An All Day Tour and Dinner

An alarm clock went off at 7:02AM, we got out of bed & ready for the day, had some breakfast and were in the lobby in front of the fountain to meet our tour. We were greeted by a guide and joined a bus load full of people, picked up a few more passengers at another hotel, and went back to the tour company's meeting spot. We were each given a sticker to wear & were directed to change buses to go with the correct tour group. We joined the others with the "LA 360" sticker and were off...

The first stop, "Avenue of the Stars"... much like the Hollywood walk of fame, but all Asian actors. Statue of Bruce Lee is the center of the attraction, as well of stars & hand prints of Jet Li, Chow Yung Fat and Jackie Chan. The more entertaining part of this was we took a 10 min bus ride, changed buses and started a tour across the street from our hotel. I thought it was so amusing that I took a photo of the tour bus stopped in front of our hotel. On the opposite side from where a different bus had picked us up over an hour prior.

From Hong Kong: Day 2 -- LA 360 Tour

Next stop TSL Jewelry factory, which annoyingly turned out to be a 4 minute tour down a hallway watching people in cubicles analyze & set stones, followed by a running sales pitch in their show room for their overpriced jewelry. Horrible.

Then a lengthy bus ride including crossing the world's longest double decker suspension bridge, the Port of Hong Kong's shipping depot, and other random sites en route to the cable cars. We got another sticker offering us priority boarding, ie. skip the long line. So now, wearing 2 stickers, we boarded the cable car that brought us up the mountain to the next section of the tour. Our car included 2 gay Canadians in their late 70s, super cute men who had been traveling together for the better part of 40 years--they were in Hong Kong after a 10-day cruise of the Asian coasts. A Dutch father and son combination with an awesome camera, they spent most of the time framing up their next shot, a Filipino man that was touring alone, switching back and forth between his camcorder and still camera and our tour guide Rex. The others on the tour were in the cars following us.

Here we are in the cable car,

From Hong Kong: Day 2 -- Cable Car Ride

At the top, we went to a Monastery, toured around, had an not so pleasing vegetarian lunch, and took a bus up to see the "big Buddha". I took so many photos that my batteries died, luckily I had 2 backup pairs.

From Hong Kong: Day 2 -- Big Buddha

Next we went down the hill a bit to a fishing village called Tai O. Saw stilt houses, saw enough dried seafood on the streets to feed a small army and another temple. Finally, back to the village to do some souvenir shopping and meet the cable car to take us back to the bus, to a different bus, and back to the hotel. I downloaded my memory card, 488 photos, today... Needless to say, I'll get to them when I can.

We showered up & took the ferry across to Hong Kong Island to meet good friends of the Krinskys' for dinner. We had a nice walk through part of the financial district of Hong Kong and had a great meal. I'm actually very tired, tonight, so I'm off to bed a bit early.

Photo of Hong Kong's skyline from the ferry,

From Hong Kong: Day 2 -- Ferry to Dinner

Another early breakfast for 8:20 pick up for our tour tomorrow.