Hong Kong

Sunday, October 7th

After breakfast I convinced Prue to take the half hour ferry ride to the little island of Cheung Chau (it appeared that the longer one hour ferry to Macau might have stretched the friendship). Given our preference for above ground transport, we took the short ferry ride to Kowloon, then back to Hong Kong island from where the Cheung Chau ferry departed:

Given it was a Sunday morning, we thought the ferries were decidedly quiet by Hong Kong standards:

The ferries to departed to Cheung Chau every half an hour and only cost $5 each, one way. There did appear to be some competition though:

And we were by now means the fastest ferry on the water today:

There were even hydrofoils, probably returning from Macau:

Rounding a bend we came across a "fishing village", kind of like the villages on the Etaing de Thau in France a few weeks ago:

But the port had an Asian flavour, not a Mediterranean one. For a start, there was just too much of everything:

Including bicycles! My cycling buddies might like to note the rust, not all of which can be explained by the sea air. Cheung Chau is like Amsterdam meets Hong Kong.

Walking along the harbour strip we heard fire brigade sirens. Prue had read that the fire engines on Cheung Chau were smaller than usual because of the narrow streets:

But we didn't count of this small!

The emergency later proved to be a sick person being helicoptered back to the city.

In the narrow streets we saw the usual laundry being dried, but it appears the day's catch is also dried in the same way:

On the other side of the narrow isthmus was a rather nice beach, complete with views of Hong Kong, windsurfers, and the odd ex-pat bikini babe (no photos, sorry):

It might give Bondi a run (there were even lifeguards), but where are the surfers?

Who cares?! The Tsing Tau beer was excellent.

After a break back at the hotel, we headed out for a couple of Campari and sodas beside the mid-level escalators:

Then off to dinner in the rather Indo-Chinese designed little restaurant we discovered yesterday. The food was fantastic:

Then back home, this time by the MRT (underground train):

Which for Hong Kong on a Sunday night was also unexpectedly quiet:

Then off to blog!