HONG KONG, Wednesday, March 5

Visit Hong Kong once and it leaves an impression that lasts forever. You immediately find yourself surrounded by a sea of humanity, all rushing to make money. The place never sleeps. The real reason people visit here is to shop. The world's most spectacular shopping free-for-all reigns supreme. With armies of hard-bargaining shopkeepers in more than 50,000 retail outlets crammed with every imagineable untaxed goods, including jewelry, watches (hundreds of thousands), optical goods, carpets, china, silks, porcelain, electronics, cameras, antiques, artifacts, clothing & more. The huge shopping centers span several square city blocks and contain only the most elegant designer shops such as Dior, Channel, Gucci, Valentino, Todd, Marc Jacobs, Prada, Fendi, Lalique & on & on. For me, it was the closest thing to heaven.



Our boat docked on the Kowloon side. Having been here twice before we have seen most of the tourist attractions so we decided to take the Star Ferry on a harbor tour. We could get off at any of the 4 stops & get back on at anytime until 5:30. We chose to get off at the 1st stop which was the Hong Kong side and complete the tour when we went back to the ship. We stopped at a bank to get some local currency at their ATM and the machine ate Gary's debit card. We were a little upset, to say the least, but would be able to get it back after 3:00. It was 12:00 so we went for lunch & walked the city until 3. We picked up the card and took the ferry on the rest of the tour and went back to the Kowloon side. We looked at cameras but could do the same or better at home. I did buy a 2 gig flash card, just in case. I've been taking pictures like crazy & for the $30 it cost, I won't have to worry about running out of space. We got back to the ship around 7 P.M. (from 10 A.M.), the ship was leaving at 8:30. At 8:00 every building facing the harbor puts on a light show that is just spectacular. There are beams of light shooting out in every color and the buildings themselves have lights on the entire structure that make picutres. It lasts about 20 minutes and was really something special to see.

Victoria Harbor is ranked with Rio, San Francisco & Sydney as one of the world's most beautiful harbors. The infrastructure is futuristic. There are walkways above the city that go for miles with exits to every major building and shopping mall. With 6 million people it is one of the most densely populated areas in the world.