Feb. 26 & 27 Hong Kong & Kowloon

What a difference! As we started our tour Saturday we noticed some significant changes from where we have been. For starters not one motorbike was spotted. They drive on the left, have traffic lights and vehicles stay between the lines! Everywhere we went was clean – no garbage. In fact there were signs posted “please wrap spittle and gum”, fixed fine for littering $1500HK ($210CDN).

Our first stop was at a view point which over looks two bridges which have been constructed to connect the island to the mainland. In 1997 the new airport was opened. A potion of the harbor was reclaimed to create a new expressway. The area reclaimed is 1/3 the size of the original island.

Hong Kong island has a population of 7 million on an area of 78 square meters. There are 260 islands, the largest is Lantau with an area of 144 square meters and less than 100,000 people. The government is trying to preserve Lantau Island in it’s current state. Therefore no vehicles from off the island are allowed. The only vehicles are those which receive permits from the local police. In order to get a permit you have to prove you live or run a business on the island.

We passed a lot of construction on the way. They are building a new rail station for the high speed train that will run between Beijing and Hong Kong. The train will run at 300 – 400 kms an hour and the trip will take about 8 hours.

Hong Kong is financing the new construction, largely by selling property. But they are running out of property and Beijing is apparently warning them they need to find new sources of income. 

Saturday we visited Lantau Island. Because of the restrictions on no vehicles from the mainland we have to change buses at the entrance to the island. The island has few roads and lots of hiking trails. A new town was built to support the new airport, The population is 80,000 – 100,000 and is just outside the restricted traffic area. A 700 square foot unit in this new town would cost $45 million ($650,000 Cdn). 

Lantau island used to be a booming fishing area. However, the area has been overfished to the extent that fishing has been severely curtailed and the young people have left the island for work in Hong Kong. The inhabitants are mainly old retired people. There also used to be farming but that ceased 50 – 60 years ago. All the livestock was released and there are now about 300 cattle and buffalo roaming wild. The government owns most of the land on the island and is currently resisting pressure by developers to sell the land. There are several monasteries and nunneries. There are also three prisons. Most of the inmates are from Hong Kong. We passed one along the way – right beside the ocean, complete with tennis courts, skating rink, swimming pool and basketball court. Seemed like a better place than some of the tenements we passed.

Construction looks like an interesting challenge. They use bamboo scaffolding which is joined together with wire and duct tape. We see this even on the large high rises. The island has good water reserves which is collected from rain runoff. Hong Kong has to import at least half it’s water as there is not sufficient for the population. 

95% of the fish consumed in the area is imported from Philippines, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore. 

Lantau is exactly half way between Hong Kong and Macau. High speed ferries run between the two regularly. Macau sounds like basically a gambling area. During the war the fishing village Tai O was an escape route to Macau as Macau was under the Portuguese which was neutral and thus a way to escape the Japanese.

The main thing we saw was the Po Lin monastery which is home to what is called the big Buddha. Our guide gave the best explanation I have heard of Buddhism. Buddha is a title not his name. He was born 563 BC and died at age 80 in 483 BC. He was born to a royal Hindu family. His name at birth Siddartha Goutman. At the age of 19 he gave up his life as a prince to become a monk. At the time he had a wife and a one year old child. 

There are three emblems that signify Buddhism. One is a flag with four stripes running both horizontal and vertical. The colours are blue, yellow, red and white. Another is three wheels which represent reincarnation. The last is a swastika which is shown in some pictures of the Buddha and is an old Hindu sign 2500 years old. A number of Hindu practices have been continued in Buddhism. The monastery we go to for lunch has a very large Buddha statue it is 24.6 meters high, made of 202 bronze tiles, weighs 202 metric tons. It was built in mainland China in 1986.  The monastery was started in 1907 and the monks spent 60 years collecting sufficient money to build the statue. In 1991 the tiles were moved to Lantau and welded together on site. The Buddha was designed by a Chinese woman from an art college. She had to incorporate certain traditional features of Buddha, such as the hair which represent barnacles (to keep him warm in winter and cool in summer), the long ears, sitting position and hand gestures. The long ears come from the Hindu tradition of piercing the ears of all children at one year of age. The weight of the gold earrings stretched their ears. The longer the ear lobes the richer the family was.

The road leading to the monastery was lined with 12 statues – the 12 Devine generals. Each statue is different and each has a 2 hour time of the day he is responsible for e.g. 9 am – 11 am. Each also represents one of the signs of the zodiac. We then passed through an archway which housed a statue of the Buddha’s main disciple and four guards. We had a vegetarian meal in the monastery and then drove up to the Buddha. There are stairs but I don’t think many of us on the bus would have made it! 

We also visit a traditional fishing village on the island, Tai O. As it was Saturday the market was underway and there were lots of kids and their parents wandering around. The old part of town consists of houses built on stilts over the water, there are a number of bridges connecting the various parts of the island. In the market the main items for sale are live fish and dried fish bladders. There were hundreds of these dried bladders hanging in the various stalls. The bladders are adde to soup, in the hot water they break down and basically act as a thickener. 

We went into a Taoist temple. The original building is 500 years old. Each time it was expanded a stone tablet was put in place detailing who had contributed to the building. This has provided a lot of detail about the families living on the island and their connections.

On Sunday we went for a walk in Kowloon. We visited the Museum of History and a couple of markets. Walked for about 6 hours. The museum was interesting and we learned the history of Hong Kong. One of the markets we visited was the Gold Fish market. About 2 blocks of tiny aquarium shops selling everything to do with aquariums. It was a mob scene. Because it is Sunday lots of families were there. If you wanted to buy some fish you go into one of the shops, get a bucket, scoop some water out of one of the tanks, get a net and scoop out the fish you want – self serve goldfish. The other market we visited seemed to be a general market, you could buy just about anything there, the goods did not appear to be of very good quality. By contrast we passed through an area with some very expensive shops. A lot of jewelry, I was not permitted to enter any of these. Didn’t appear to be any bargains!

Saturday night we ate on the ship in one of the restaurants we had front row seats for the laser light show that is put on every night by buildings on the Hong Kong side. Every meal I think of Dave MacIntosh – there is a chocolate fountain and Dave Cartner – the ship makes it’s own ice cream and it is even better than the Stoney Creek Dairy!

Tomorrow another day at sea on our way to Taiwan.