The Architecture and Dim Sum Tour of HK

Today was the first “official” day of the tour. I left my hotel around 8 AM and took the subway over to Kowloon, meeting up with the rest of the group at 8:30. It was rush hour, so it was a bit cumbersome navigating the stairs and packed trains with a 35 lb backpack, plus the daypack with the laptop. (note to self—next time, take a cab)

The tour group hotel is the YMCA—it’s actually a pretty nice place with decent rooms and a great location right across the harbor from Central Hong Kong. Many more western tourists here than in the area I was the first two nights. The entire group (now up to 19 people) convened in the lobby at 9 AM, where we met our tour guide. His name is Dragon and he is from Sichuan—he assured us that he was not an actual dragon, which was comforting. Dragon led us to a fourth floor outdoor terrace where we had our orientation. We were given a list of travel tips for mainland China, mostly pertaining to scary toilets, bad drinking water, and aggressive prostitutes.

We actually have multiple tour guides for this leg of the trip. Around 10 AM, we met Bruce Foreman, the guide taking us around Hong Kong and Macao. He’s from Australia and specializes in the Feng Shui aspects of Asian architecture. Bruce began the tour with a short visit to the Hong Kong Museum of Art, which has an exhibit of historic maps and paintings of the City. From there, we gathered along the waterfront promenade, and he pointed out the architectural highlights of the City. One interesting thing about Hong Kong is that much of Downtown is on landfill—the original shoreline is about a half mile back from the current water’s edge.

We took the Star Ferry across the Harbor and then did a three hour walking tour of Central Hong Kong. Weather was warm and hazy, in the high 80s. Much of the walk took us down narrow alleys, filled with stalls selling live chickens, fish, and skinned pigs. Bruce pointed out historic and architectural highlights along the way. We also went to a Buddhist temple, and meandered along Hollywood Road, the “antique furniture” street. The walking was a good chance for the group to get better acquainted, as many of us have never met before. It’s a great group, and I think we’re all going to get along really well.

We had lunch at an awesome dim sum place called “Dragon-I”. In addition to great food, there was a hip vibe about the place and hypnotic techno music. At the end of lunch, we were greeted by Sylvester Wong, from the Hong Kong office of HOK. He took us on “Part Two” of the walking tour, highlighting contemporary architecture and telling us a little bit about the work his firm is doing here in Asia. He explained how planning and development are done in Hong Kong. The tour ended at the Museum of Planning and Infrastructure, which has some interesting models of the City. At this point, I headed back to the hotel for a siesta. Several others went up to Victoria Peak, but I skipped that since I had done it the day before. We’re on our own for dinner tonight, but I ate so much dim sum, I think I’ll skip it!

By the way, these blog entries are going to get MUCH shorter after Friday when we go over to Mainland China. I don’t think internet access will be quite so simple there, so it will be whatever I can type at an internet café!