April 1, Sunday
Happy April Fools everyone! No one around for me to play jokes on, or have them played on me!
I spent a lazy morning at the hotel watching TV and working on my pictures and blog. By noon I was off on the bus, heading for the Star Ferry to cross over to Hong Kong Island to explore on my own.
Leaving the Kowloon Star Ferry Station
Arriving at the Hong Kong Central Pier, Star Ferry Station
The ferries are pointed (bows) at both ends. No reversing necessary. You just take the back of the benches and move them to the other side to sit in the right direction. 
As you can see, there is also a staircase available for those going in the other direction.
Views of the streets from the escalator
One of the narrow streets along the way.
The Botanical Gardens and main fountain
Orchids in the green house.
Striped Abutilon; aren't they beautiful ? Turns out they are from Brazil !
White and pink varieties of the same mysterious flower
No name marker on this one either, but it was gorgeous.
There are aviaries and a small zoo attached to the gardens, and since it was Sunday, it was a busy place with families coming out for a "free" activity with their kiddies.
These darn grills make it so difficult to get a nice picture of the birds and animals. This is a "Victoria crested pigeon".
And the monkeys / chimps were having a great time treating us to their "swinging" antics.
After leaving the Gardens, I looked around to make sure I was going downhill toward the IFC Tower (2nd tallest in HK) and found that I was on Garden Road. Perfect ! Within less than one block, Garden Road was closed to traffic and I was able to easily walk down. I could see lines of people everywhere I looked. Turns out they were all waiting to enter Government House. The grounds to this building are huge. Government House is not usually open to visitors, but today was an exception and as it was Sunday, Hong-Kong citizens were lining up to enter. It was formerly the office and residence of Governors of Hong Kong. It is now the residence and office of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. They don’t have presidents or prime ministers; innovative idea to run a huge city don’t you think? More cities should do this instead of “electing” mayors who know nothing about running a large enterprise.
People lining up to visit the Government House Gardens
Back down on Queen's Road
Since I’m talking about city management, I should note here that the streets are all CLEAN here, everywhere I have been (Kowloon, Hong Kong, and Lantau). Littering is heavily fined and no one does it! In the downtown cores I did not see any dogs, and on the rare occasions when I did, they were on-leash (Stanley, waterfront walk, etc). The drivers obey road laws and you rarely hear honking horns. How very civilized ! The transportation systems are also clean and extremely efficient, as well as reasonably priced. The bus from my hotel to the Kowloon ferry costs me 5 HK$. The Star Ferry ride cost me 3 HK$. The metro from “Central” on Hong Kong Island back to Kowloon’s MongKok Station, near my hotel, was 11 HK$. $1 = approx 8 HK$.
As I followed Garden Road, it suddenly came to an end to a number of streets that ran off it, none of them downhill. I spotted a stairway leading down to another street below so ventured down it. In no time, I was back on Queen’s Road with its huge high-rises and shop fronts. Lots of malls in this area. I was on the lookout for a hair salon to get a much needed hair styling, but no luck on that front.
IFC Tower Two. 2nd tallest building in Hong Kong area
By this time it was passed 4 pm and my feet were killing me. I decided to make my way down to the metro system and head back to Kowloon. Follow the signs, go down a few levels of escalators and locate an information desk. Not very helpful apart from telling me that the entrance I wanted for the “red” line was on the left. I managed to locate the ticket office around a corner and after a few hick-ups, finally was able to purchase a ticket from the automatic machine. {First machine went out of service just as I finally reached it ! There was only one machine that would take exact coin change, which I did not have. Back to the information desk to get some change, back to the machine to punch in the coordinates where I was going, and finally got my ticket for the metro.} The underground system here is amazing, but it meant a walk from the IFC complex back to the “Central” station, which turned out to be a 10 minute walk.
The ride back to Kowloon was smooth and extremely efficient.
