February 16th, Our day in Britain

It is now Tuesday night February 17th. We had a quiet supper at 'home', consisting of Ramen noodles and chocolate chip cookies made at the bakery of the Park and Shop supermarket. While most of the bakery goods here are a mere shadow of what we have become accostomed to, these cookies are actually quite respectable. Chocolate is very available in all it European and American brands but rather more expensive than what I am used to from Trader Joe's. But I digress. I will try to add yesterday and today to the blog but as we are leaving for Thailand early in the morning, I may not get a chance to finish both days at this sitting, which is too bad as the visit to the nunnery and the Nan Lian Garden associated with it was spectacular.

Yesterday was a British day for us here in the orient. We went to Hong Kong Island (Admiralty stop on the MTR subway) and then took a double decker bus to the southern and eastern end of the island to visit the ports on the southern and eastern end of the island. We sat in the front row of the top deck across from Brits on their way to Australia. Of course I told them that we were from the other Cambridge where they drive on the right side of the road. The road to this end of the island went was hair pinned and narrow, winding along cliffs that plunged down to the water and past bays enclosed by mountains. It was a 20 minute ride to Stanley a relatively sleepy town on the water, with a harbor, beach and tourist restaurants overlooking the water. By now we were hungry so we stopped into one and fish and chips (not the head this time). It was a pleasant change from the standard fare we had been eating since arriving a week ago. Of course there was a street market there selling all sort of consumer goods. We reminded eachother that we were going to other places that sold the same items for less money and left empty handed. More over, we did get our buyers signals set so that we could play good cop, bad cop when it came down to serious bargaining in the future.

Next, on to Abderdeen riding in the first row on the upper deck, with Cliff and Julie from Lincoln (England) across the aisle, also on their way to Australia. Abderdeen was a very busy port with lots of sampans in moored in the water or along the piers. The hawkers harrassed us as we strolled along the promenade to take a 30 minute ride and see the house boats and the floating restaurants in the harbor. Richard resisted at his own peril and so we went back to HK Central and hopped the Star Ferry, pretty ancient boats back across the harbor to Kowloon. As can be seen from the photos, the weather was uniformly grey all day.

Since Judy hadn't been to the walk along the water in Kowloon, we headed in that direction from the ferry slip. We window shopped and then stepped into an Asian Art Gallery that specialized in carving of rocks, polished stone, tusks of various types and antique Chinese pottery. A lot of the ivory was claimed to be from mammoth tusks whose importation into the rest of the world is apparently not banned as ivory from elephants is. The price on some of the pieces which were sitting quietly on pedestals was over one million dollars US. Of course, I had no desire to touch them but they were sitting there unprotected. I had to talk Judy out of buying one of these pieces which she adorded.

The culture complex along the water is modern and beautiful and a wonderful place to stroll when the weather is good. It consists of a Science Museum with planetarium, Art Museum, theater and of course the Avenue of the Stars, a tribute to HK Cinema (see day 1). As it was misty and cool, and we were tiring we headed back to Yuen Long. Here's an image of a typical subway or train corridor. I may do a special blog on the subways and malls of HK, if I get a chance.