Curtis's travels
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Note: I went to Hong Kong in a group in 1992 when it was still under British sovereignty. In 1997, Britain handed sovereignty of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China.
Hong Kong consists of three main parts: Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories. Hong Kong Island is the original part of Hong Kong. Kowloon is a peninsula (on the Asian continent) just north of Hong Kong Island, separated by Victoria Harbour. The New Territories consists of land between Kowloon and the PRC and also consists of hundreds of islands in the South China Sea.
Some of the team I went with arranged to play basketball with students there. Basketball is really popular with the boys there, as is soccer. Both boys and girls like volleyball and racing.
We invited folks to come to our special Cowboy World event held at the neighbourhood community centre, next to the school. The name and theme was thought up by our team leader, but the most cowboy-like thing we had was a picture of a wheelless covered wagon with "Cowboy World" in Chinese up on the back wall of a stage. There we played games and relays, sang songs (in Cantonese and in English), and chatted.
One of our team members from Arkansas, bore a similarity to Chris Patten, the Governor of Hong Kong. He had actually been mistaken for the Governor on two occasions that I know of, so we dubbed him our Governor look-a-like who awarded to the lucky cowhands winning prizes at Cowboy World.
Eating was a pleasure in Hong Kong. Although I considered myself reasonably proficient with chopsticks before I came, I was frustrated at my first attempt in a real Chinese restaurant: I had plastic chopsticks (far more slippery than wooden ones) and was trying to eat a quite slimy shrimp dumpling. I finally got the knack and all went well.
Typical Chinese dishes were noodle-based soups. The desserts were very sweet, like the coconut pudding and red-bean soup. Unstrained, very hot tea was served at most every meal. There were many dishes like found in American Chinese restaurants: sweet & sour fish and beef with vegetables are two dishes we had which were just like the same dishes served at the Chinese restaurant just down the street from Clairmont Hills. (However, I never did see a fortune cookie in Hong Kong.)
We had several dim sum meals. For dim sum, we order various pastries, dumplings, and side dishes (usually with lots of shrimp, pork, and beef). The squid tentacles and chicken feet tasted OK, but I have not decided to make them a staple in my diet. In some places, cart bearers would bring foods around to the tables. Other times, we would just ask for certain items. Many dishes were served in little bamboo containers.
Tom, one of the people in my tour group, once brought me to a Thai restaurant to remind him of the two years he spent in Bangkok, Thailand. We took raw food from a buffet and cooked it in the gas-heated pot on our table.
Since Hong Kong is a British colony, we also felt obliged to once engage in afternoon tea. We had tea, crumpets, and all sorts of dainty sweets. I now feel truly worthy to bear the arch-English name "Smith". This was the only time we were provided with a silver strainer for our tea.
On Thanksgiving, we had an American-style turkey dinner at the Hilton.
Many goods are far cheaper in Hong Kong than in the United States. If I were to go back again, I might have some silk and porcelain shipped back since they are so inexpensive there. They have several street markets which just pop up at night in the streets. Hawkers set up their stalls, waiting for buyers. Fortunately, shopping is not my pastime, or I might have spent all my time spending my money.
One day, we went to Macau (then a Portuguese colony, now a Chinese Special Administrative Region like Hong Kong) and then crossed the border into the People's Republic of China. We only spent the afternoon, but it was fun.
I had not walked so much in a long time, but we had quite a few other modes of transportation: