A Private Tour

Although my husband and I are normally not people who go on tour buses, we quickly determined that to see parts of Hong Kong we wanted to see, especially outside the main city areas of Hong Kong and Kowloon, the best, safest, reasonably priced, and most efficient way to do it was via a wonderful bus tour run by Grayline, and leaving from a hotel two blocks away. Although it was two blocks away as the crow flies or how most people normally walk, Kowloon is a city that can be described as pedestrian challenged, as there are numerous gates and rails and fences, blocking pedestrians from crossing streets in many areas, as the pedestrians are directed and corralled like cattle, to keep them safe and to keep city traffic moving.

So, although it was two city blocks, it may have taken us 4-6 blocks to get there as we routed around the traffic. We were extremely lucky that day, as the weather was wonderful once we got out of the city and headed north into the New Territories, and even luckier because we were on a small bus with one tour guide whose English was fairly good, and we were the only people on the bus, thus, having a private tour for five hours, listening to Brian, our tour guide, spout facts and information endlessly, and answer all my son's questions (which are always many).

The first stop was an old homestead previously owed by the Man clan, one of Hong Kong's five ruling clans. It is old by their standards, about 100 or so, since there is not much left of old Hong Kong. The house and grounds comprise maybe 4 acres of land, as part of a small village that we walked through, to also see the clan ancestral meeting hall. We learned about the top of the buildings having the boat-bow shape representing the Taoist ying/yang. Then traveled to another ancestral meeting hall of the Yang clan, which was bigger and older. Unfortunately, the government has been restoring it, and clearly, is not experienced in restoration, so it is done with concrete block, then painted over with black paint and lines to appear as though it is brick.

We learned that the center beam is called the dragon bone, and is painted red. We learned about the ancestry, and how it is represented in the shrines within the halls. Also on the tour was the banyan wishing tree, which had been damaged after too many people had hung oranges on the branches for good luck. The government had brought in a tree expert from overseas to repair the tree, but also planted another one nearby. When arriving at the tree you can either purchase a parchment from local ladies who sell them, or from the temple nearby. You write you wishes and they are hung on the nearby boards by your chinese zodiac sign and later burned. We also had the opportunity to use what Brian told us were the five-star toilets which were quite clean, run by the HKTA, the Hong Kong Toilet Association.

Also on the tour was seeing the exterior of a walled village, a tree which has grown combining four different trees into its trunk and returned to Kowloon to walk through the local market where lives eels, toads and other animals are sold, along with organ meat of who knows what animals. Not particularly sanitary but interesting. In our walk, we also entered another beautiful temple with incense hanging from the ceiling, in swirls, burning so heavily that one can barely breath, the scent is to pervasive. The temples are so different than a western church or synagogue, they are not designed or built for people intending to sit for a three-hour service, designed only for saying prayers, paying respects to ancestors, and burning paper offerings (like paper cars and purses and food, to supply them in the afterlife, but also to bring prosperity in this life).

At the end of a long but fascinating day, we returned to our hotel, happy to have traveled, but happy to be back in air conditioning and for a long shower.