I was only about 5 blocks away from Soy Street and the streets were teaming with people. As I got closer to Soy Street I remembered that one of the side streets had a number of shoe stores on it and I was able to find it again. The hunt for a “high arch support” running shoe was not an easy one; I think that many Chinese people must have flat feet. In the 6th or 7th shop I finally found a pair of Nike with a bit of an arch support. It was 5 by now and I decided to stop at a noodle shop for a light dinner, on the way back to the hotel. Soy street was in fact closed to traffic and was filled with pedestrians. Just two blocks from my hotel is the famous “women’s market”, filled with temporary market shops selling clothes, knock-off purses, and souvenirs.
The "Women's Market"
Soy Street, closed for pedestrians on Sunday afternoons
Lots of people walking around and shopping for deals.
Happy April Fools everyone! No one around for me to play jokes on, or have them played on me!
I spent a lazy morning at the hotel watching TV and working on my pictures and blog. By noon I was off on the bus, heading for the Star Ferry to cross over to Hong Kong Island to explore on my own.
Leaving the Kowloon Star Ferry Station
Arriving at the Hong Kong Central Pier, Star Ferry Station
From the Ferry, there is an elevated walkway that brings you to do downtown streets. Although I did not have a map of these, they were fairly easy to get around on since they are well marked. There was a bit of a mystery which I have yet to solve however. All along the elevated walkways around the store areas, there were groups of people sitting on (and sometimes in) cardboard boxes. They had brought their lunches, were playing cards, and sometimes just chatting. ? ? No idea why, but they were obviously having a great time. Maybe this is a normal Sunday activity around here.
Just sitting around on cardboard boxes. In windy areas they were actually sitting within the boxes, with the sides up.
I made my way to Des Voeux Road to locate the “Central –Mid Levels Escalator”. These escalators bring you all the way up the mountain side to where you can take the tram up to Victoria Peak. It is built in sections so that you can get off on a variety of streets along the way. It is a total of 800 metres long and is the world’s longest covered escalator; all outdoors ! Travelling its entire length takes about 20 minutes. It runs one-way, downhill from 6 am to 10 am, and then uphill from 10 am to midnight. It is used by locals to get from their homes to the mass transit system and work.
As you can see, there is also a staircase available for those going in the other direction.
Views of the streets from the escalator
One of the narrow streets along the way.
You can see how useful this escalator is, walking up these steps everyday would be a real PAIN ! You can see 4 levels of the escalator in this shot.
I got off at the SoHo area (doesn’t mean South of Hoston here) where there are lots of restaurants and went in to one for Brunch; it is Sunday today so I should treat myself. Eggs Benedict ! Haven’t had that in about 3 months; since South Africa.
After having eaten, I checked the map again, went up a few more levels, waved down a taxi on Caine Road and made my way to the Hong Kong Zoological & Botanical Gardens. On the map it looked like quite a distance away, but it turns out I could easily have walked over. 
The Botanical Gardens and main fountain
Orchids in the green house.
Striped Abutilon; aren't they beautiful ? Turns out they are from Brazil !
White and pink varieties of the same mysterious flower
No name marker on this one either, but it was gorgeous.
There are aviaries and a small zoo attached to the gardens, and since it was Sunday, it was a busy place with families coming out for a "free" activity with their kiddies.
These darn grills make it so difficult to get a nice picture of the birds and animals. This is a "Victoria crested pigeon".
And the monkeys / chimps were having a great time treating us to their "swinging" antics.
After leaving the Gardens, I looked around to make sure I was going downhill toward the IFC Tower (2nd tallest in HK) and found that I was on Garden Road. Perfect ! Within less than one block, Garden Road was closed to traffic and I was able to easily walk down. I could see lines of people everywhere I looked. Turns out they were all waiting to enter Government House. The grounds to this building are huge. Government House is not usually open to visitors, but today was an exception and as it was Sunday, Hong-Kong citizens were lining up to enter. It was formerly the office and residence of Governors of Hong Kong. It is now the residence and office of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. They don’t have presidents or prime ministers; innovative idea to run a huge city don’t you think? More cities should do this instead of “electing” mayors who know nothing about running a large enterprise.
