The paradise called Hong Kong

So as I promised, the second part of our adventure in China. :) Since there are almost 2 000 kilometers between Beijing and Hong Kong, we faced a change from foggy autumn to heated summer when we arrived. Personally Hong Kong really surprised me at first: I hadn't realized how big it actually is, how many foreigners are living there, how it contains so much more than only the central city, and how clearly it is a mixture of Chinese and British culture. Just for the information, Hong Kong was a British colony until 1990's, so they still have for example left-side traffic and English as another official language. Well, as you can imagine, the difference to Beijing was quite huge.

Some trams on the streets.

Some bazaar-style market street, and so so many people.

Because of its history as a colony, Hong Kong had a bit less Chinese cultural history than Beijing, but the nature was really beautiful. We spent our first days on Lantau island (where most of the foreigners also lived) about 30 minutes ferry drive away from Hong Kong Island and the center. Of course we had to visit the most well-known attraction of Lantau, the giant Buddha statue of Po Lin Monastery. We could have taken a cable car, but instead we chose a bus to have a ride on the mountains. The statue really was big, and the monastery also had a famous vegetarian restaurant, but unfortunately parts of the monastery were under repair so we couldn't see everything.

Lantau island.

The giant Buddha statue in Po Lin monastery.

Really beautiful sunset from the ferry on the way to Hong Kong Island.

Another attraction on the other side of Lantau island is the small fisherman village called Tai O, and even though we only spent there a few hours, it was certainly the best part of our trip to Hong Kong. The village is one of the last remaining places where you can still see traditional Hong Kongese houses built above water, and even though you can't avoid tourists there either, for me it was still somehow peaceful and so beautiful. Also, this is the place where you can go on a boat ride to see some pink dolphins in the nature - these kinds of dolphins only live in Hong Kong and the Amazon, so we were really lucky to be able to see them (and the boat ride for five persons only cost 8€!). Of course there are many other islands in Hong Kong as well, for example Cheung Chau with its narrow streets, and they are quite easy to reach either from Lantau or the Central. And the beaches are also nice!

Traditional houses in Tai O.

Some shop in Tai O, and as you can see, there are mostly sea products.
Not the perfect picture, but it's a pink dolphin :)

Well, after Lantau we spent rest of the time on Hong Kong Island, which together with Kowloon on the other side of the strait forms the heart of Hong Kong. After Lantau, the city eventually felt crowded, but it's quite easy to get used to it after all. On our first evening we visited the Avenue of stars, on which you can find some hand prints and signatures of Hong Kongese celebrities, and watched the Symphony of lights, a light show played every evening on both sides of the strait. It doesn't matter on which side you're standing, the city looks totally gorgeous during the night when all the lights are on. Another great place to see the night scape of Hong Kong is its highest point, the Victoria Peak. There are several viewing platforms, restaurants and shops, but the best views are from the top of Peak Tower shopping center. If you go to Hong Kong, this is something you need to experience, even though you can surely be prepared for a mass of other tourists as well. And another adventure is the tram ride to the peak, since the tram is being pulled up by one single wire and in such angle that you don't really want to look down.

The view to Hong Kong Island from the other side of the strait.

Hand prints and signature of Jackie Chan :D

Night view to the city from the top of Peak Tower in Victoria Peak.
The peak tram on the way to the top of Victoria Peak.

For someone who loves shopping, Hong Kong is a paradise. They have expensive malls as well as bazaar-style streets with all kinds of small stuff. Most of the bazaars sell quite same kind of things, but for example the night market of Temple Street is worth visiting already because of the feeling. As you could expect, it's crowded, but somehow it's just part of the feeling there. Also the small traditional restaurants give a nice feeling, even though they might look a bit dirty, but the food is delicious and definitely local. The area of Mong Kok is famous for the desserts, so it's also worth visiting!

Entrance to Temple Street.

You can just imagine how this place looked like in the dark with all the neon lights. :)

Then if you go on the southern side of Hong Kong Island, you will find Ocean Park. It's a little bit different from a traditional amusement park, since they also have little zoos and a dolphin pool (and some more pandas! ♥) and it seems that they intend to make people more aware about the different ecosystems where their animals live in the nature. It's divided by a mountain, so you can either take a cable car, which definitely offers great views around, or choose a subway through the mountain. Ocean Park is a nice change for normal amusement parks, even though Hong Kong also has a Disneyland (which we didn't visit).

