Hong Kong Trip - we went in April 2004. Much of the narrative was written by my traveling partner, Kathie,
and posted on the Fodors travel board, which she frequents regularly. I just take the pictures
(ok I threw in some of my two cents worth, too).

This is the clock tower on the waterfront Promenade.
Some of the Promenade is closed due to construction
(up to the Shangri-La), but a good portion of it is still open.
We had a nice Chinese lunch, visited the Art Museum (below)
and then wandered through the area doing some shopping
and just acclimating to Hong Kong after
our long flights the day before.

These are some pictures of the area near our hotel. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency
on the Kowloon side.The one on the right is taken from the Star Ferry.
One of the first things we did when we arrived in Hong Kong was to
purchase an Octopus card. The card costs HK$50 deposit and HK$100 for rides.
We used them for the subway (MTR), bus, Star Ferry and Peak Tram.
At the airport on our way out of Hong Kong, we returned them and got our
HK$50 deposit back as well as about HK$25 each for unused rides. Highly recommended.

On Day 2 we rode the Star Ferry to Hong Kong island, took the bus to the Tram and rode the Peak Tram to the top.
We walked the lovely loop trail there which took about an hour. These pictures are taken from the Peak.
As you can see the weather was very hazy that day, but it's a good thing we didn't wait to go because the
visibility never really improved much.

We had lunch at Cafe Deco. The food is good, but not exceptional. Of course, the location means that the food is
also rather expensive. Next time, I'd skip a meal at the Peak and come back down for a nice lunch at one
of the many recommended places we didn't get to. We came back down after lunch and walked to
Queen's Road to buy tea at Ying Kee. We bought a fair supply of our favorite tea, DragonPearl Jasmine.



Here's a mirror I wanted to bring home with me! You can see the
Peak Tram in the reflection to the right of where Kathie and I are
standing. Below is a picture of the building at the Peak.

That evening we walked the Promenade and enjoyed the light show on the Hong Kong buildings.

Some night pictures. Kowloon and Hong Kong
are very colorful at night. The light show was
a blast. They do this every night! It's best to be
on the Kowloon side to watch it.

Day 3, Kathie's narrative:We started our day with a trip to the Jade market at Kansu Road in Kowloon. I always enjoy
the Jade market, and look for interesting older pieces. Don't expect to find real antiques here. I just smile when they
tell me the piece I'm looking at is from the Han Dynasty. Bargain here and you can get some good prices. We had a
special lunch at the Margaux restaurant at the Kowloon Shangra-La. This is superb French restaurant with matching
service. The view across the bay to Hong Kong is lovely as well.

You can really tell it's pretty early in the day,
there are hardly any people on the street.
It was a good time to go to the jade markets
they're especially willing to bargain first thing
in the morning.

I just love all the signs, I won't bore you with
too many pictures of them but here are a couple in
the area of the jade markets.

Day 4, Kathie's narration: Trip to Macau. I hadn't been to Macau before (Kathie's been to Hong Kong a couple of times
before this trip - first time for me), so this was a new experience. We took the MTR to the Sheung Wan ferry terminal
(from Kowloon it requires changing lines at Central). Tickets were HK$142 each way. A one-way is the same price as
two single tickets. As were were going on a Wednesday, we didn't buy roundtrip tickets, as we didn't know when we'd
want to come back (you have to know). The trip is an hour each way and boats leave every 15 minutes. Seating was
comfortable. You can buy first class tickets, but there is no difference in the seating (not sure what you're paying the
extra $$ for).

This is a view of Hong Kong from the turboject
as we were leaving the harbor.

And this is the turbojet going in the other
direction. These boats are fast.

Hong Kong money is readily accepted on par
with Macau money, but the same does not
apply in Hong Kong. Try to use up any Macau
money you receive in change before going
back to Hong Kong.

We started by taking a taxi to the Ma Temple. Kathie always enjoys these temples, but I found the incense smoke and
crowds to be too much for me. It was the most crowded (many people in a small area) place we visited in Macau.

Here is a picture of the Ma Temple. I was
attracted by its intense colors and how it
sat nestled into the hillside rocks.

This is the promenade looking out across the
road from the upper area of the Ma Temple.
Many of the parks and other public areas
are paved in a similar fashion.

