Day 2

The neon lights at night in Hong Kong are amazing – a rival to Las Vegas!  Seems like the downtown is never in darkness.

So on day two after breakfast we took the MTR under Victoria Harbour to the Island which is known as ‘the frog’.  We went to Soho District; the trendy restaurant and boutique shopping area.  The island itself is very steep, hence narrow winding streets and walkways.  Being Hallowe’en, some of the street were very well decorated.  Tall apartment/condo units cover the island to mid way.  There is an 800 m escalator split in various lengths, going up only.  Stairs down, escalator up.  The map said it is the longest escalator in the world. During our walk down we stumbled upon the Botanical and Zoological Park where we spent a few hours. Beautiful place – a good find. Trees, flowers, gardens, water features, lemurs, monkeys, amazing pigeons, flamingos, lots of different birds, desert turtles, reptiles (we did not visit).  Judy’s favourite tree was ‘Flame of the Forest’. They create an amazing canopy high above with huge above-ground root systems to keep them in place. 

We then stood in line for 2 or more hours to ride The Peak Tram up to the top of the island.  Waiting all that time, we wondered if it was going to be worth it – certainly was!  Beautiful views of Hong Kong even through all the smog.  We figured the tram carries at least 5000 persons per day.  We think all of them were there when we were!  Extremely crowded in certain areas.

Interesting that all the ‘nice’ restaurants are 20 floors up or higher, locals dine street level.  We ate at a beautiful Cantonese restaurant on the 31^st floor – amazing view and the food was so good.  We were unsure how to order so asked for help.  We were not disappointed at all!

It was another good day in Hong Kong.