Day Two

Today marked the first real day of our trip. We woke up in the morning, having breakfast at the lovely Verandah cafe at the Peninsula hotel where we were staying, and met our tour guide to begin our day's adventures.

We started off the day with a journey to Hong Kong's famous Chinese Herbal Medicine and Dried Seafood market. The market featured some of the strangest - and many would probably consider grossest - dried foods imaginable. These included everything from dried gecko (good for asthma) to dried shark fins, dried ginseng root, dried fish stomachs, deer horns, and dried seafood of all sorts. Our guide, Angela, detailed to us the various herbal remedies that each of these strange products offered.

After our journey to the fish market we visited a lovely Taoist temple named Man Mo, which is one of the oldest and most historic temples in Hong Kong, where we observed some incense lighting, and lit a bit of incense to bring ourselves good luck. After a brief stop at an antique shop, we an old tram car up to Victoria Peak - to overlook the entire city of Hong Kong and Hong Kong bay.

The view from the top was actually completely obscured by mist and we were forced to travel to a lower point on Victoria peak before we could get a good glimpse of the city. After a leisurely drive around western portions of the island - viewing several country clubs, a beach, and Hong Kong's local water park - we arrived at the fabulous Aberdine Marine Club where we enjoyed a delightful dim sum style Chinese lunch.

After lunch we boarded a sampan (small Chinese wooden boat) and took a tour of Hong Kong harbor. Right now the government has suspended all fishing vessels from trawling for two months - leaving the harbor packed with nearly the entire Hong Kong fishing fleet. We weaved between a virtual sea of boats, glimpsing into the lives of various Hong Kong fisherman and their families. Following the boat tour we ventured into an exclusive jewelry factory - witnessing master craftsman as they hand set diamonds, jades, and rubies into intricate pieces of gold jewelry. After spending a tremendous amount of time browsing the various wares that the shop had to offer, my mom decided to purchase a few rather unique pieces of jewelry.

That concluded our adventures for the day - save one small and important note - upon our return to the hotel we saw a stunning white Maserati parked in front of the hotel. After resting for a while, we had dinner at the "avante guarde" restaurant on the roof of our hotel - named Felix - where we watched a dazzling laser light show from the roof of many different buildings throughout Hong Kong harbor. My personal favorite was the light show put on by the Bank of China. After that it was off to bed, seeing as how we have been so jet lagged and worn out after our recent travels. We shall see what tomorrow holds.