Hong Kong: Day 38

 Hong Kong was having a late arrival, 2:30 in the afternoon. We had scheduled a ship tour for the
afternoon so we could have day 2 in Hong Kong on our own. We received notice several days before
that because of the way China planned to do immigration screening we would not be able to make the
bus for the tour and they rescheduled our tour for day two in the morning.





The entertainment department aboard ship set up a “sail in” deck party which we attended. It was
misting heavily and you’ll see thick clouds. We played some bridge in the morning and then went up on
deck for the music and the wild skyline and busy harbor of Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a very vertical city with high rises everywhere along with numerous architectural wonders (I wonder what that is?)

The ship was right about the screening. Hong Kong is the end point of the second segment of this trip
and we have a number of debarking passengers. All of them had to go through a face to face
meeting with customs and they did all the debarking passengers first before the in-transit guests (us)
could be processed. While this process finished in late afternoon it did make our tour untenable. We
decided not to go out after dark with no local money and no transport provided for us at this port.






Instead, we went to dinner in the Grand Dining Room. It was virtually empty. We got seats with a great
view and spent much of our meal viewing the incredible light show that is HK. It is like Times Square
multiplied several-fold. There are colored light displays on numerous buildings, some remaining
stationary while most move through various patterns and color combinations. The large tv screen from
Times Square is replicated multiple times in HK and they appear to be larger here as well. Then there
are the images that the dancing lights create on the buildings themselves. Across from our window was
a tall skyscraper with moving images related to the phrase “Value Time”. It was just white lights
creating the images on the buildings dark surface but it looked sort of like a black and white movie. It is
not projected. It is created by a myriad of LED lights imbedded in the building’s surface. It is quite
amazing. The boats in the harbor were lit as well. All in all it was remarkable and a little overwhelming.
We spent some time on deck so we could check out the scene in all directions before checking out for
the evening.

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