As you could probably see from my previous post, we saw a lot of Hong Kong from the surface of the surrounding water.  Hong Kong is a bunch of islands, some of which are largely uninhabited.  We visited Lamma Island to do some hiking, swimming and sightseeing.  Pix below.

One thing I didn’t get pictures of were the Kamikaze Grottos.  During World War II the occupying Japanese dug or blasted these out of the rocky slopes at the waterline, and stuffed them with small motorboats and soldiers.  In case the Allies tried to take Lamma Island from the Japanese, the soldiers were to load themselves into the boats, launch themselves at the new invaders, and blow them up.  But all that is behind us now…..

Here’s the beach, filled with expats on a Monday afternoon.  The water was fairly clean, the showers, restrooms and changing rooms as good as anything I saw in California before that state began to run budget deficits and cut back on public services.  There’s a big power plant off to the right, but you can’t see it from the beach. It didn’t look nuclear to me.

Next: Hiking.  We saw this sizeable spider near the trail.  Its body was about 1.5 inches long.  The arachnaphobes in our party fell to the rear with alacrity. If you look carefully you can see that it shares its web with friends.

Further along the trail there’s the lookout pavilion, from which you can see the village where you catch the ferry back to the city.  All those floating platforms are fishermen’s equipment and tiny shacks. The “hiking” trail, I should mention, is a paved sidewalk 4 feet wide; the most hazardous thing on it is little tractors carrying small-scale construction equipment. You could hike in high heels, should the need arise.

Below, a less complicated view.

Hong Kong is just chock-full of steep hills and mountains rising out of the sea.  Not a lot of beach or flat land to work with.  Hence the skyscrapers.

This is the brand-new Heavenly Queen temple, located on the path that leads from the lookout, past a couple of farms, past the Kamikaze Grottoes, and to the ferry pier.  We went inside and admired the new carvings, statues, and paint jobs.  They have also got an enormous (7 foot-long) preserved oarfish in a lucite box, fished locally and presented to a local seafood restaurant, which in turn preserved it and donated it to the temple.  A wierd beast and well worth viewing; but a sign inside the temple asked us not to take pictures, so we didn’t.  You’ll just have to go see it yourself.

On the way to the pier there are a few shops and eateries.  Please note that this shop can not eat or drink.

From the ferry, you can look back at Lamma Island and see the sun beginning to set.  If I didn’t have to run off to work, I’d spend a little time to rotate this photo so that the horizon is, er, horizontal.

October 26th, 2010 | Category: Entertainment, Hong Kong | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL