May 3, Sunday, Yangshuo to Hong Kong

Today we head off to our last stop, Hong Kong.  It was a relatively short but pretty drive (about an hour and a half).

And best of all there were no hiccups at the airport.  

We were met at the Hong Kong airport by our guide and a driver and taken to our hotel, the Empire on Kimberley Street.  On the way into town our host gave us some interesting facts about Hong Kong:

• Hong Kong consists of 262 islands
• It is 1142 square kilometers in size with much of the area being landfill.  Hong Kong Island itself is almost double its original size because of the landfill
• The population is 7.24 million people
• They rely on the China Mainland for much of their water
• Each day they import 150 head of cattle, 2000 pigs and 200,000 chickens (plus lots of frozen meat)

Hong Kong is hot (80’s) and humid (also in the 80’s).  We are on our own here with no guides. 

Kowloon Park is just down the street from us and we wandered through it.  The Aviary in the park had about a dozen large cages with larger birds, most from the tropics.  There were several types of exotic pigeons, macaws, and parrots.  It was Sunday so the park was crowded with people out enjoying their Sunday off.  

We then walked through the park and over to the harbor near one of the ferry buildings.  It was quite hot and we stopped for some soft serve ice cream. 

We had dinner just down the street from our hotel in a pizza parlor (Napoli’s).  After so many weeks of Chinese food the Western food was a welcome change…and the pizza actually wasn’t too bad.