Day 18 - Hong Kong

We began the day having Dim Sum (finally!) for 7.50$ each (about 1/2 what you'd pay in Canada) at the restaurant that had the only other set of spoon holder/chopstick bridge I'd see in all of China, although they werent' as cool as the first set. After eating, we headed to the ferry and got to HK Island to gawk at all the tall glass buildings surrounding us. We then got on a local double-decker bus to the Tram, a railcar that would lead us to Victoria Peak to look down on the island. The wait at the tram was FORTY FIVE minutes long and completely filled with tourists. It's something that you should only really do once.
At the end of the tram was a 5 story mall with an open roof for our viewing pleasure. The scenery is like no other; as incredible as Guilin but on a level of human accomplishment. Seeing HK, it makes complete sense that this is our last stop, every other major city pales in comparison. Shanghai is tall and sprawling, but HK is DENSE like your head.
We then took another bus which went around the south end of the island, passing by Repulse Bay and arriving at Stanley Market. The market is packed with tourists and filled with plenty of knick knack shops. I looked in ALL of them, using a thorough depth-first search, and couldn't find my chopstick thing. Of course it doesnt help that pretty much everyone is selling the same thing.
	Altogether, the tram, ferry, and 2 bus rides cost less than 10$ each. So that was the day on HK Island. It was a lot of fun because we got to eat exactly what and when we wanted. We spent time where we wanted to without having to wait for others. And it was good to do our own planning and looking for directions. Although we managed alright (this WAS part of the Commonwealth at one point) mainland China would have been enormously more frustrating to navigate had we not been part of a tour group.
Previous	Enroute - Beijing - Great Wall - Silk Street - Xi'an - Hangzhou Wuzhen - Suzhou - Shanghai - Wuhan - Maoping - Xiling Shennong - Wanxian - Chongqing - Guilin Guangzhou - Kowloon - Hong Kong - Good Bye	Next