Monday, June 9, 2008

Hong Kong

Hi from Hong Kong. We are here and are having a wonderful time. Our flights were crazy wild - we for sure will share stories later! We left La Crosse at 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 5th and arrived HK at 1:30 a.m on June 7th. This gives new meaning to being a LONG way from home. We arrived in pouring rain and woke up on Saturday to "black storm" warnings - which are the worst. Major flooding, mud slides and streets closed, and businesses closed as well. We set out anyway on foot and checked out possible housing for our return visit with students. The weather kept us indoors much of the day but that is not much of a problem in HK. This city is all connected well and on many levels. The city feels to us like NY - tunnels, bridges, ferries, subways, great mass transit and LOTS of very tall buildings. We took a ferry over to Kowloon and checked out that area. The evening was spent having an excellent dinner at a Thai restaurant. On to Sunday.....Karolyn and I set off on our own to check out the rest of the city by bus. We went up to Victorias Peak, then down to Aberdeen Fishing village where we got on a Sampan and toured the harbor. We were in luck because the Dragon Boat Festival was happening so we got to see the boats up close. Very cool. Then off to tour a jewelry factory (possibly the biggest lowlight yet!) and then off to Stanley Market. Our evening found us dining with University representatives and faculty at an Chinese Italian type restaurant. The food again was outstanding.
Today (Monday) we journeyed back to Stanley Market via a double decker bus to take photos. Not much is open today since we were surprised to learn that today is a national holiday. This evening we have dinner with UWL HK alums.
I love it here. It is very metropolitan and very diverse. It will indeed be very interesting to compare HK with Vietnam. We leave tomorrow afternoon for Vietnam. More from there later.

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