T is for Harbour Town aka Hong Kong

The end of April is just around the corner and you know what that means. It means we're almost to the end of the alphabet. We're not there yet, but almost...just six more posts and this A-Z blog challenge will be nothing more than a happy memory. I still have one whole entire amazing city to squeeze into those six posts so I best get started.

T is for Harbour Town

Hong Kong is special...it was here we met up with old friends and on top of that we experienced one of our very best 'it's a small small world' encounters ever. Those events will get their own post before the challenge is over.

I thought I'd kick things off in Hong Kong by introducing you to the star of the show-

Her name is Victoria Harbour and wow.

Just wow.

The harbour is situated on the South China Sea between Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula in Hong Kong. I found the two sides a little confusing at first...isn't it all Hong Kong? In a word, yes. Well then, is Hong Kong a city or a country? Hong Kong is a city in China, but their government is different than China's. It's not a country but operates sort of like it is.

All you need to know right now is that on one side of Victoria Harbor sits Hong Kong Island and on the other side sits Kowloon. There are 260+ islands that are also part of Hong Kong but we won't worry about them today.

Both Kowloon and Hong Kong Island are jam packed full of tall buildings and more tall buildings. The International Commerce center, at 108 stories is currently the 4th tallest building in the world.

I'm not sure you could work in this city if you had a fear of heights. I know for sure I wouldn't want to be a window washer in Hong Kong. Or a construction worker. Or a ferry boat captain but that's a story for another day.

Besides the tall buildings and the taller buildings you'll also find hundreds, if not thousands, of restaurants along with shops whose number I couldn't even begin to guess.

From the street market stalls to the highest end designer shops plus everything in between you quickly discover that shopping is a hobby, a pastime, a literal art form in this city.

Hubs had some shirts made while we were here because that's just what you do when you're in Hong Kong.

We stayed on the Kowloon side of the Harbour since that's where he was working and I loved the location. You could be on the Hong Kong Island side in less than ten minutes via ferry or subway and we be-bopped back and forth every day.

We stayed in the Sheraton Hong Kong Towers and they had this amazing space on the 18th floor...a bar/restaurant overlooking Victoria Harbor. We sat up there almost every night with co-workers and friends and our last night in town just the two of us. The view is positively spectacular.

More than 40 buildings take part in a permanent laser light and sound show on the harbor at 8 pm each evening. You'll see a great show from either side of the harbor. We watched it one night from the Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade which is a walkway running along the riverfront on the Kowloon side.

Near the walkway is something called the Avenue of the Stars which in essence is a Hollywood Walk of fame for Hong Kong.

Chinese film celebrities have their names and hand prints in the cement here and its a fun place to walk and admire the harbour view. Again.

Every city I've ever been in seems to have its own unique personality and Hong Kong is no different. It's old world British colony meets new world China. It's a cacophony of sights, sounds and smells. It's skyscrapers and alleys. Its steep hills and people everywhere. The bankers, the shoppers, and the vendors selling produce all share the same air and sidewalk space. It is bustling, crowded, loud.

In the middle of all this noise there is a harbor.

It's magnificent.

The harbor is why someone on a business trip with her husband falls in love with a noisy-busy city called Hong Kong.