Hong Kong: 2

Here's a brief recap of my second day in Hong Kong:

We took a cab to the nearest MTR station and found breakfast at the food court of the nearby Hollywood Plaza. From there, we rode the MTR to Admiralty station (the public transport in HK is really great). We hopped on a bus which took us to the ticket centre for the Peak tram.

Up, upward we went!

That morning we'd found out that Typhoon Francisco was churning out there in the ocean, and possibly headed toward us. Throughout the trip I saw signs like the one below all over the place.


We made our way past the shops and across the multitude of escalators that are within the Peak Tower. At the very top, the view is quite something.


Inevitably we took the tram back down to city level.

Next, we caught a ride on a "topless bus" - as my coworker called it for lack of a better term. A minty refreshing ride, with the wind blowing and city unfolding.


Did we really take a bus to get to another bus station? I guess so. The second bus ride was over half an hour though, and it brought us to Stanley.

We ate lunch at a Thai restaurant in Murray House (an old colonial building that wasn't originally built here, but was dismantled and set-up again at it's current location). We visited the pier with fishers and tourists alike. We looked through the shops at Stanley Market.


The waterfront is lined with Western bars and restaurants. The majority of the customers were also Westerners. I was reminded of Harrison Hot Springs. Hong Kong is racially diverse in comparison with Taiwan, but this area didn't even feel like it was in Asia.

Another bus ride to get back to the city. We visited Hong Kong's Time Square. This is a mall nearby (though we didn't shop here) :
Outside, a Latin band was playing and people started to crowd around them.

It was pouring out by now. Glad I brought my raincoat with me. From Time Square we took a tram (double-decker and narrow) and wound up at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Then we walked to the Star Ferry terminal and took the ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui (from a day of Hong Kong Island). Night had arrived.

There were some great neon views to be seen, but I wasn't able to capture a single good shot. This is the best one I have:


The Hong Kong Cultural Centre was behind us, and a Lantern display was lit up in front of it. The flowers are the best part:


Afterward, we took a KCR train (we sampled quite a bit of HK transportation) to a MTR station/shopping centre. We looked around, but none of us bought anything besides dinner. A long day, and so we took the MTR and a taxi back to our hotel.