HongKong Saturday 22nd February

Posted byvwhitesidePosted inUncategorized

Our last day in Hong Kong. We will leave the hotel at 2015 for our 0035 flight to Dubai where Patricia and I will part company.

The lovely piazza outside our hotel. We have seen wedding photograph sessions, Tai Chi being practiced and a lady feeding the pigeons daily, right next to the notice forbidding it.
Corona virus again: a lot of lift buttons are covered with a plastic film and a notice like this one.
There are plenty more very expensive names inside this promenade shopping mall.
The Avenue of the Stars on the promenade, so named for all the handprints of celebrated Hong Kongers. (Is that a word?)
The prints are all along the handrail.
The street furniture on the promenade is wonderful. There are many different types of seating available with plenty of families taking advantage of the warm sunny weather.
Some families wore masks but some didn’t.
We took the ferry to Central District on Hong Kong Island. we were aiming to experience the Central Mid-Level Escalators recommended by Daniel.
Much of the business centre is here. We were grateful for the overhead walkways to cross all the roads near the ferry terminal.
After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing through yet another high class shopping mall we found the start of the Escalators. The first few were travelators with quite a steep gradient.

We had to pass through temporary hoardings to reach the escalators. The system is being refurbished. It was built in the 1990s, is 800m long and rises 135 m.

Every street we passed was different.
A walkway between escalators.
A few of the escalators from above.
The steepest gradients have escalators.
A very old and dilapidated mosque by the side of an escalators. We have seen almost no Muslims in Hong Kong.
The top escalator. I particularly like the instruction not to wail.
We passed a lot of old, poor housing on the way up, but here at the top it was very different. It was all exclusive blocks with concierges and underground car parks. The girls with the boards were trying to sell expensive apartments. We saw some very expensive cars up there but no coffee shops at all! Patricia was exhausted but we had no option but to set off down again.
When our guide Daniel recommended the escalators he failed to mention that they only went one way at a time.
From 0600 to 1000 each day they go downhill. It takes 20 minutes for them to change direction. Then they only go up for the rest of the day.
We set off down the steps.
More interesting views on the way down.
It seemed to go on for ever.
Finally back in the mall: Pret A Manger Macaroni Cheese Lasagne for a late lunch.
A walk back to the ferry terminal.
Our ferry back to Kowloon Peninsula.
We had one last walk along the promenade back to our hotel.
The weather was beautiful, 23° and sunny.
Hong Kong’s amazing Black Kites keep the seagulls away.
Back at the hotel we changed for the journey, checked out at 6pm and waited in the hotel bar to be collected at 8.15pm for the airport.
A final G&T each turned into 2 each as it was happy hour yet again.
Time to leave at last.

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