For visitors to Hong Kong, it is practically obligatory to take the Tram up to the top of Victoria Peak, which offers a commanding view of the city. This shot takes in the Kowloon section of the city on the other side of Victoria Harbor, and beyond that the hilly region of Hong Kong known as the New Territories. In an historical side note, the Qing dynasty of China leased the New Territories to the British in 1898 for a term of 99 years, ending in 1997. A major factor in Britain deciding to return Hong Kong to the Peoples' Republic of China in 1997 was that China was not going to renew the lease on the New Territories, making Hong Kong basically indefensible.
4 comments:
Really great view and you can see the picture so much better when clicking on it to enlarge it. Pretty cool!
How was it getting around?
Thanks.
We pretty much took a taxi wherever we needed to go. However, HK also has an excellent public transportation system. You can take the Star Ferry across the Harbor to Kowloon in about ten minutes. There is also an Airport Express train that takes you from the airport to Central in about 20 minutes. However, for us it was not practical to use because we would have had to lug three suitcases with us. Besides, our hotel was in Wanchai, which is not near the Central station.
HK also has an excellent modern airport. The story behind it is interesting and our first night there one of the channels featured a story about the construction of the airport. Since HK has very little available land, they leveled the hills on a small island and then used it to connect it to another nearby island to make a much larger island. In addition to constructing the airport, they had to construct new roads, bridges and tunnels to connect the airport to Central Hong Kong.
How are the prices in Hong Kong? Is it very expensive there?
I guess prices there are comparable to the US. The US dollar gets you about 7 HK dollars. A bottle of ice tea will cost you about 8 or 9 HK dollars.
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