Hong Kong

 

Our sixth and final port of the cruise was in Hong Kong. The nice thing about this port was docking in the middle of the city for easy access to things around the cruise terminal. Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. It's an interesting city with a separate operating framework from mainland China. For example, they still use the Hong Kong Dollar.

We had a pretty good included excursion on the final day. We took the tram up to Victoria Peak, spent some time in a touristy market, and went on a Sampan boat ride.

We had to be off the cruise ship by 9am on the second day, but our flight back to Sri Lanka wasn't until the evening. This gave us some time to do something near the cruise terminal if we could figure out storage for our luggage.

I discovered an app called Bounce to book temporary storage with various options that wouldn't be accessible without the service. I paid through the app and it had us take our luggage to a cheap hostel within walking distance. It was less than $20 for the day for two bags, which sounded cheap in the expensive Hong Kong economy.

Storing our luggage freed us up to do something interesting. We discovered the Hong Kong Museum of Art was very close. We had a wonderful day there starting with it being a free admission day. Bonus!

First, we had a relaxing sea day before arriving in Hong Kong. We passed through the Qiongzhou Strait, so we passed through a "regular" part of China even though we ended up in the the Hong Kong SAR, which isn't like being in mainland China.

I could mark off Hong Kong on the map at the bottom of this blog, but I can't really mark off China as a visited place without feeling like I'm cheating with the map. Here's us passing through the "proper" part of China.

arrived at the big cruise terminal in the city

tram to Victoria Peak

heading to the touristy market

HHE! (if you know, you know)

our sampan captain

another group on a sampan

Final Show on the Cruise Ship

Bian Lian - Face Changing

Bian lian (变脸)—literally "face changing"—is a dramatic, centuries-old art form native to Chinese Sichuan opera. Performers wear vibrantly colored, hand-painted masks and ornate costumes, instantly switching multiple masks in a fraction of a second using specialized techniques like pulling, rubbing, and blowing.

This was a really cool show with the instant mask changes.

Good Luck and Good Health

did I catch a face change in action?

Hong Kong Museum of Art

This painting above was turned into a room filled art installation by another artist below.

Now I know to look for little figures in Chinese art. It completely changes the experience of looking at these paintings and drawings. Chinese artists discovered that adding tiny figures to their landscapes increases the perceived scale of the landscape. Focusing in on the little things makes the trees, rocks, and mountains grow around them into massive views with a trick of the perspective.

I was really fascinated by this exhibit. I probably would have just casually passed through this exhibit of typical Chinese art without much thought. This presentation of the tiny figures and how it works was really interesting.

From Tiny Traditional Figures to Modern Art

The huge painting below was really cool. It also had some tiny figures!

a tiny figure of the artist?

East and West

I took a quiz. It said I'm a perfectionist.

That concludes our cruise and a whirlwind tour of Southeast Asia. We covered Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Hong Kong in two weeks. It was a great trip!