Kowloon 2013    

Kowloon is the part of Hong Kong which is located on the mainland and popularly known as shopping paradise. Nathan Road is probably the most famous shopping area of Hong Kong and venerable hotels, like the Peninsula, can be found here. Shopping malls lined up endlessly to each other. We stayed here at the YMCA Salisbury hotel, close to the port. The hotel has a bit small, but great harbour view rooms and a great value for money

In a few minutes you are at the Star Ferry, the Clock Tower and the waterfront with the Avenue of Stars. This is a tribute to the local actors and singers accordingly there is the hurly-burly and photo madness of the most young people. This alone is worth seeing as well as the decorative hype of the individual shopping temples, better, more expensive, more eccentric, more beautiful and fancy, that is the slogan.

In contrast, a tour through the old Kowloon, is a very different raptures of the senses. We took a guided half-day tour with Susan from "Walk of Hong Kong" and felt often placed in ancient Chinese times. Here you can find many small street kitchens and food stalls which prepare all kinds of food like snake soup, homemade pasta or delicious dim sums. You eat on the sidewalk on small folding tables and stools. In the Temple Street are these "furniture" stacked at the road till 5 o´clock in the afternoon and after this time the street is transformed into a huge food market.

Very close is the Tin Hau Temple, with its giant incense coils which exude an indescribable fragrance. In the area of the temple, there are many fortune tellers and necromancers and especially at the evening hours you can watch many people who use their services.

We strolled through the quarters, visited several food markets, the jade and flower market and discovered by Susan, the one or the other peculiarity of Hong Kong. There is very old craft and even writers and translators, because many elderly people can neither read nor write. The tour took us really deep into the normal life of Hong Kong and we enjoyed every minute of it.

One of our trips took us to the "Walled City Park". We went by double-decker bus to the park. Our seat was in the 1st row of the upper deck on par with the many large billboards along the Nathan Road. At the park you can admire Chinese garden architecture with very individual and historic symbolism. But for us was the road the goal.