A Journey to the Peak D+4

I'm a little late getting this one out but I was exhausted last night. And since most of you are on the other side of the International Date Line I felt I was getting it to you early even if I posted it in the morning since it is still yesterday where you are. I like being ahead of all y'all.

We looked at the 7-day weather forecast yesterday morning and it looked as though it could be one of the clearest skies we might experience in Hong Kong so we decided to go to the Peak. Victoria Peak is 552m in height which is not that big of a deal for an Albertan but the view from up there is unparalleled. All of Hong Kong and Kowloon are spread out in front of you to the north and if you turn around you can see Aberdeen Harbour and the islands that flank Hong Kong Island in the South China Sea.

To get there you should stand in line or a few hours in the sun and listen to cranky Brits and Yanks trying to figure out how to beat the queue (British). Since we were on vacation and we had no other pressing concerns we queued quietly and tried to do something about the vitamin D deficit that we had developed during a particularily cold and dark Calgary winter. Unfortunately, I forgot that I am the original white-man and I think I got a little sun-burned. But I am rambling, why were we in line you ask? We wanted to take the Peak Tram to the top.

The Tram is basically 2 street cars lashed together that are pulled up the side of the mountain by long steel cables and while one tram is going up the only other tram is being lowered down. It is quite an experience because at some points you are ascending the slope at a very steep angle. I found out later that some form of the Tram has been running since 1888, with a short rest during WW2.

Once you get to the top there is a building that houses the tram station and a number of shops and restaurants including a Burger King and a Bubba Gump's which was weird. But the building is really cool. It is like a half-moon lying on its side supported by a rectangular box that seems to small to hold up the oddly shaped upper part. On the top is where we had those great views.

We hiked around quite a bit yesterday including a forced march led by me through the jungle in back of the Peak. There are some nice trails that our niece Maddie told us about so we made our way along one of them for a while and then climbed back up to descend back into to Hong Kong and our home at the Four Seasons.