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Day 2
Let the serious shopping begin!
I know bus #6 gets you to Stanley and they start off in Central. The plan is to get the tram and have McDonalds at Pacific Place (swanky mall) in Central. A bus stop is right next door according to the map.
First we get a tram heading in the wrong direction. No worries; just jump off, cross over and get another one heading in the other direction. Done that many a time on river taxi/ train/ bus. I've since worked out the stops are actually headed with prefix E for East, W for West and numbered, plus all the stops have a clear map pointing to where you are and have all the stops marked out. We get off past our stop for Pacific Place as I don't recognise it from the tram track. And they've moved the Golden Arches from The Mall. Guess it wouldn't appeal to the shoppers of Harvey Nicks who have the most impressive window display of dinosaurs across 2 windows each, made up of wooden coat hangers to 3D effect.
After brunch and a unplanned detour photographing the fabulous landmarks of Central ie. Bank of China, HSBC with the lions and their bullet holes from WW2, Lippo Towers, we find the bus stop. A butterfly as big as a bird flutters by.
The #6 gives us great views climbing round Happy Valley. Turns out we could have caught the bus from near our hotel! Up the mountain we climb, round the coastal route past Ocean Park and Repulse Bay; the one with the tower block with a huge gaping hole so the dragon can reach the sea from the mountain. Oh and a Ferrari showroom.
Stanley Market is where tourists flock to buy clothes that might actually fit going up to XXXXXXXL !! There's plenty of other tat too that we just love. Kai finds belts and lighters and belts with lighters! Su-Yin buys a large oil painting on canvas. Prices are very reasonable in our opinion. Kai's trying to workout a profit margin on what his friends might pay for some of this stuff.
They spot the perfect T-shirt that sums up our time so far:- "Lost in Hong Kong", hence the new name for my blog.
The promenade has been recently renovated. There's several European style Restaurants/bars on the seafront. They've moved a whole wooden pier here and Murray House; a colonial building housing another museum. This will be a great place to see the Dragon Boat Racing across the bay, but with 50000 visitors, maybe not.
So as to compare the 2 major tourist markets, we head for Temple Street which only really gets going after dark so why not?
Not long and we are bartering for the Mulberry and Marc Jacobs bags. I settle for the JimmyChoo as it is $50 less, but identical apart from the logo. The Mulberry handle breaks within the hour and the JimmyChoo, a week later! But it did have some serious abuse lugging my stuff about.
Su-Yin gets 3 pairs of loose Indian/Thai style trousers which are to be the staple of her wardrobe, so she didn't really need to bring that ton of other stuff.
We do some researching on prices etc as this is only Day 2, 19 to go...,
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