Posted by 
One morning in May of 2017 I was sipping my coffee and surfing the internet, just minding my own business, when something quite unbelievable caught my eye. A few clicks later I leaned in m’lady’s direction and interrupted her coffee and internet with the following statement:
“Air China is having some wacky sale. I’m looking at flights from Montreal to Hong Kong for $502 each, all-in*.
“You wanna go to China?” I asked, almost rhetorically. And so we did.
October 26th was our second day in Hong Kong, having filled the first one with sleep, food, and the nightly laser show that takes place over the wide harbour that cuts the massive city in half.
We decided to spend the bulk of day number two exploring the city’s number-one tourist attraction, Victoria Peak. Y’see, the west side of Hong Kong is ringed by a tall mountain range with Victoria Peak being the pinnacle, and the views of the city from up there are nothing short of astounding (as we found out).
We rode the Peak Tram up, up, and up some more to reach the top. It’s the oldest funicular in Asia – started in 1888 – and I can’t imagine how frightening of a ride it must have been way back then. It was frightening enough now, here in the modern age of litigation. Basically, it’s a gravity-defying G-force angled elevator blast that rises impossibly high at an even more impossible angle, it’s utterly packed with people all the time (as is every thing and every place in Hong Kong) and after several miraculous and surprising squeaky turns and ascents it delivers it’s cargo of hundreds to the tippity-top of the mountain.
There is a large modern complex up there, which we visited after spending an hour or two exploring the meandering concrete pathways that offered constant astounding panoramic (and decidedly smoggy) views of what is quite possibly the world’s most impressive city.
Having paid an extra fee, when we got around to exploring the complex we were granted admittance to the Sky Terrace 428, the open-air top floor of the angular building which offers the highest elevation 360 degree views of the city available. Sure, it was nice, but really we were only a few dozen metres higher than we had been on the path; the fee wasn’t really worth it. After some humming and hawing we decided to eat dinner up there so we could stick around and see what the view looked like at night.
There weren’t many food options which may help explain why we opted for BubbaGumps, not to mention the fact that the much-windowed restaurant sat just one floor below the rooftop terrace. It was my first (and last) time experiencing the franchise, which I’ll rate just a millistep above the Hard Rock Cafe for food (not a great compliment) but man, the view from our table right up against the window was delicious.
After our proletarian dinner we lingered over an extra beer until it finally got dark.
I tell you, the architecture in Hong Kong is just redonkulous. I mean, when Hongkongers visit New York City they must just shrug their shoulders and wonder what all the fuss is about. If NYC is the Big Apple then Hong Kong is the whole grocery store!
And then…at night…the buildings light up! Not all of them mind you, but lots of them. And not just in nice colours or anything, I mean these things light up like the Las Vegas strip on steroids. Ninety-storey skyscrapers become monolithic canvasses for massive flashing computer-driven video and light displays, and with dozens of such buildings taking part, well, it’s just an incredible sight to behold.
The skyline is so darn impressive that even the nightly half-hour laser show – which amazingly synchs up all of the building projections with it’s own pulsating, vibrating split-light show – hardly augments the view.
If you can believe that.
After we had gasped and sighed as much as we could for one day we joined the prodigious line to ride The Tram back down the mountainside. I’m sure it would have been quicker to walk down the mountain like we saw several people doing but we weren’t in any rush. Plus my legs and feet were already very much feeling the pressures of our busy day tromping about on the upside of the planet.
*Amazingly enough, if I had waited another week I could have booked flights for $100 cheaper, and leaving from Ottawa taboot. Yep, $402 for a return ticket from Ottawa to China. What a crazy world we live in.
Todd Man Out 