|
We awoke this morning to a fairly grey and hazy view across the harbour. The weather was fine and dry but there was no sun and visibility was quite bad! Our plans for today were to meet up with a friend of Clara's dad, whose daughter is going to study in York next year. He wanted to meet up with us to chat a bit about York as he is flying back to the UK on the same evening as us, on a different plane. After breakfast we set off for a bit of sightseeing and a chance for me to take some pictures of some buildings I had missed so far. We took a number 3B bus down to Admiralty and took some pictures of the Bank of China building. I also took some pictures of the Former Prince of Wales building, that used to be the barracks for the British garrison stationed in Hong Kong. The building has now been renamed but is still home to the Chinese battalion. You will see the building in my pictures as it is shaped like a bomb - I'm not sure why, but it is very distinctive!
Next we moved onto the Legislative Council (LEGCO) building in Central. This was the building that used to host the 'government' of Hong Kong under British rule and is a small colonial style building - one of the only ones left that the Chinese haven't flattened! The building is now home to some part of the Chinese Hong Kong Legislateive Council and outside there were a few nice cars parked, so the politicians obviously have money. Opposite the LEGCO building is a war memorial to troops from the first and second world wars, this is quite strange to see and has quite a lot of land for this expensive area! On the other side of the LEGCO building is the HSBC headquarters. This building is rumoured to be one of the most expensive ever and is designed in a portcullis style apparently to follow Feng Shui - basically it looks like the Lloyds of London building in London - with some of the inside on the outside! After taking a few pictures we had a quick look around HMV in the Landmark center. Unsurprisingly its not much different from the UK, although prices are a little cheaper, which is probably to be expected - you can pick up some bargains, but we'd already bought enough DVD's so far! We now walked over to the Star Ferry pier in Central to take the Star Ferry over to Tsim Sha Tsui (say Chim Sar Choy) where we were meeting Peter her dad's friend. We got there a little early after a calm Star Ferry ride and so took a look around the Ocean Terminal shopping center, a shopping center dedicated to childrens clothes, but very surprisingly it has free internet access and so everyone was sat around with laptops! There is a large cruise ship which docks here each day and sets off each night and sails out into the South China Sea and once in International Waters opens a casion! This is one of the ways that Hong Kongers can gamble without having to go all the way to Macau! We moved onto the restaurant on the third floor of Star House. The restaurant serves Beijing cuisine and was qutie posh! Beijing cuisine is northern Chinese and different to the South Chinese (Cantonese) cuisine which is what we get in the UK. |
Travel Diaries 