Trip to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

I had to go to Hong Kong to get my visa. This was a whirwind trip... from Kunming to Shenzhen by air, then a trek through Shenzhen to find the border crossing station, where I crossed by foot into Hong Kong SAR, where I took a train to Kowloon. I reversed the trip the next day. The whole thing took me just over 24 hours. Yipes! So I only have a couple of pictures... but that's ok, most of the place looks pretty much the same.

Hong Kong is interesting -- there are so many foreigners there! It's also incredibly commercial, and expensive. Kunming is cheap by most standards... a plate of fried rice here is about 4 kuai, and in Hong Kong it's 25 kuai. That's a big difference.

I had one other major task to accomplish while I was in Hong Kong, and that was to find a pair of shoes. I blew out my Timberland street shoes in the Tibetan mountains, and all I had left was a pair of Pony tennies. As China has no shoes in my size, Hong Kong was my best bet. Indeed, I found a nice pair of Clarks on sale for a mere 700 HKD, or around $90 US. Probably the most expensive pair of shoes I've ever bought.

	I arrived in Kowloon at 9:30 p.m. on a warm, drizzly night. Here are three photos of the main island across the way. That's the Hong Kong everyone is familiar with, although there's a lot of it on the mainland.
	Hong Kong island at night.
	Here's something of a closeup of the bright lights, big city.
	This is the delightful hotel room where I encamped for the evening, for $150 HKD. That's about as cheap as it gets in Hong Kong. I could get a luxury suite in Kunming for that much!
	Here's the Hong Kong street scenes everyone knows and loves. Narrow streets with signs hanging all over the place! It was pretty fun.
	Another Hong Kong street...
	...and yet another. This was actually the site of the Ladies' Market at Mon Kok where I went to look for shoes. I didn't know that the Ladies' Market didn't set up until 11:00, so I missed it.