This is the remains of an old Sao Paulo
Cathedral which wasdestroyed by fire
over one hundred years ago.
As you can see, it's well-visited.

Macau is a tourist and gambling spot for
Hong Kongers and Chinese from the mainland.
It was originally settled by the Portugese over
450 years ago and much of the Portugese
architecture and heritage is still evident today.

This is a view of the Macau harbor from
the citadel remains behind the facade shown
in the picture above.

We caught a taxi out to Coloane Island to have
lunch at Fernando's. There was an excellent write-up
about Fernando's in the New York Times travel
section in March '04. The Fodor's book is rather
disparaging about Fernando's but the recommendation
of people on the Fodor's travel board and the NYT
article made us decide to go. It was delightful!
The menu is in Portuguese, so we asked the server
what she recommended. We knew we wanted to
try the famous roast suckling pig and she recommended
the prawns as well. All the dishes came out on large
plates and we shared them. The "wine list" consists of
going to the entrance to the kitchen and pointing
to the bottle of wine you'd like with your meal. We had
an excellent Portuguese red for HK$120 (what a
contrast from the very expensive wine in Hong Kong!).
We started with a salad of tomatoes (huge slabs of red, juicy tomatoes!), sweet onions and romaine with a simple
vinagrette. The prawns arrived next - a pile of whole prawns cooked in their shells in a spicy sauce. The suckling pig
arrived last, succulent, with a thin, crisp skin. The meal was superb, and the least expensive we had on our trip. By the
way, Fernando's does NOT take credit cards.

After lunch we wandered over to the beach
where Chinese tourists were taking off their
shoes, rolling up their pant legs and wading into
the waves even though it was raining slightly.
They were having a great time and we enjoyed
watching them.

We caught a taxi back into town and wandered
the old town for awhile. We really didn't see any
interesting shopping, perhaps we were in the
wrong place. We liked all the winding walking
streets, and enjoyed the atmosphere. Here's an
unusual T-shirt we found window shopping.

Not to mention an unusual bottle of wine....

Day 5: We took the Star Ferry over to Hong Kong and caught a taxi to the Botanical and Zoological gardens.
We enjoyed walking in the gardens and looking at orchids and other flowering plants in the greenhouse (Cheryl took
many pictures). The park had many groups of school children - from pre-school through elementary enjoying the
gardens as well.

From here we went to Hong Kong Park, especially to see the Museum of Teaware, but also to enjoy the park and
more orchids in another greenhouse. Hong Kong has some of the best urban parks in the world, not to mention
interesting and unusual architecture. Everything goes up, up,up. I guess this is how there is space for parks and gardens
with so many people.

We had lunch at a restaurant called M at the Fringe. If you go there, be sure to have the exact address
and tell the driver it's next to the Fringe Club. It's hard to find and our driver couldn't find it. Once we
knew we were close, we got out and found it on foot. The menu here is eclectic. There are dishes from
various parts of the world (other than Asia), but the food is definitely not fusion. It was the only place we
ate in Hong Kong where there were more people of European heritage than those of Asian heritage. Neither
of us would choose to go there again as the food was heavy and somewhat un-interesting (not to
mention very expensive).


After lunch we went to Cat Alley, so named for early merchants
renowned to be cat burglers... This is an interesting area and you
can find interesting things to buy as long as, again, you don't take
the label "antique" seriously.

We walked the promenade near our hotel again in the evening as the sun set. The Avenue of the Stars (an area of
the promenade celebrating Hong Kong's film-making industry) opened on this day and it was fun to walk in the
area and observe visitors excited about the handprints of their favorite stars. We thought we were going to have
fireworks as well, but they were postponed for the next week. So we got to watch the light show again!




Day 6: For our last day in Hong Kong we started with a
walk in Kowloon Park. This is another of Hong Kong's well-
designed and well-used parks. We enjoyed walking and people-
watching as locals did Tai Chi and teachers brought
children to look at the birds and other wild things.




We had lunch at Spring Moon in the Peninsula Hotel. It was really a lovely lunch starting with a couple of items of
Dim Sum and moving on to the famous pigeon with cinnamon and several other lovely dishes. Our one disappointment
was that they were not serving duck (apparently because of the Avian Flu). We finished our shopping in the
afternoon. The next day it was time to go home.



Saying goodbye to Hong Kong from the air!