Greetings all,
As I mentioned in my last update, Rod and I went on a little vacation down to Hong Kong. For those of you who have asked yourself the question..."why did Britain give Hong Kong back to China?"...well, the short answer is, "their lease expired"...! Here's the quick and dirty story...it was all about drugs! (Things haven't changed much have they?)
Back in the 1830's (more or less) The Qing Chinese government was very weak, corrupt and backwards, mainly because of the closed door policy. Westerners were desperate to open up this market, especially the British, who successfully made up their tea trade deficit by selling opium to the Chinese. The whole country was addicted and the Chinese government wanted to stop the sale of Opium, and after some failed diplomacy, "the opium wars" started. The Chinese lost the First Opium War and signed the very first treaty, the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842. The Hong Kong Island was ceded to Britain. After the loss of the Second Opium War, the Treaty of Beijing was signed in 1860. Kowloon Peninsula (which is located across "Victoria Harbor", looks over Hong Kong Island) was ceded to Britain in a lease for 99 years. That lease expired in 1997, when Hong Kong was handed back over to China.
The years of British rule, especially after WWII was significant in Hong Kong's history...one of the revolutionaries in China is said to have said (loosely quoted here!) when he visited Hong Kong that "Britain has done in 70 years what China could not in 4000 years" It is indeed a very prosperous city of about 8 million people.
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| Victoria Harbor of Hong Kong island, from the Kowloon side |
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Rod and I arrived on Sunday, 5 June, knowing that Monday, 6 June was a national Holiday for Dragon boat day. I've already mentioned the history of the Dragon boats, so I won't go into that again. All over China, the 5th day of the 5th Lunar month is Dragon boat day, so this year the big day fell on a Monday, and we went to Stanley beach in Hong Kong to see the races. Companies, villages, organizations of all types get teams together to race these boats...painted to have the fins of a dragon, the tail of a dragon and the head of a dragon with a certain type of paddle etc. The boat is full of people with a drummer who keeps the cadence for the rowers...(the cadence callers are typically girls from what I saw!)
Here are some photos from the dragon boat races in Hong Kong.
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| A dragon boat launching from the beach on the way to the starting point |
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| The dragon boat |
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| Rod and Sarah with the HSBC dragon boat team (HSBC: Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation)...a big presence in Hong Kong!) |
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| A team waiting on their drummer |
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| Sarah & Rod with the head of the dragon boat in Hong Kong |
It was hot and humid in Hong Kong...every day was a "flat or frizzy hair day"! But it didn't matter..we were together and had fun!
One of the other things we did while there was to just tour around the island and the Kowloon side and admire the skyscrapers! Here are some pictures taken from the Kowloon side (overlooking Hong Kong Island)
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| Rod & Sarah on the "Avenue of the Stars" on the Kowloon side in Hong Kong |
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| Tour boat in Victoria Harbor at dusk in Hong Knog |
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| Sarah & Rod on the promenade on the Harbor |
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The next day, Rod and I went to Macau. This is another island, that was owned by Portugal and was turned back over the China in 1999. I don't know the history of this island, but I think it was a similar situation with a lease expiring. Anyway, the big deal on the island is gambling. Rod nor I either one are big gamblers (actually, we don't gamble at all!..well almost as you'll read a little later!). We went on a tour of the island and found it really different than Hong Kong...very European feeling and much smaller (500k people on Macau compared to 8million in Hong Kong).
Here are some pictures of our tour of Macau:
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| Inscense burners at one of the Buddist temples |
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| Sarah & Rod at one of the Buddist temples in Macau |
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| The Portuguese houses in Macau |
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| Sarah & Rod in front of the Portuguese houses in Macau |
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| A lotus flower in the lake by the Portugese houses in Macau |
Now, the big deal on Macau is gambling...and we saw many casinos. A friend of ours told us that we needed to see "The Venetian"..it was just like the one in Las Vegas. So, as it was the last stop on our tour, we went inside. It was truely like the one in Vegas...really a spectical! I had decided I wanted to play some money in the casino...so I got some money changed and Rod and I looked for a machine we could understand (which was not easy....and truth be known, we really didn't understand the one I finally sat down at). I made the statement: "I'm feeling lucky" and stuck the bill into the machine..before I knew it, it was all gone...(slot machines have really changed since the old "one arm bandit" days!). So, I stuck another bill in and after a couple of plays...something happened...lights started going off...and the screen went crazy...and out of no where, a lady came up and asked me if I wanted to take the money (I didn't know where to push or anything), so I said yes...and before I knew it I had won about 20 times the money I bet...enough to pay for our trip to Macau and then some!! I was so excited...Rod, who was not all that excited about me gambling the money to start with, urged me to "take the money"..so I did...we actually walked out of Macau with more money that we went in with!! Obviously that made my day..but I'm not going back any time soon!!
The next day, we relaxed, went to "The Peak" (as the name suggests, it's a very high vantage point that overlooks the harbor....very nice...and obviously, very rich...we saw more Porche's, Bentley's, Mercedes' than I've ever seen in one place!
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| Sarah & Rod at "The Peak" in Hong Kong overlooking Hong Kong |
I got a spa treatment and we rode a boat around the harbor...very relaxing!
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| Rod & Sarah riding the "sanpan" boat in the Harbor |
One of the big things in Hong Kong is shopping...tons of luxury shops, all kinds of things...but we didn't get temped by too much this time...so we just took pictures. There is also a light show at 8:00pm every night which is correagraphed to music, complete with lazers, neon, huge TV screens etc.. I tried to take pictures, but since I didn't have a tripod, and am not really up on night photography, none I took really give it justice...but here's a small attempt with a boat going by in the harbor
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| Hong Kong Victoria Harbor at night |
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| Neon city lights in Hong Kong |
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| More city lights...I think Chow Tai Fook jewelery has a corner on the market there...they are on every corner! |
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| More city lights and tons of people on Hong Kong |
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| "The Ladies Market"...lots of junk! |
Overall, we found Hong Kong very nice...there is much that we didn't see...my guess is when we go back, it will be November/December/January...it should be much cooler then!!
That's about it for this week! This coming week, Rod and I are going on a 3 day trip the country with a Chinese friend of ours here...this should be interesting...story next weekend (assuming we survive!)
Sarah
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