locals ( not people at any hotel) whether or not they are interested in letting Beijing rule them totally? Or do they want to be free, independent and democratic nation? (35 points)

This was tuough because in a communist country everyone is afraid to talk about their political beliefs. We polled 5 younger people and they all said unanimously that they wanted to stay under Beijing Rule because of the economic tragedies in the rest of the world and that China was in a strong position and so Hong Kong will remain strong. They find it is better the devil you know than a new government who they don't know if they can trust. Mummy team got 5 who wanted Independence and Zoe got 3 who didn't want Independence and 2 who did. A very big difference in a very small survey.

7) Take a ferry (either there or back) then the new "lift" up to visit the "world's biggest outdoor Buddha". How many times do the bells around it ring? (150 points)

Comment: We took a ferry out to Lantau Island. This took 1 hour, it was very rocky but Lily and I survived fine. We then went up to the Big Buddha better known as Poi Mo, by Cable Car. This was quite an experience. It was a very hazy day and the wind was howling around the car. It took another 30 minutes to reach the top. Plenty of time to appreciate the views, ogle that some opt to walk up, I think it would take me 1 week to walk up there. When we finally got there we then had to climb up some very steep steps, probably 300 or 400 steps to the foot of the Big Buddha. He s very awesome, nothing I can say can prepare you for quite how large he is, unfortunately due to the cloud coverage most of the time you could only just see his silhouette but we were lucky because just briefly the clouds parted and we could see he clearly. Thank you Lord. The biggest challenge was getting back off the top of the mountain. We stood in line for almost 2 hours to get back in the cable car. But it was still worth seeing

8) Have something daring at She Wongs Yee's- Causeway Bay (35 points)

This restaurant is famous for its snake soup. We passed on that thought especially after seeing what it looked like. We order barbeque pork and chicken. The pork was like real Chinese pork. I enjoyed it. The chicken on the other hand was cold out of the fridge covered in a yellow orange gelatinous layer of YUCK and when we cut it to try and eat it the inside was not cooked. It was not a favorite at all.

9)Take a ride up to the top "the world's longest escalator". I want video (25 points)

Comment: When they say longest they really mean longest escalator. It takes about 30 minutes to reach the top. It breaks every now and then so people can get on and off and you have to walk a couple of steps and then off it climbs again. We did it about 8.00pm and Lily and I ran up it the entire way. We had a check in at 10.00pm and if you aren't there in time you lose points. But what goes up then has to come down the problem is that it is electrical on the way up ( don't mind Lily and I ran it very out of breath). But coming down it is only steps. So we then had to turn around and walk back down thousands of steps. It was fun going up but very tedious coming down.

10) Buy a copy of the South China Morning Post. What is Hang Seng and how many participate in it? (10 points)

Comment: Hang Seng is a bank that also is part of the stock market with billions of dollars in assets.