People lining up to visit the Government House Gardens
Back down on Queen's Road
Since I’m talking about city management, I should note here that the streets are all CLEAN here, everywhere I have been (Kowloon, Hong Kong, and Lantau). Littering is heavily fined and no one does it! In the downtown cores I did not see any dogs, and on the rare occasions when I did, they were on-leash (Stanley, waterfront walk, etc). The drivers obey road laws and you rarely hear honking horns. How very civilized ! The transportation systems are also clean and extremely efficient, as well as reasonably priced. The bus from my hotel to the Kowloon ferry costs me 5 HK$. The Star Ferry ride cost me 3 HK$. The metro from “Central” on Hong Kong Island back to Kowloon’s MongKok Station, near my hotel, was 11 HK$. $1 = approx 8 HK$.
As I followed Garden Road, it suddenly came to an end to a number of streets that ran off it, none of them downhill. I spotted a stairway leading down to another street below so ventured down it. In no time, I was back on Queen’s Road with its huge high-rises and shop fronts. Lots of malls in this area. I was on the lookout for a hair salon to get a much needed hair styling, but no luck on that front.
I decided to make my way to the IFC buildings since it was finally a sunny afternoon and the views from the 2nd tallest tower in Hong Kong should be spectacular. Getting to this huge complex of buildings was extremely easy, back on the elevated walkway and “Bob’s your uncle”… well in my family Bob’s my nephew, but ….. you know what I mean. Finding the elevator that will take you to the top of 2 IFC Building however proved to be not so easy. I wandered around for almost half an hour and had to back track at one point before I finally found it; It said it was the entrance to the “Finance” section, which is what threw me the first time around. After all this, I was told that it was not “open” on Sundays. “Please to come back tomorrow !” Oh also found out that it was used in the Batman “Dark Knight” movie, but not in the James Bond one, it was Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. The building is 415 meters high, has 88 stories, completed in 2003. {14th and 24th floors are omitted as being inauspicious – 14 sounds like "definitely fatal" and 24 like "easily fatal" in Cantonese.} I noticed that there was no 14th floor in the Stanford either ! Also found out that you can only go up to the 55th floor for the view, but it is supposed to be spectacular.
By this time it was passed 4 pm and my feet were killing me. I decided to make my way down to the metro system and head back to Kowloon. Follow the signs, go down a few levels of escalators and locate an information desk. Not very helpful apart from telling me that the entrance I wanted for the “red” line was on the left. I managed to locate the ticket office around a corner and after a few hick-ups, finally was able to purchase a ticket from the automatic machine. {First machine went out of service just as I finally reached it ! There was only one machine that would take exact coin change, which I did not have. Back to the information desk to get some change, back to the machine to punch in the coordinates where I was going, and finally got my ticket for the metro.} The underground system here is amazing, but it meant a walk from the IFC complex back to the “Central” station, which turned out to be a 10 minute walk.
I’m wearing my Sketchers today but they don’t provide enough arch support for my feet. My white running shoes are now grey as I have not been able to wash them properly since arriving in South Africa in mid-December. It may be time to throw those away and find some new ones.
The ride back to Kowloon was smooth and extremely efficient.
I was only about 5 blocks away from Soy Street and the streets were teaming with people. As I got closer to Soy Street I remembered that one of the side streets had a number of shoe stores on it and I was able to find it again. The hunt for a “high arch support” running shoe was not an easy one; I think that many Chinese people must have flat feet. In the 6th or 7th shop I finally found a pair of Nike with a bit of an arch support. It was 5 by now and I decided to stop at a noodle shop for a light dinner, on the way back to the hotel. Soy street was in fact closed to traffic and was filled with pedestrians. Just two blocks from my hotel is the famous “women’s market”, filled with temporary market shops selling clothes, knock-off purses, and souvenirs.
The "Women's Market"
Soy Street, closed for pedestrians on Sunday afternoons
Lots of people walking around and shopping for deals.
Made my way back to the Stanford for a much needed shower and to rest my sore feet.
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