Sneaks Does Asia

You may not have realized that Sneaks came with us to Asia. Mollie brought some Sneaks dolls to give as gifts and I brought my T-shirt. You can't see it very well, but Sneaks saw several street meat vendors. (They might even have been selling some of his relatives, but we won't go there!) There's also a picture of the offerings of one of the vegetable vendors. The boat in the picture is a sampan. Mollie took a ride on one to see a fishing village where the people actually live on the boat year round.
In the background is the world's largest floating restaurant.

We took a sightseeing tour today so we could see a little more of the island. Our guide was very good and told us many interesting things about Hong Kong. Hong means fragrant and Kong means harbor. It was named this because there used to be an incense factory whose smell scented the air. Most people here live in very small apartments in high rise buildings. A family sized apartment is about 1000 sq ft. Only rich people own cars because the import tax is 150%; the average cost of a car is $200,000 (HK$, divide by 7 for US$) but taxes more than double that cost. Also a gallon of gas costs about $7 (US). Only very rich people live in single family homes;most of the rich people also live in apartments--they are just in better neighborhoods and VERY expensive--$7,000 (US) per month.

It is incredibly crowded here! Think New York multiplied. Carl has some great footage of the crowds. Sometimes you feel as if you're salmon swimming upstream. There are all kinds of restaurants here, but I have yet to see any restaurant here with cereal. And it seems as if many Asians don't have different foods for breakfast; they just eat their usual foods such as noodles and rice dishes.

Tomorrow Mollie is going to visit a monastery while Carl & I go across the bay to Kowloon. We're hoping to see the evening light show from the height of Victoria Peak at 8pm.

Mollie and Carl are quite content to let me do all the blogging. Carl said to tell everyone Hi, but he came over here to get away from computers. (Don't tell Mollie, but I think she's just too wimpy to blog!) :-)