March 23, 2012..adventures on Hong Kong Island

Today we started the day eating the Market breakfast in the Hotel...not as exotic as in Bangkok but there was pasturized yogurt...yahooey..first one since we left home. Walked down to the waterfront to go to the Art Museum..had to use underground walkway to cross the street..cool. Passed the Science Centre and a cultural centre where wedding receptions are held...saw three beautiful brides today. Entrance to the Museum was inexpensive ($1.30 Canadian) which is such a surprise here. Saw a special global exhibit of 'strange creatures'. Saw pottery, wall friezes, costumes, coins, artworks etc from around the world and as early as 900B.C. to 20th century. These creatures are the mythical creatures, demons and animals. Fantastic exhibit...not very big though. The contemporary exhibit was closed so we went upstairs to see a single Hong Kong artists' life work. His medium is watercolour and inks. Conceptually he tries describe, movement and rhythms in dance and music. His work was somewhat abstract and minimal. We also saw a short film about his work. Like it very much. Went back to the hotel to get ready for the tour to the island that our travel agent in Vancouver had arranged for us. 'Rex' picked us up at 1:20 , bus was almost full, picked up two more hotel groups and we headed towards the tunnel that is 8 stories under the water and 2 kilometers long that would take us over to Hong kong Island. $ stops for the tour; A trolly ride up a very, very, very steep mountain called Victoria peak, a boat tour of all the fishing boats and yachts at the Victoria harbour, a tour of a jewellery factory (Dynasty Inc...a publicly owned company) and the Stanley Open Air market. The view from Victoria Peaks was out of this world. Because we had travelled down the canal in Thailand, this was much the same extreme contrast between extremely wealthy and the extremely poor. Jewellery factory was interesting but expensive...received a 20% discount coupon upon arrival...:) salesclerks were quite aggressive but we came out empty handed. My lovely husband has bought me all the pearls I need! Open air market was similar to what we had seen before in China but it was avery wealthy area of hong kong (passed Jackie Chan's house) so it was interesting. We went back to the Hotel and ate leftovers from our massive and delicious meal at the Sheraton Hotel last night. Will get ready for our flight tomorrow. walked 12 km today!