From one amazing city to the next! Hong Kong is a lot more of what I was expecting to see from Asia and from our different visits. Hong Kong reminds me a lot of New York except bigger and in Asia.
It is full of big buildings, there are people everywhere, it is slightly dirtier, and the people are super busy. I love it. I probably have said this about all the other cities but I would love to live here. We have been super spoiled with the language so far. Each city is getter poorer and poorer as far as English skills however; we are still able to get along just fine here in Hong Kong. The City goes on for as far as the eye can see here. It doesn’t just go on and on but it goes on and on with 40 story buildings. 
We got here on Tuesday about noon. Hong Kong is really scared on the H1N1 swine flu virus. They are extra precautious because of the large out break of SARS they are not making any of the same mistakes. At the airport I had to go through a special health screening section to make sure that I am not bring the virus with me. Which is silly because if I had it I would have been super sick by now but since I have been out of the country for over a week and a half and am not sick yet, it seems silly? 
After we got through customs and immigration we took at train and a bus to the YMCA. I was really worried about staying here at the YMCA. I truly thought that I was going to super ghetto here. I was pleasantly surprised with what I found. The accommodations are really nice. We are in a room with four people with two bunk beds. It is really clean and nice. After we got to the hotel we dropped our luggage and turned right around to go to our business visit. We went to Le and Fung. They are a huge trading company. Their whole purpose is to be a middle man between the manufacture and the company that wants to manufacture a product. They provide services that help the company that wants to make a product from start to delivery. It was really interesting to hear them speak of all the things that they do in the supply chain. To give you an example rock band with made through them. 
After our visit to Le & Fung we got to do something super exciting. We got to go to the Hong Kong temple. The temple is in a really nice part of town. It was amazing to walk around the corner and see this 7 story temple. The building was absolutely gorgeous. In our group we have 6 girls that aren’t endowed so I volunteer to be cone of the 4 priesthood holders they needed to run the baptistery. It was a really neat experience to be able to perform the baptisms and confirmations. However, I really need to work on my reading of Chinese. I hope those people will forgive me for how I pronounced their names. After the temple we ended up going to a night market, however, we were in our suits still so we didn’t stand a chance at trying to barter with the people. Wednesday was a really fun morning. We started off the morning by going to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. That was exceptionally interesting. It was nothing like what I had expected. I really had no idea how a stock exchange functioned. One thing I did learn was that I do not want to a trader. What a terrible job, at least for me. The Hong Kong stock exchange is really just a façade. They said that only two percent of the trades happen on their trading floor. Most of their trades happen electronically from remote locations. It wasn’t anything like you see at the New York Stock exchange with people yelling. Here everyone was quietly sitting at their desk looking at their computer screen it was really not what I was expecting. 
Wednesday afternoon we went to the second largest Buddha in the world (formally the largest but someone built one bigger, they always do). It was really fun getting there. We road about 40 minutes out of the city then we took a 30 minute gondola ride up and over the mountain. It was beautiful. The gondola gave us unique views of the city and Victoria bay. After we got up and over the mountain we found this big Buddha. Guess what? It was big! It really was just built in my opinion to be a tourist attraction. It was really fun to go to. Then they had a really pretty monastery. That evening we went to Victoria Peak. That is probably one of the most stunning places I have every been in my life. It is a peak located on Hong Kong Island directly behind the city. To get up to the top of the peak you take a train/tram up to the top. This tram is intense it goes straight up the side of the mountain at 45 degree angle. However, the tram ride is not the amazing thing. The amazing thing is the view once you reach the top. We got up there at night now so we could see the city all lit up. The city goes on for as long as the eye can see. On top of the mountain they have build a beautiful observation deck that gives you 360 degree view of the island. I was especially surprised with the temperature atop the mountain. It was quite chilling especially with the wind. Victoria’s Peak was definitely a highlight of the Hong Kong visit.
