Hong Kong

After we left Vietnam, we sailed to Hong Kong.  Hong Kong is an island just off the coast of mainland China, and an autonomous region of China.  It is a very modern city with lots of very tall skyscrapers. Sailing into the harbor was very impressive because there are so many new buildings.  I only had one day in Hong Kong, because the morning after I arrived I left on a trip to Beijing and the Great Wall of China.  I spent my one day wandering around with one of my friends.  Hong Kong used to be owned by the British before it was handed over to China, and so many people there speak English.  This was very helpful to trying to get around, because it was much harder to find my way around in Mainland China when all the signs were in Chinese, and very few people spoke English.  I visited a jade market, where there were many different things made out of jade, and we had to bargain a lot to get good prices on the things we bought.  Hong Kong is divided into Kowloon, an island closer to Mainland China, and Hong Kong Island.  The ship docked on the Kowloon side, and I spent most of the day there, but I took the ferry over to the Hong Kong side and went up to The Peak, a hill above the city from where you can see all of Hong Kong and the harbor.  The view from the top of the hill was amazing!  It was a beautiful city, and it was interesting to see a place that was similar to China in many ways, but also had some differences.