Hong Kong Part II

We’re in the middle of our second stay in Hong Kong. We spent a couple nights here on the way in. We’ve got one more day of touring, then we fly to Beijing for the trip’s final leg.

Hong Kong is, of course, one of the world’s capitals, on par with Paris and New York in history, power and architectural splendor. Now legally part of the People’s Republic of China, Beijing’s hold on the city’s administration and citizens is very loose. Hongkongese remain among the world’s brashest capitalists and materialists. The elegance of the hotels, shopping centers, and office towers we’ve visited in the uptown segments of the city is dazzling--even more impressive than the city’s counterparts in the West. People here know how to live well and richly.

Yesterday, we spent the better part of the day making a trip to what we referred to as the Big Buddha, a sort of cousin to Rio de Janeiro's Cristo, that is perched atop a mountain, surrounded by a monastery, on one of the two largest of Hong Kong’s many habitable islands. This island is also now home to Hong Kong's striking new airport, whose design includes the longest enclosed space in the world.

It was a long trek to the Bhuddha and back--and Gigi was equal to it. Like a papoose, she spent most of it at times sleeping, at times looking on placidly as her father carried her against his chest in a Baby Bjorn. We walked two piers, rode two ferries, rode a taxi up a mountain, climbed to the peak of the mountain, then raced, so that John Lewis could make a business meeting, back from the Big Buddha in a succession of taxis to Kowloon, the posh district that sits opposite the harbor from Central--the high-rise studded side of Hong Kong you see in pictures.

It was in this prime position, looking across the water at the endless row of high-rise towers--residential in one cluster, commercial in another--that we finished our night, walking the Avenue of the Stars, Asia’s answer to Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Lisa Lu--they’ve all got impressions of their hands preserved in concrete.