City of Lights
Paris is the original “City of Lights”, but it seems that Hong Kong is trying to give it a run for its money. In the guidebooks and pamphlets I obtained, a certain light show that happened every night at 8 was highly touted as a must-not-miss attraction. Naturally, I figured I might as well go see it as it was free and I am all for free.
Nick and I made our way down to the Avenue of Stars (the rain was still coming down), and waited for the show. There are numerous music speakers in this area, that provide many tourists with a bit of background and some music. Unfortunately, it seemed that the majority of what they were there for was to list the corporate sponsors of the event…in Chinese. I do not speak Cantonese or Mandarin, so it was all lost on me as nothing but a waste of time. The light show was little better. Supposedly there are 40 buildings that light up during the show…mind you that there are several hundreds large buildings in Hong Kong and Kowloon, so a mere 40 is a pittance. Not to mention that the IFC (the building Batman jumped off of in The Dark Knight), wasn’t part of the show. The lights were cool for all of about 2 minutes, then the routine got old as nothing really happened. Lights when on and off, all to a rather mundane and boring bit of musical accompaniment. Bummer.
Earlier in the day, we had paid the 3 H.K.D. to ride the Star Ferry from Kowloon island to Hong Kong island. The ferry lets off very close to the Hong Kong exhibition center, so we went to check that out along with the reunification statue. The statue was a pillar shaped black obelisk, and the exhibition center was nothing special as there was a jewelery exhibition going on that one needed a pass to get into. We, naturally didn’t care for the jewelery or have passes, so we missed out on that. Shucks.
From there we took the subway a stop, so that we could get to the world famous Peak Tram. I have seen the peak building in many a Jackie Chan movie, so I decided that it would be cool to head up there. Not being very expensive, we walked a long ways in the rain and finally found the location. The tram ride itself is not very long, and since it was raining, the peak was obscured by a rather large cloud. Getting to the top, I bought an overpriced chop, and walked around in what turned out to be yet another mall. The only redeeming thing about it was that there was a wax museum there, and I got a picture with Bruce Lee. Luckily for me, his wax sculpture was outside, so I didn’t have to pay the 200+ H.K.D. to get in. Since it was rainy, and the Peak Tower was in a cloud, there was no vista at all. Looking out the windows, I could see about 50 feet before clouds completely obscured my view. We ended up getting some coffee and watching the tram go back and forth up the rails for about two hours, thoroughly bored out of our minds. Tired of the doldrums, we descended the peak and returned to a rainy Hong Kong.
As there was not much else to do besides shop, we dejectedly returned to Kowloon to a dinner, a hot shower and some poor sleep.