Another 3 days in Hong Kong

Another 3 days in Hong Kong…. in actuality, my 3 days in Hong Kong traveling was a bit less but luckily I got to see plenty while I was there. The main reason I had to venture over was to take care of a passport and visa issue so that ended up taking quite a bit of time and killed nearly an entire day!

Bruce Lee’s statue at the Avenue of Stars with Victoria Harbor in the background

With a 1- year China visa about to expire, it was time to head to the Chinese agency in Hong Kong to renew my visa. However, I started this trip with a brand new passport issued in July of last year and somehow I managed to fill up ALL my passport pages already! So the first stop was a trip to the U.S. embassy to have pages added which is not even something I realized you could do however, at $82USD for a few extra pages, I wasn’t too impressed with the option! What kind of sacred tree were these pieces of paper coming from at $82?

A boat cruising along in Victoria Harbor

And being in a rush to make it to the US Embassy when I arrived, I have officially decided… whomever designed the streets of Hong Kong Island was utterly insane! There is absolutely no way to walk more than 2 or 3 blocks without having to go up and over on a raised walkway above the streets.

And while up on this raised walkway, I also decided Hong Kong has more “Double Decker” buses than any other city in the world! OK… maybe London is a close contender…

It is a constant battle trying to get from point A to B and it gives new meaning to the phrase ‘concrete jungle’. If you’ve ever been to Hong Kong, you can relate. A 5 minute north to south walk will quickly turn into 15 minutes as you constantly take lefts, rights and overpasses just to get to where you’re going.

Luckily boats don’t have to traverse that way. I ended up taking the Star Ferry through Victoria Harbor when I first arrived. It is one of the more popular things to do while in Hong Kong and seeing as how it was such a beautiful day, it was hard to pass up. The Star Ferry runs back and forth between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, across the Victoria Harbor and has been doing so since 1898! The ride is quite short  though and you basically have two destination points coming from the Kowloon side. You can take a ride to ‘Central’ station which is close to the destination point for ‘The Peak‘ (Hong Kong’s overlook) which I went to last time as well as the central business district of Hong Kong (CBD). The other destination point will land you at Wanchai station which is the one I took because it was a bit closer to where I was headed on Hong Kong Island. For $2.50 HKD (about .25-.50 cents), its worth the money and even cheaper than taking the subway the same distance. It also offers some fantastic views of Victoria harbor and Hong Kong Island.

Another destination we traveled to during this 3 days in Hong Kong was the “Avenue of Stars” which sits along the border of Kowloon and Victoria Harbor at is located at Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade.

Hong Kong’s “Avenue of Stars”

It is essentially a collection of Hong Kong’s best and most prominent movie stars over the past 100 years. Here you find names, hand prints and even a couple statues of stars such as Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee (a royal badass I might add – yes I’m a fan), Chow Yun-fat, and Jet Li.

Note to Self… Apparently Jackie Chan and I have the same sized hand…

But even if you’re not into the Hong Kong film industry’s famed stars, the view alone is well worth it. The avenue parallels the water along the Victoria Harbor and stretches along quite a distance. It offers an amazing panorama of Hong Kong Island including the small section of clustered buildings that are all competing for advertising space across the water. From the viewpoint I had on such a sunny day, the buildings, with their billboards popping out everywhere, almost looked surreal  like a miniature sized model of the city.

Do the buildings almost look fake against the blue sky background?

The next stop was a trip to Lantau Island for an up close and personal visit with Hong Kong’s “Big Buddha” which is more formerly known as the Tian Tan Buddha.

The Tian Tan Buddha sitting atop the mountain

Statues at the top surrounding the Tian Tan Buddha

Built in 1993, the Tian Tan Buddha stands (actually he sits) at over 30 meters tall and up until 2007, was the world’s tallest seated Buddha. It’s quite a long metro ride to get out to the Lantau Island that it sits on and it’s right next to Disneyland. Yes, there’s a Disneyland in Hong Kong! But that was not on my itinerary for the day….

Statue I’m passing along the walkway to the steps of the Big Buddha

When you finally make it to Lantau Island, the biggest island in Hong Kong, there are two options to get to the top to see the Big Buddha. There is the more ‘popular’ Ngong Ping 360 gondola ride which takes about 30 minutes and there is also a much cheaper option in which you can just take a bus. Either one provides some spectacular views over the water and luckily, it was a bright sunny day while I was there with just a few clouds overhead.

View from atop Lantau Island at the Tian Tan Buddha

And Lantau Peak, Hong Kong’s highest mountain stands just next to the Tian Tan Buddha and at an elevation of 934m, it was sitting in the clouds the day I was there. When I arrived it was quite a hike to reach the top of the Big Buddha (well 240 steps to be exact) but once there, it offers some amazing panoramas on all sides of the mountain.

The “up close & personal” with the Tian Tan Buddha

And to finish up my 3 days in Hong Kong, I spent some time in and around Causeway Bay. It is considered the shopping mecca of Hong Kong and in fact, a lot of people from mainland China, especially Shenzhen, travel to Hong Kong just to go shopping for the day.

Causeway Bay at night – To me, this is the classic view of Hong Kong’s streets at night…

Equivalent to New York’s Fifth Avenue in terms of rent costs, the streets in this area are filled with shops and high end stores as well as small eateries and restaurants. You don’t have to shop in the ritzy stores such as Tiffany & Co and Prada though there are several of these type of stores throughout the area. Instead, you can find many bargains all over and as a good reference point, Yee Woo street marks the center of this shopping district. And Hong Kong is also a great place to find deals on electronics. Just as China’s locals travel to Hong Kong to shop for clothes, many also come for the bargains on electronics as you can find the same exact brands and models here in Hong Kong for much much less than you’d find in China.

All in all, it was another great 3 days in Hong Kong and much better than my last visit, especially with the weather… which is probably obvious from the pics! In a city with so much to offer, there is plenty more to see and do than just what I’ve done but for me, it was time to head back to China….