A Few Observations

This is our fourth day in Hong Kong and here are a few observations we've made about life here ...
* HK is a hustling bustling city, much like New York City
* The landscape, though, is like San Francisco, which, perhaps, is why a lot of Chinese settled there (from what I understand, most Americans of Chinese heritage came from this area of China -- Guangdong (also called Canton) province -- and that most U.S. Chinese restaurants are Cantonese restaurants)
* The city is up late at night and starts the morning late
* We have not seen many children here, at least not many out and about during the day
* Everyone is very polite and most speak English
* City is very clean -- we've seen only one homeless person, and a few begging for money ... that's it. Kind of surprising for a big city.
* You can't sit down anywhere ... there are few benches/resting spots for the weary.
* Many young men here wear skinny jeans and have dyed or spiky hair
* The people can be pushy ... and I mean quite literally pushy. Our friends told us this is more typical of mainland China than Hong Kong). We had our first Chinese experience the other night waiting for the Peak Tram. The doors to the tram opened, hundreds of people pushed hard, and you had to fight your way into the tram. It was a crazy.
* There seems to be a lot of money in Hong Kong. All the shops near our hotel are high-end, like Piaget, Bvlgari, Prada, Cartier, Tiffany's, Dolce & Gabbana, Coach, Hermes, etc. And, moreso, there are lots of people in these shops.
* We found the "other" side of Hong Kong last night. We ventured out across the harbor to the outdoor shopping stalls, and found the area that might be portrayed in movies -- neon lights everywhere, throngs of people, men pushing goods on you. We constantly had people rushing us with "fake watches," "fake purses," "tailor-made suits." It was intense, and we didn't stay long.

Today, we go to Guangzhou!!! We are so ready to be there. Our time in Hong Kong has been great, but we are ready to get the show on the road here. We take an early afternoon train to Guangzhou. It is only about an hour north but I think the train ride will take a bit longer. We will get settled into the White Swan hotel upon our arrival and will get everything ready for Gotcha Day tomorrow. We should be getting Lia Kate at 9 a.m. Monday morning here, which would be 7 p.m. Sunday night CST. I'll write more once we get to GZ.