Ron and Amy
Go To China

 

Day 2
in Hong Kong
After a good night's sleep, we ventured out the next morning in search of bus tickets and breakfast. We planned to stay another day in Hong Kong but we wanted to have our travel plans squared way ahead of time. Our next destination was the Li River around Guilin and Yangshuo. This area looked incredible in photographs I had seen. The tour book (as well as several competitor's travel books) were rather vague as to how to get there. They did mention that it was 'inconvenient' to get there by train. Amy had talked to a travel agent in New York City who claimed that there was a bus that left directly from Hong Kong and went straight to Guilin. I had read that you must cross the border of mainland China first and then arrange a bus trip from there. So our first stop of the day would at the Hong Kong bus station to investigate.


Kowloon Park

More park photos
The bus station was north of our hotel, on the other side of Kowloon Park. The park turned out to be quite interesting. There were many sculptures: bronze, aluminum and structures covered with brightly covered fabrics. There was also a nice little bird sanctuary and a swimming pool.
When we got the bus station we could find very little written English and no one could understand what we wanted. It was frustrating - especially on an empty stomach and without my morning caffeine. It quickly became apparent that I was going to have a hard time expressing my biological need for hot coffee as well. A few places wanted to give cold coffee in a can. Another place had hot coffee but the woman kept trying to pour it into a big cup of ice cubes. After five or six attempts, we found a restaurant that had hot coffee, but it was only because they catered to westerners. China is definitely not a nation of coffee addicts like America - maybe that's why the Chinese seem so calm.


Taoist Temple
photo page one
photo page two
After I got my coffee fix and returned to sanity, we went to several more travel agencies but were equally disappointed. It didn't seem like they even understood where we wanted to go: the city of Guilin. Maybe we weren't pronouncing it right - we were saying Gwee - lin. Later on in the trip, we met a french guy who said, "Oh, you mean Gooey-lin?" Too much frustration for vacation.
I convinced Amy that we should take a break from annoying the travel agents and do some sightseeing. We hopped on the subway to the Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Taoist Temple, where they had all kinds of things to take pictures of. There were many Chinese people at this temple burning incense to pay homage to their ancestors. There was a large garden with pools, waterfalls, sculptures and turtles behind the temple.


Hair Art at the Museum

More hair!

From there, it was a short walk along the expressway to Chi Lin Nunnery, which was much more sedate but equally picturesque.After this little adventure, we returned to Tsim Sha Tsui near our hotel and checked out a Chinese Tourist Office. The woman who helped us out spoke good English but she didn't know of any bus that went directly form Hong Kong to Guilin. She did explain to us how to get to the border and where we could catch a bus from there. We decided we would go to the border town of Shenzhen the next day and figure out from there.
Next, we went to the Hong Kong Museum of Art, which was only a few blocks away and free on Wednesdays. We were also excited about the air conditioning as we had been walking around in the hot sun for over four hours.
The most memorable exhibit was this monumental art piece made of hair. The hair was formed into chinese characters and hung like giant curtains. There was also a great exhibit of masterpieces from the Pompidou Centre in Paris, but most of this work I was already familiar with.
After the museum, we had some dinner and returned to the Avenue of the Stars, the walkway along Victoria Harbor, to see the Hong Kong skyline at night. We were pleasantly surprised to find that not only were all the buildings lit upwith a multitude of lights, but that the city puts on a whole light show every night at 8PM. It's called the Symphony of Lights - classical music swells up and lights start flickering on and off on many of the buildings in all kinds of patterns. Then green lasers shoot out of several skyscrapers and white spotlights off of several more. It was like the fourth of July mixed with a science fiction movie - it went on for at least a half hour.
When it was all over, we popped into the nearby Hong Kong Space Museum, which as luck would have it, was open till 9PM and free on Wednesdays. Did I mention it was Wednesday? The museum had a variety of science displays that were fun in a kitschy 1980's kind of way.
We topped the night off by wandering around the outdoor night market - perusing block after block of small booths selling everything imaginable.


Symphony of Lights
More lights
Lasers too
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