"Hong Kong" a Hong Kong Travel Page by June.b

Harmful elements in the air
symbols clashing everywhere
Reaps the fields of rice and reeds
while the population feeds

Junk floats on polluted water
an old custom to sell your daughter
Would you like number 23?
Leave your yens on the counter please
Hong Kong Garden

Tourists swarm to see your face
Confuscius has a puzzling grace
Disoriented you enter in
unleashing scent of wild jasmine

Slanted eyes meet a new sunrise
a race of bodies small in size
Chicken Chow Mein and Chop Suey
Hong Kong Garden takeaway
Hong Kong Garden...

...that's how it was described by brit punk artist Susan Dallion (a.k.a. Siouxsie Sioux) in her 80s hit song Hong Kong Garden! Kind of a punkist cerebral view of a bustling yet fascinating megalopolis.

Teeming with life, vibrancy, energy, sights and sounds that's uniquely Hong Kong!

A marriage of East & West, amidst it's amazing skyline with those tallest of buildings, this city still maintains it's own distinctive Chinese culture.

My first visit of this city was during the time that the airport was still the Kai Tak Airport where landing is a fascinating experience. It feels like the plane is passing through and between skyscrapers while descending and touching down through a very narrow landing strip between waters, it's an exhilirating experience...or hair raising at most times, especially if you're sitting on the window isle.

My succeeding visits were already at the fabulous new millinium-designed Chek Lap Kok airport at the north coast of Lantau Island. Waiting at the airport here is not a bore with so much things to do and see!

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Hong Kong is divided into two island-side, the more upscale Hong Kong island and the more rowdy and crowd-y Kowloon island. These two are connected of course by all means of transport.

I would say, the HK island side has more of the tourist attractions or the sights, whereas, the Kowloon side, though also have much things to see, has more of the shop2death kind of stuff. Tsim Tsa Tsui, with its electronic shops and big malls is situated along the harbour on the Kowloon side, as well as the seem-like-never-ending-streets of stalls and stores at the night market of Mongkok and Jordan.

Hongkong is a vertical city rather than horizontal, with tall buildings that houses international firms as well city-within-a-city kind-of residential clusters. Buildings that are built on both mountainsides and on top of mountains.