Sunday is usually day of rest, but not for this group of UW students. We had our cameras out and ready for a busy day of sightseeing. The day started early with a “group gathering” at the hotel where Nancy enlightened us with the history of Hong Kong. For two hundred years Hong Kong was a British colony, which explained much of the Western influences present in the city. It worked in some way like a lease, and in 1997 that period of leasing ended. Now, Hong Kong is a special operating region and is in a fifty-year transitional period, as it works to become part of China once again. We also reviewed what we had seen and learned thus far on the trip and made suggestions for what might work well on future excursions to China.
Following the gathering, we boarded our coach and began our trek through the city of bridges and tunnels to the Big Buddha. There are five Big Buddha statues throughout China, providing a place of peace and tranquility for Buddhists and tourists alike. In order to get to this site, we took a twenty-five minute cable car ride up into the mountains where the Buddha and a holy temple resided. Through the overcast skies and fog, the views from the ride were incredible. As we dangled in the air, over both land and water, many of us secretly thought about what would happen if the cables were to give way. Perhaps we could have joined the few brave tourists who decided to do the five-hour plus hike through the mountains to the temple.
Once we were off the cable car, we proceeded to climb over two hundred stairs to the Big Buddha. The Buddha we visited was in the Southern part of the country and faced north towards the other four Buddhas. After greeting the Buddha, we descended down the stairs and entered the temple. There we were instantly attracted to the smells of burning incenses and fresh flowers and the sounds of chanting prayers. We then sat down for a lunch full of tofu, bean curd, and vegetables in the temple’s dining hall. After our meal, we quickly took a look inside the beautiful place of worship full of golden statues, exotic flowers, and colorful decorations.
Leaving Big Buddha behind, we then drove to the south side of Hong Kong Island. This side of the island was noticeably different from the northern side. The area holds many of the best beaches and is where many of the city’s wealthiest call home. We spent an hour or so shopping and eating at the infamous Stanley market, and even got to sneak a quick peak of the home of Jackie Chan. We all wished we had a little more time there, because it was an exhilarating area, with a more cultural feel than other parts of Hong Kong due to the lack of skyscrapers from our sights.
We then rushed through the city to the sea, in order to catch our ferry tour of the spectacular Hong Kong Harbor. We were all captivated by the city lights and were even further surprised by the laser light show that occurs promptly at 8:00pm each evening for fifteen minutes. The night sky was brilliantly lit, surely making it a tour that we will never forget.
After all of this, one may think that we would have called it a day, but we still did not have enough of what the intriguing city had to offer. We drove from the harbor to the central area of Hong Kong, in order to climb Victoria’s Peak and view the city from its highest point. We went all the way to the top and quickly discovered that a blanket of fog had covered any chance of a view. Hoping for a brief look at the skyline, we traveled back down to the halfway point and were again amazed by the evening lights of the city of Hong Kong.
Even though, this day couldn’t have been much busier, we immensely enjoyed all that we got to experience. It was a once and a lifetime opportunity, and we are all very grateful for the time we got to spend discovering all of what Hong Kong had to offer.
~ Kailey Smith, Michael Stallsmith, and Jairus Shaw
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