Hong Kong - Day 2

With our Lonely Planet and all the tourist info spread out in front of us, we set out to see as much of HK as we could. This city is renown for its shopping opportunities. I’d like to say that it sucks to be here and not really be able to take advantage of all this shopping. For many years, when people asked whether I had returned to my birthplace yet, I would answer “No, not until I had enough money for all the shopping I would do.” I never ever thought that I would return here and not feel the compulsion to shop. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that I would be here and not want or need anything. In the last few years, I have learned that I needed less and less to be happy. There was a time when I might have been frantic at the number of stores I needed to visit in such a short time. That doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate the beautiful things here though. And it certainly didn’t mean that I didn’t drag Don, a decidedly hesitant shopper, along with me.

One of our first missions was to find the bookstores since finding English books in Jinan was so rare. We almost cried tears of joy as we wandered amongst the rows and rows of English books, both current and classic.

Getting around is tremendously easy and such a relief in light of the challenges we’ve been facing. The official languages here are English and Chinese. The spoken Chinese is mainly Cantonese, my dialect. I am proud to say that I have a “survival” level (I basically stopped learning when I arrived in Canada so I have an 8 year olds’ vocabulary but it served us just fine, thank you very much). All the street signs are in English (with English names and not just translated names). The public transit system is super convenient and their subway system is said to the best on earth.

We rounded out our day with a ride on the Star Ferry across to HK, took a double decker bus up to the Peak, checked out the fabulous view, took the tram back down the hill. HK is lush. My childhood memories don’t include much details of the landscape and so I was pleasantly surprised by the green space and the palm trees. It made us think of Mexico.

We also checked out another mall. Yup, Don has never been to so many shopping venues in one day! We finished our day with A Symphony of Light. It’s the world’s largest permanent light show and is projected from the tops of buildings on the HK side. Check out our video.