View to the park from the Ocean Park Tower.

Part of the aquarium in the park.

Even though I said earlier that Hong Kong doesn't have that much Chinese cultural history, there are still some traditional walled villages here and there. The one we visited was called Tsang Tai Uk and was located north in the New Territories. It was quite small, but really well preserved. Inside you could see that it had been there for a long time, but even so, people were still really living there. Also it was located in a way more peaceful area further away from the Central.

Tsang Tai Uk from the outside.

I've talked so much again and I could still go on. Hong Kong is a nice place, the people are friendly and quite good with English, and you can find so many kinds of food there. The price level is quite low as well, and there's a lot to buy for every taste. Also the local massage is awesome - I got a foot massage for the first time in my life and after that my feet were so light that I felt like flying. It was so interesting to see how the two cultures are mixed to something unique in Hong Kong. I was surprised that they put so much effort on celebrating Halloween: from the bars to the streets and even the Ocean Park, everything was decorated to the smallest detail and people had so great costumes. When we walked on the bar street on Halloween night, it was hard to believe that we are actually in China. Well, some people say that Hong Kong is not even a part of China, and it's true that it's special. I'm happy that I was able to see two so different cities during the two weeks I spent in China.


Anyway, that's my story about Hong Kong. The next post is going to be about St. Petersburg of Russia, where I'm going to have a course trip with school. So wait for that! :)

★ Maani

Beat of Beijing

Yes, I know I have been so lazy with this blog for so long, and even if I always say that I'll become more active with this, I still don't. Shame on me. Well, again I'll try better. There have been trips and more are coming, so I have a lot to tell about. :) This time I'll write about the crowded capital city of China, Beijing, where I visited last October to meet my sister, who was staying there as au pair. Lucky for me, I could also stay at her host family's home so I didn't need to find any accommodation for myself.

Well, you can just imagine that such a big city was a slight shock for a countryside girl like me coming from a sparsely populated country like Finland. Especially the traffic is a total mess, so if you want to cross the road alive, it's probably better to follow some Chinese person who's used to it already. :D Also Beijing is quite foggy most of the time because of pollution, but I was lucky since the first three days after my arrival were so bright and sunny. And the most important thing to remember is that you should never ever go to any popular sightseeing site on Sunday - it's free day in China, so it's crowded everywhere. We tried it, and we simply had to change the plan. Another thing is that you can manage with English, but in some places - especially local restaurants - they really can't speak English, so it's useful to know at least some Chinese. But China is an interesting country, as you can surely see from the pictures - and by the way, sorry for the picture overload. :D

A meal we made with an old couple at their home. It's Chinese dumplings, something I have no idea about, and Chinese beer and wine.

At a local supermarket. :D

As you see, it's so much people that I barely got myself in. I was standing on the first step and the door was right behind me, because I simply couldn't go deeper inside.

I only stayed in Beijing for one week, so of course me and my sister went to as many sights as possible. So on the first day our destination was the shopping street of Wangfujin and especially the street food alley there. We were supposed to taste something special, but as soon as I saw the sea horses, sea stars, bugs and moving scorpions on the sticks, I wasn't even one bit hungry anymore. So that was it for me, my sister tried some later though. Then we headed to the Temple of Heaven Park, which was quite big and mostly populated by tourists and elderly people. Crowded, but still surely worth visiting, especially the Hall of Prayers and Wall of Echoes. Also if you climb on the platform where the Hall of Prayers is standing, it's a nice view around if you happen to have a day without fog.

A stall at the street food alley. Would you like some?

Hall of Prayers in Temple of Heaven park.

Another 'must see' is the Forbidden City in the heart of Beijing and the Tiananmen square. Surely if you go around the Forbidden City long enough, everything starts to look the same. But of course when you first enter there, it's amazing to think that this is the place where the emperors of China used to live. There are some treasure chambers and rooms of different people, even some original furniture in some places if you have enough time to explore the place. It's a lot bigger than we first thought, we spent there something like 4-5 hours and still didn't see everything. Another nice place is the Jingshan park right behind the Forbidden City. It's a hill offering a great view to the Forbidden City and around Beijing.

