Seis de Mayo

We had a good sleep in this morning, our first good night's sleep in a few weeks. We had a delicious, fresh lunch at Oliver's sandwich cafe, a coffee at Pacific Coffee Company (so we could use their free internet) and then took the ferry across the harbour to Hong Kong Island. We wandered around the huge, beautiful buildings and ended up at the Zoo & Botanical Gardens. These are right in the middle of the CBD, a lush, green haven among the chaos of the city. And it's FREE! There is an aviary and many mammals, and beautiful trees and flowers. There were a lot of nannies wandering around with their whitie kids. It's so cool how there is this huge zoo and park for anyone and everyone to be able to enjoy, right in the middle of the city.

It had been a bit cloudy all morning, but later in the afternoon it started to clear, so we took the tram up to The Peak, a mountain on Hong Kong island with a spectacular view of the whole harbour. Nigel had a good time remembering when he was here with his lacrosse team about 12 years ago. From the top of the tram, we continued walking up the mountain to the top of Victoria Peak, the highest point on Hong Kong Island. Along the way, we passed homes worth ridiculous amounts of money, and a bright yellow lambourgini even zoomed passed us. There is a lot of money in Hong Kong.

We stayed up on The Peak until well after the sun set, enjoying the views and watching the city lights go on. We took the tram back down the mountain and exited just in time to see the fireworks show begin from the tops of several highrise buildings...if we'd only known this would happen, we could have stayed up on the mountain! Oh well, it was still fun. From here we walked around Soho, an area on the island full of high-priced shopping, cool restaurants and lots of bars. There is an escalator along part of a hill in Soho, travelling for 800 metres. It travels down between 6:00 a.m. andn 10:00 a.m. and travels up the rest of the day. This is so commuters don't have to work up a sweat in the humid weather by trudging up and down the hill going to and from work. Very cool. We treated ourselves to a belated Cinco de Mayo dinner at El Taco Loco. We gorged ourselves on chips with guacamole and pico de gallow, burritos and Dos XX beer. Our bellies full, we made our way back down to the water and caught a late ferry back to Kowloon.