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Archive for the ‘Asia’ Category

Visit Hong Kong of Wonderful Contrasting Elements

Friday, September 29th, 2006

During a trip to Asia with my husband, we saw quite a bit of Japan and China. We also took a few days to visit Hong Kong. This city is one of the most fascinating places to spend time in and I would recommend it to anyone. The first thing to hit you is the energy of the place. It’s a noisy, chaotic throng of people and has wonderful contrasting elements. The Chinese tradition rubs along with the Western influences. Sometimes a run down apartment block is immediately behind a modern glass fronted skyscraper.

We flew in from Tokyo and got into Kowloon, which is just across the water from the central part of the city. When you visit Hong Kong, you need to walk the narrow streets and give yourself time to acclimatize. Several buildings were covered in scaffolding. This is noteworthy because they use bamboo scaffolding in this part of the world. It looks somewhat fragile but it seems to do the job. We found a small, cheap hotel to stay in run by a man with the unlikely name of Charlie Chan. Next morning, we woke fresh and eager to explore but first we needed breakfast. If you visit Hong Kong, anything is possible and we found a welcoming Irish bar that served a full English fry up.

We then took in some of the sights and smells, the very English looking buses, the food stalls full of seafood and vegetables we didn’t know the name of, and the advertising hoardings and giant video screens. We had to go to the Foreign Affairs Office to apply for our visas to allow us into China for the next stage of our trip. Thankfully, this was done speedily and efficiently. The next stop was to visit friends who live at the top of a gated complex up in the hills. They used to visit Hong Kong and then decided to stay. The view from their balcony is amazing. That evening, we all went bar hopping, enjoyed some live music, and met some other residents. To visit Hong Kong is to have a cosmopolitan experience, as lots of British, American, and Australian people live and work there.

Next day, we went into the New Territories and the Monastery of Ten Thousand Buddhas. This is one of the places when you visit Hong Kong where you can take a breather from the city and enjoy some tranquility. The Monastery is high up in the hills near the town of Sha Tin, and you have to climb up four hundred steps to get to it. Life-size Buddha statues line the way. It’s worth the climb, when you see the giant pagoda at the top and the temple. The interior of the temple is truly breathtaking with small statues of Buddhas lining the walls numbering not 10,000 but actually 13,000.

After this, we went back to Kowloon and looked round a very exclusive shop selling items made from mammoth ivory. No one should visit Hong Kong without spending time on the Waterfront, so we went down after dark and marveled at the skyscrapers. These buildings contain some of the most expensive office spaces in the world. Our last night in our visit to Hong Kong was spent looking at the twinkling lights from the boats in the harbor, reflected in the water. Next morning, we flew to Beijing but that’s another story!

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Make Your Next Vacation an Asia Vacation

Sunday, July 9th, 2006

If you are among those who has not had an opportunity to come to the Asian region, I suggest you make your next vacation an Asian vacation. Not only will you have the time of your life in your Asian vacation, but you will also discover the joys of a whole new culture and way of life. Make that several new cultures, as nearly each country in the Asian region has its own, unique culture which is guarded and zealously protected.

Among the very first benefits of an Asian vacation will be the exchange value. All currencies in the Asian region are favorable when compared to the US dollar. So while on your Asian vacation, you can stretch your dollar to get you that much further and to do so much more. Add that to the fact that in regions like India and China there is always a craving for the green back and you can rest assured that you will manage the best deal.

The more important reason to go on an Asian vacation is of course the diversity of the region. With two of the world’s most populous nations I its embrace, the Asian region has an amazingly diverse breadth and scope to offer the traveler. Take India for instance. While here on your Asian vacation, you will discover that a single lifetime is not sufficient to explore all that India has to offer. You can either go the scenic route, the historical route, the cultural route, the religious route, the natural beauty route, the spa and health route or even the emerging, resurgent India route. But your Asian vacation better set aside a chunk of time to cover India alone.

The same is the case with China. Mainland China itself, with its millions of villages, cities and towns to see, will occupy a fair bit of your time. And when you consider that your Asian vacation will never be complete without visiting regions like Tibet, Hong Kong and Taiwan (associated in one way or another with China) you will see that you invariably will crave a longer vacation. And what is an Asian Vacation that does not include the famed temples of Cambodia and especially Angkor Vat in its itinerary? Most Americans will also make Vietnam a part of their Asian vacation for obvious, historical reasons. Indonesia, Laos, Burma and Bhutan are often visited not just for their scenic beauty, but also for spiritual and religious reasons.

More contemporary Asian vacations will surely touch upon first world nations in the region like Singapore and Japan. While relatively small, both these nations have a standard of living that is comparably better than even life in the US. And each of them have their own reasons for being a part of your Asian vacation package. While Japan is an exotic, far eastern mystery worth spending time on, Singapore is a veritable hub for everything. The multi-racial society is well know for its huge variety of cuisine brought in by early immigrants.

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