Saturday, June 16, 2007

Well, we arrived in “Honk Honk” (as Madison calls it) last night and we were so excited to see Nai Nai and Grandad in the airport. I’m not sure who was the most tired—them following their 24 hour plane ride, or us, having just flown from Beijing after our wonderful three days at Shepherd’s Village.

On the way to our hotel on Kowloon Island, we drove across a beautiful 4 mile suspension bridge—one of the longest suspension bridges in the world. We saw the magnificent Hong Kong skyline, and learned that all of the buildings stay brightly lit until midnight each night.

This morning we met the rest of our travel group—Nina, Jason, and 4-year-old Madeleine from Vermont, and Amy and Sean from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Kaylee, Madison, and Madeleine have instantly become The Three Musketeers. (We have a VERY small travel group this time—only 3 families. With Kaylee, there were 18 families, and with Madison there were 10.)

The first thing we did was go up to Victoria Peak, which overlooks Victoria Harbor. On our way, our guide Yuka told us many fascinating things about Hong Kong. We passed a cemetery that is only for the very wealthy. They purchase a 3 foot by 8 foot plot of land for $20,000 (US) and get to be buried there forever. The rest of the people, including Yuka’s family, will RENT land from the government. After 7 years, you have to dig up your loved one’s remains so someone else can use the space for 7 years. I can’t imagine.

There are 7 million people who live in Hong Kong. Even the “rural” area has residential high rises. Yuka, her husband, and her 2 children live in a 600 square foot apartment—and she said that’s considered large. On our way up the mountain, we passed some governmental apartments that are only 200 square feet with 1 window (sounds like my dorm room!). Outside of the window is a 3 foot bamboo pole where they dry their clothes. (Everyone in Hong Kong has air conditioners, many people have dishwashers, but very few people have dryers.) Because of the high humidity here, it often takes 10 days for the clothes to dry. Juxtaposed to that, we saw an apartment building up on the mountain, which used to be a hotel. Land is at such a premium in Hong Kong, that they demolished the hotel in order to build the apartment building. These apartments are 2,000 square feet, and the rent is $8,000 (US) a month. Wow. We also found out that the current tallest building in Hong Kong, at 88 stories high, is a residential building. 8 is the luckiest number in China, and 4 is the unluckiest. Thus, this is a very “lucky” building to live in because it has 88 stories. Interestingly, you have to pay more to live on the stories that have an 8 in them (the 8th story, the 18th, 28th, etc). It was also interesting to learn that when they number the floors, they skip 4, 14, 24, etc., since 4 is the unluckiest number, and no one would want to live on that floor.

After we walked around Victoria Peak, enjoying our view of Victoria Harbor, the Hong Kong skyline, and the beautiful mountains in the background, we went back down the mountain, and saw “the real Hong Kong”—beautiful swimming bays, mountains, and greenery. We took a sampan boat ride through the Aberdeen Fishing Village in the harbor, and got to see the boats and the fishermen up close. Fishing used to be the primary industry of Hong Kong, but no longer. In 1985, there were 600,000 fishing boats in the harbor. By 2000, it was down to 10,000—and today there’s even less. These fishermen and their families live on the boats—and some even have washing machines on the boats. Because the harbor is too busy, they travel farther south, near the Philippines, to fish. They return to the harbor once a week to receive their mail—and everyone knows each other. It seemed rather crowded with less than 10,000 boats—I can’t imagine 600,000.

After that, we went to the Aberdeen Jewelry Factory, where we saw how they hand-make jewelry in Hong Kong. And it was here, that Grandad bought me my third jade bracelet. Most of you know that I always wear jade bracelets, and some of you know why. When we were adopting Kaylee, we were told of a tradition that they have in China where a mother passes down a piece of jade jewelry (usually a bracelet) to her daughter on her 16th birthday. The day before we adopted Kaylee, my Dad bought me an ice jade bracelet in Beijing for me to wear and to pass down to Kaylee when she’s 16.