Today we arrived in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a very cosmopolitan city. It is known for its soaring skyscrapers, and for its beautiful hills and harbor. Hong Kong is also recognized as having some of the world’s best shopping.
There are many nice places to see in and around the area including Victoria Peak, which provides beautiful views of this city and is Hong Kong’s highest peak at over 1,800 feet. Aberdeen is a former fishing village that is well known for its famous floating restaurants. Repulse Bay is a beach area resort that is popular with both locals and tourists alike. There is the Ocean Park also known as “Water World” which offers a large complex of swimming pools and other related water activities. Another attraction is the Hong Kong Space Museum, which is home to one of the most advanced planetariums in Asia.
Then there is the Ocean Terminal where we are docked which is a beautiful Cruise Ship Terminal with eight million square feet that includes a very large office complex, and a shopping center with over fifty food and beverage venues along with five cinemas, three hotels and over 600 retail shops. Within walking distance of the Ocean Terminal are many other retail stores along with The Star Ferry Terminal. Many visitors will take the Ferry during the daytime to explore the surrounding areas or at night to view the city with its beauty all lit up.
Last evening, each passenger received a letter from Captain Glenn with some information with respect to the flu outbreak. It provides some useful information as to precautions that each passenger should take to minimize the risk of becoming ill and in transmitting the illness to others. Many of the recommendations are good practices to follow all of the time.
We woke up early this morning and started the day with our daily workout. Once again, Keith was the first to arrive at the Fitness Center. A little while later other regulars such as John and Mary arrived as did Anne Marie. Keith enjoyed his workout on the Elliptical Machine, as did Anne Marie on the Treadmill. Keith and Mary had a wonderful conversation and talked about plans for today in Hong Kong.
After our workout we enjoyed a wonderful breakfast in our room.
The local pilot came onto our ship precisely at 8:00 AM and starting at that time we began to view our sail-in to Hong Kong. The skies were overcast during our arrival to Hong Kong and there was one area that we could see tremendous pollution, but nevertheless we enjoyed the beauty during our sail-in. Destination Lecturer Dr. Wolff narrated and provided lots of wonderful information for us. There were lots of passengers on the open deck and there was so much to see all around us.
We were cleared to go ashore ahead of scheduled and we went to a variety of places where we ended up running into many folks from the ship. We went over to the Peninsula Hotel and we quickly saw a couple that we met on last years World Cruise (they did the last half of that World Cruise) and they gave us a big hug. They are staying at this hotel and will be boarding the ship tomorrow for the second half of the World Cruise. We went to Ascot Chang and ordered a couple of custom made tuxedo shirts which will be ready at 10:00 AM tomorrow morning. We went to a variety of other shops in the Hotel including Jimmy Chen, which was recommended by some other passenger’s as well.
We did go over to Ashnell Shop, which was recommended by several people to look at the handbags. We would stay that about 75% of the people shopping there were from Crystal. We also went into another Men’s custom shop that a few people recommended to us including the family that sat near our table who live in Hong Kong. On our way back to the ship we looked at the Chinese Arts & Crafts Center. We had pre-ordered lunch and ate at 1:30 PM. When we finished it was time to go back out. We went back to several stores that we went to in the morning along with many other stores and we also walked for several hours.
The locals were very nice to us in all of the shops. The streets were fairly crowded but this is clearly a vibrant area.
There is definitely a pollution problem in Hong Kong. We do hope that the issue of Pollution will be addressed as it reminded us of the Los Angeles, California area before action was taken to curb the pollutants in the air. We could feel the impact of the pollution as we walked around throughout the day.
Tomorrow, we will explore more of Hong Kong. The ship is scheduled to leave Hong Kong at 8:00 PM. Tomorrow morning many passengers will be disembarking the ship while new passengers will be arriving starting at 12:00 noon.
This evening we will be enjoying a nice variety of Sushi in our room along with salad and a nice fruit plate from the Silk Road Japanese Specialty Restaurant.
Keith & Anne Marie
