Hong Kong and a side visit to Macau

good news HK has good weather, but the smog is really bad. So only night time pictures looked nice. The HK harbor is a really beautiful sight at night. With all the lights on the tall building surrounding the harbor.

i thought Japan was bad with ads and shopping mall everywhere, HK is even more over the top. I guess that is what captialistic/materialistic/consuming society encourage. Since I don't like the above, I find my peace at few of its little parks and a trip to more temple picture taking at another island.

One thing surprise me is the diversty of the people here, I expected to see Chinese of all kind and some expats from British rules and some tourists, but the place where I stay (cheap and I mean cheap, the smallest room I ever stayed), there are African, south Asian (Indian, and I assume Parkistani), and domestic servant/nannies from poor southeast countries.

Took a side trip to Macau and got more stamps in my passport, actual it requires I get a exit stamp for HK, so now I have two sets of stamps for HK. Although Macau is Vegas of the East, it still has some of its colonial past preserved unlike that of HK. So it is good to walk around the old area instead constantly being bombarded by shopping oppourtunities in HK.

Then tonight I went up to the Victoria peak to take a dust/night picture of HK harbor. I walked up instead of taking the cable tram like most of the people. Good 40 min work out for 1200 feet climb....

On top I met a local photographer Sunny, and he showed me some photo techniques and took me to a good spot on the Kowloon side to take the pictures of the HK harbor (see below). He even let me use his heavy duty tripod. Unike my tripod, which moved slightly with a steady sea breeze and messed up my earlier pictures. Very good person.

And on Thursday morning I'll catch a early morning ferry to China and to catch a flight to Guilin and start on China portion of my journey.