The Stunning Adventures "Not all those who wander are lost." Tolkien

(Big Sigh), Hong Kong!  Although China is a lovely country, it can be a bit dirty and stinky in places.  Not that dirty and stinky don't have their own charm (would us travelers be charming otherwise?), but clean and fresh is also nice too; and that is exactly how we found Hong Kong.  We arrived in Hong Kong to some really heavy rain.  We walked to a information desk to find the best way to our guest house.  The woman told us, in fluent English (another nice change), that we could take a short cab ride.  She also gave us a few ideas of what to do and see in HK. 
 
Our room in the guesthouse was a bit funny.  It had a small twin bed and barely enough room to set our backpacks down and still have room to stand.  Although it was small, it was still nice and clean.  We left the guesthouse to find our next nice surprise.  Many parts of China, that we have been to, do not have too many choices in the way of affordable foreign food; with the exception of KFC and the traveler's crutch (McD's).  Hong Kong, on the other hand, is absolutely full of all different kinds of affordable ethnic restaurants.  We found our second home in HK, in a small doner kebab restaurant that served terrific food.  We spent the rest of the day wandering around Kowloon (on the mainland), only walking to the waterfront later that evening.  Seeing Hong Kong Island is pretty incredible.  Victoria harbor sets the stage for a very picturesque city-scape.  The buildings almost appear to rise out of the water, and many more continue up the hillside.  It really is quite a beautiful sight.  It was still raining heavily, so we dragged our drenched and energy depleted bodies back to our small locker for some sleep. 
 
The next couple of days found us exploring Hong Kong Island.  We strolled around the older streets which house the purveyors of Chinese medicine and other various goods.  We boarded the old trolleys and took in some of the big city by rail.  We rode on the world's longest escalator and we even saw China's version of Hollywood Boulevard's "Walk of Fame". Hong Kong provided many interesting things to see and do; not to mention the world's largest aquarium.  We love aquariums, so we had to go check out Hong Kong's "Ocean Park".
 
In retrospect, we have no idea what we were thinking when we decided to go see such an attraction on a nice sunny Saturday???  Just the line for the public bus was two and half blocks long.  Even in the face of such adversity, we persevered.  Upon arriving, we realized that it was more like a theme park than an aquarium; that was okay, we would have fun anyway.  The park was built on a hill, and therefore, is laid out in three sections.  We entered in a kiddy playland, foam party and all.  We left that section and rode another gigantic escalator (formerly the world's largest) up to an area that housed a few rides.  We decided it was now or never.  The ride was perched on a hillside and had an incredible, if not scary view of the ocean and some small islands.  The line for the ride was ridiculous, with bi-minutely reminders to smile for your picture as the ride comes to its conclusion.  We waited for 45 minutes for a minute and 53 seconds of fun (that's right, Greg timed the ride).  It was actually a really good ride, but the crowds were ridiculous.  We had made really funny faces for the photo, but decided not to buy it (much regretted later).  We headed up another escalator to the top, and main, part of the park.  This is were we saw that the earlier crowds were but a small faction of the hordes that had accompanied us to the park.  We just looked at each other and laughed.  We waited in line after line, still enjoying ourselves.  The reason we came was for the aquarium, which was a bit disappointing.  It was a very large tank that held some fantastic fish, but the people made it hard to enjoy.  
 
Providence came late in the afternoon, after the dolphin and sea lion show.  The sky clouded over and became dark.  It started slowly at first, but the rain came.  People left in droves, like antelopes when a lion steps on the scene.  Before we knew what was happening, we had the entire park to ourselves.  We hopped on a huge roller coaster with three loopty loops.  Once it was over, we ran and got on it again.  We road a few other rides before going to the other side of the park to the panda enclosure.  The pandas took the lack of people as "knocking-off" time, and they were all asleep, lamoes; although it was still cool to see a panda.  We then took the cable car (no line) up to the main part of the park.  We saw the jelly fish exhibit before heading down the gigantic escalator.  The rain had now turned into a full-fledged lightning and thunder storm.  We were probably 2 of a dozen people left in the park, drenched.  On the way down the escalator, we saw that the log ride was still open.  We looked at each other and said, "let's do it".  The log ride was great and we rode it two times in a row.  It was also equipped with a camera, so we were sure to put on our "ride" faces.  Not being able to pass up on the key chain and magnet photos, we purchased the kitchy items.  We rode one more ride before the park closed and we were forced to leave.  The rain turned a frustrating day into one of the best theme park visits we have ever had; similar to the time when Elizabeth was in a wheel chair at Disneyland, allowing us to skip the front of the ride lines.
 
Hong Kong was great and we could have stayed longer, but there is always somewhere else to go see.  After nearly missing our train back to the rest of China, we were on our way to Kunming.