Inside Forbidden City. And the sky is still so bright!

Forbidden City from Jingshan Park.
The famous picture of Mao at Tiananmen square.

Then there are the back lakes of Northern Beijing. We explored the surroundings of Houhai lake, the bell and drum towers, and the traditional hutong streets (which were a lot more interesting than the most popular hutong called Nanluogu, which is mainly targeted to tourists. Those hutongs we saw were untouched and people were living their life there without any other tourists around than me and my sister. If you can, go there instead of Nanluogu). Houhai area is, as everything in Beijing, also quite crowded, but the lake is really nice and beautiful and offers some change for the most popular attractions. I also went to the Yonghegong Lama Temple on my own after Houhai area. Many Asian temples look quite alike in my eyes, but it was still quite nice and bigger than I expected. I even saw a ceremony of the monks there.

Around Houhai area.

We were offered tea at some local tea shop in Houhai. When the woman poured hot water on the small Buddha statues, they changed color. :)
Inside the Yonghegong Lama Temple.

And if you are in Beijing, you absolutely have to go Beijing Zoo. Not so much because of the zoo area, since zoos are quite similar everywhere and the animals are maybe not kept as well as what I'm used to as European, but because of the Panda House. Honestly, pandas are probably the cutest thing I've ever seen.


Well, it starts to sound like we only had great time in Beijing, but I surely had some awful experience in the Summer Palace west of Beijing. I went alone, since my sister had to take care of the child of her host family. I didn't have a map of the place, which was again totally huge, consisting of the big hill and Kunming lake and the buildings around. So I was a little lost at first. When I finally got the map and had seen some nice places close to the hill, I decided to walk around the lake to see what's there and continue exploring the buildings close to the hill. Well, the map didn't show distances clearly at all, so I ended up walking almost three hours and still didn't get around the lake. After all I took a boat across the lake to the closest entrance, since the buildings were mostly closed at that time. I thought I'd never get out from there. But well, it's a beautiful place anyway. Suzhou Market Street, Marble Boat and the Temple of Buddhist Incense were my favorites, so I recommend at least visiting these if nothing else. Just don't try to go around the lake...

Stairs to the Tower of Buddhist Incense, I'm so happy I ended up going down and not up!

Suzhou Market Street. And you can see how awful the fog was on that day, totally different from my first days in Beijing.

The Marble Boat.

Then finally on my last day in Beijing, we attended a guided tour to some Chinese factories, Ming Tombs and Great Wall. We were a small group with a nice Chinese guide, so the atmosphere was quite warm and friendly. We visited jade factory and silk factory, which had some small guiding for tourists to see how jade is carved and silk is made out of silk worms. Then we visited the Ming Tombs, the burial place of Ming Dynasty emperors. Honestly it was not that much to see, if it wasn't included in the trip I wouldn't go there again. It's just the outside buildings, but inside the tombs the items are only copies, because all the original ones were destroyed in revolutions. So, maybe it's not worth it to make a trip only for the tombs. But anyway, the main destination of the trip was the Great Wall - there are many parts of it where you can go, but we chose Mutianyu instead of the closest and most popular one. All I can say is that the Great Wall is amazing. It's surely one of the most impressive places I've ever seen. Surely there are also Chinese people trying to sell you anything if you even look at their way, but that's the thing almost everywhere, you'll get used to it. :D

The shop side of the jade factory

This is how we went up the mountain to the Great Wall - I admit it was scary at first.

Totally speechless.

So that's my Beijing as short as I could make it, but I guess I could talk about it forever. Apart from sightseeing, we also experienced the local food (which is definitely different than that offered in Chinese restaurants in Europe), shopping, nightlife, and some local life with and old couple that my sister met earlier. They teached us to make some traditional Chinese food as well. Also, we went to a drive-in theater for the first time with my sister's host family. So even though I experienced so much, I can say that one week is not enough for Beijing. If I could, I would surely go again and explore other cities of China as well. But after Beijing, our journey continued to Hong Kong, so I'll write more about that next time! :)


★ Maani