Stepping into a new continent – a week in Hong Kong COMPLETED - Page 6 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
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There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
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If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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Wow, seeing your pix of the auto dealers reminded me of the globalization of everything... Land Rover and Jaguar are owned (for now) by Ford and MINI is owned by BMW! I know, don't remind you.
Great pix!
I've really been looking forward to this trip report! The photos of Hong Kong are amazing! Yes, like NYC in all the neon lights etc, but so different as well!
Great pictures Cheryl...I have heard about how crowded Hong Kong was but you can really see it in your pictures and those buildings were so big, I could not picture living up in one of those...
We have big apartment buildings here in the city but those seemed really claustriphobic. The city scenes were great...
It’s the same system that we’re used to in London, you just add money to your card, then swipe in at the start of your journey through the pads on the turnstiles and then swipe out at the end of your journey in exactly the same way. Then it automatically deducts the right charge from your card.
Boston has a similar system, too. It's called the "Charlie" pass. That's the name of the card, and it's used the same way.
Love all the photos. Fascinating to see Hong Kong. It looks like they have Manhattan beat by a country mile. No Hong Kong version of Central Park? Looking forward to more.
Wonderful photos! The buildings look so tall and like there's not one ounce of wasted space! So cool to see the people doing the tai chi! Can't wait for more!
A couple of you asked about parks in Hong Kong - well, as you'll see in the installment in a moment, there are some to be found. In fact, there are quite a few - you just have to know where to look for them. We found some lovely grassy areas and some beautiful parks during our stay, which really surprised me. It's nice to see that not every inch of land is high rise buildings there.
Saturday 16 February – part two: quiet places in a busy city
We eventually found ourselves by the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, which underwent a HK$4.8 billion extension, so that it could be the venue for the 1997 handover ceremony from the UK to China. The extension takes up another 16 acres, about the size of nine football fields, of reclaimed land. Are you already starting to see a pattern here with the whole idea of reclaimed land? As you can see from the photos, it’s undergoing more extension work now:
The blue part in the middle of this photo is the bit they’re now working on Yes, all signs are in both languages!
There’s an area in front of the Exhibition Centre just by the harbour, which is home to the Blooming Bauhinia Sculpture. It’s a flower common in Hong Kong with five petals and has been the emblem of Hong Kong since reunification in 1997. In fact, if you look at the Exhibition Centre closely, you’ll notice that this is also in the shape of the bauhinia flower. Clever, huh?
This is an amazingly peaceful area. We stood and admired and view for some time, as you can see both sides of the harbour from here. There were so few people around and that’s something I never expected to find here, having heard how busy and crowded Hong Kong is. It isn’t – you just have to know where to look to get away from the crowds.
The view across to Kowloon – the tower you can see is the Clock Tower on Kowloon waterfront One of the famous Star Ferries that crosses every day between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon Looking up at the Exhibition Centre A fishing boat in contrast to the cruise line behind The skyscrapers of Hong Kong Island Some of the flowers by the harbour front
Eventually we moved on, but not very far, only to a park by the Hyatt hotel and again there was a guy in there doing Tai Chi, but apart from that, we were alone in there. Again, not what I expected at all.
We carried on walking and came to Central Plaza, which I knew from reading the guidebooks is packed on Sundays with Filipino women who go there on their day off, but today it was dead.
We headed back up to the walkways above and walked through the Central Plaza building and then it was over into more of Causeway Bay. This place is such a culture shock. One minute you’re in a plaza surrounded by office building and the next, you’re back in a main shopping street.
We ended up taking a break at the Mall, which includes the Marriott hotel and lots of shop names that we know very well from home. There are times when you can almost forget that you are in Hong Kong, as so many elements of it are British from the road signs to the shops you see. It’s a fascinating mix and just shows the history of the place.
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