Thursday was a busy day but who am I kidding every day is a busy day around here. We started the morning out with a visit to HIT (Hong Kong International Terminal). They run half of the cargo port here in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is the third busiest port in the world if I am not mistaking. It was fairly amazing to take a tour around the port. They said that they have the capacity to have 100,000 containers at their facility at any given time. That is a lot. It was amazing to see giant ships docked and having four huge cranes. Once inside their administration building we got to see the computer system they used to operate the port. It is amazingly complex. It is required for it to be that complex or else there would be no possible way to accurately track the shipments. Adjacent to the HIT administration building DHL had a freight facility that we also visited. It was really interesting. The facility we visit was a subcontracted facility that DHL uses for their freight shipping that is odd shapes and sizes. At this facility they consolidate the shipments going to different locations around the world then pack them in containers to be shipped by sea. I was absolutely floored. The facility was fairly clean but not exceptionally organized. I was so surprised that their whole system was completely paper bases. The only way to know which pallet was what was piece of paper that was stapled on the outside of the pallet it the paper fell off they would have no idea what they product was and where it was going. It was also really interesting to see how poorly the product was handled. There were multiple pallets stacked two or three high and shouldn’t have any product placed on top and because of this the product on the bottom was being destroyed. Thursday afternoon we got lunch and took a brief stroll around town. One of the highlights was seeing the tower that Batman jumps out of in the Dark Knight. We officially named it the Batman building. We then took a ride in a junk. A junk is an old Chinese fishing boat. It was really fun to ride around the harbor in this old boat. After our junk ride we went to the Hong Kong light show… Amazing. The light show is done over the bay and is done in coordination between a bunch of different sky scrapers. Each building has lights on it that go on and off in sync with music it is pretty amazing.
After the light show we went to Ladies Market in Mong Kok. I have no idea why it is called Ladies Market but it is. That was fun to be able to barter some and to buy a few things. I didn’t buy too many things I am waiting until we get to China. I am expecting thing to be a lot cheaper there. Hong Kong is a large tourist destination so the people aren’t as willing to barter with white people.
Friday was a completely free day. We had a great time. A group of five of us went to off on a cultural adventure that turned out to be really fun. We first went to a place called Ten Thousand Buddha’s. I bet you can imagine what we found. I will be honest we did actually find ten thousand Buddha’s. The ten thousand were all little status in a monastery however; the monastery was located on top of a mountain and all the way up there were over five hundred unique life size statues of Buddha. It was quite the amazing sight. The really cool thing was that it wasn’t a big tourist attraction but instead a place that people actually went to worship. We were the only white people there. That was really neat. Then we went to a place called Monkey Mountain. You could also expect what we found there. However, it took us about an hour to find the monkeys. We ended up taking this pretty hike to reservoir.
On our way back a very nice lady showed us where the majority of the monkeys hang out which was a parking lot around the corner from where we were. Start monkeys. They go where the food is. After we got our monkey fix we make the trek across town to an amazing place. The church has just built a 13 story church building in down town Hong Kong. The building has three chapels and houses the area presidency and their offices. It is pretty amazing. It is in a really nice part of town. I was just floored by the beauty and the great expense that the church must have expended for this building. I heard that it was the second most expensive building the church has built second to the conference center. I don’t know if that is true but I can only imagine how expensive it was considering the location in downtown Honk Kong.
After we got our monkey fix we make the trek across town to an amazing place. The church has just built a 13 story church building in down town Hong Kong. The building has three chapels and houses the area presidency and their offices. It is pretty amazing. It is in a really nice part of town. I was just floored by the beauty and the great expense that the church must have expended for this building. I heard that it was the second most expensive building the church has built second to the conference center. I don’t know if that is true but I can only imagine how expensive it was considering the location in downtown Honk Kong.
After seeing the church building we went to a restaurant called Fat Angelo’s. Fat Angelo’s is a famous Italian restaurant. It was fun we all went to this restaurant together. After dinner we went and watched the light show over Hong Kong harbor again. It was ways cool. Then we just went home to get ready to go to Shanghai.
No comments:
Post a Comment