2016 Asia Mega Tour - Taking Off The Training Wheels In Hong Kong

Our guides from Pooh Lee Shah Travel politely told us that they had other clients other than us today (actually they said, "Enough...you travel all over the world! Find your way around!).  So today Wife and I set out on our own in Hong Kong for the first time. All we had to do for this first jaunt is get from the apartment to the Victoria Peak Tram station which is literally a 10 minute walk.

I am proud to say that it only took us three minutes to get lost while doing this. The problem with navigating Hong Kong is that it is a three dimensional city. Not just in the sense of tall buildings but in the sense of it being built into a side of a mountain with roads and walkways that go over and under each other. So you can start down a road or path and suddenly find you are under or over where you want to be. Or you can be in these mazes of walkways that go between buildings all through the central area. 

However with only double the amount of time that we should have taken we did get to the Peak Tram. This is one of 'The' sights of Hong Kong. Built in 1881, it takes close to the summit of the highest peak in Hong Kong. There is a big ass shopping area on top with every means of parting you and your money. We however did a 1.5 mile hike that looped the peak and provided multitudes of views of the city and harbor of Hong Kong.

From out of the blazing light arriveth the Tram!

For some reason only known to the ancient Chinese gods we were possessed to take a selfie on said tram

The Tram be incredibly steep - a fact hard to capture in photos

Views of Hong Kong from our walk on the path

This is NOT a selfie. Many tourists on the path. We took lots of pictures of others and they did likewise for us

A collage of panoramic videos

Long time readers will remember my love of signage as I travel the world

I believe the Chinese actually reads

"Beware the End of Days Coming Soon!"

A Tale of Lunch

This innocuous picture of typical Cantonese style BBQ meat (port and duck respectively) that made up our lunch disguises a much more complicated story.

Wife and I finished our walk around the Peak at just about Noon time. The food options on the top as you can imagine were a variety of high priced commercial fare. Wife and I craved the food we'd had down in the market streets. That required that we navigate from the Tram Terminus to that area. It all seemed so easy when Honorable Pooh took us on Friday. So we began walking and walking mostly going though seemingly endless internal walkways between buildings. This being lunch hour these walkways were teaming with people (Welcome to Asia Round Eye!). But miraculously we found our way to the exact area we'd been before. We were pretty desperate for food. There were lots of places with no English and big lines for tiny little restaurants. We settled for the BBQ place because I knew what most of it was and could point. They were very nice to these 'tourists' and we were glad to finally get some food. We lucked out on our attempt to get a cab back to the apartment too. 

So we survived our first 'day on our own'.