Hong Kong's most overrated tourist destination

So what, you ask, in my opinion is the most overrated tourist spot that I've seen so far in Hong Kong? The Peak.

But before I elaborate, allow me to apologize for another week sans blog- this one I will attribute to the cold that I was fighting all last week, and the endless episodes of Dexter that I watched while drinking lemon water and resting up on my futon. When I'm getting paid to sing, if I feel a tickle in my throat I think it behooves me to give it my full attention- which is what I did. I managed to get through my gig nights okay and now I'm feeling better, so back to the blog!

Well, it all began one unusually clear and sunny Monday- the weather prompted me to decide that this would be the perfect day to visit the Peak. Unfortunately, I think every other tourist in Hong Kong got the same idea- the lineup was unreal, and this was after 4 pm in the afternoon! (Yes, that's about when my day starts- sue me.)

Eventually I got close enough to actually see the tram that takes people up to the Peak. (You can get there by bus, but I figured I ought to have the full experience.)

Finally (after a long sweaty wait) I got on the Peak Tram and we left the station. It rises on a quite a steep incline- I managed to get this pic of a guy walking by when we stopped momentarily, just to give you an idea:

And after a ride lasting all of 7 minutes or so (that's it?!) we arrived at the Peak.

It took several more escalators to get to the upper viewing station, which boasts a 360 degree view of Hong Kong- a boast that is not quite true actually, as it is not quite at the top of the mountain so the tip obscures at least some of the view. This is how much further you'd have to go to get to the actual top:

As I made my way up the escalators there were lots of souvenir shops and restaurants vying for my tourist dollar, as well as this- didn't know they had one of these:

I resisted visiting Madame Tussaud's, it has always seemed a bit overrated- as this whole experience turned out to be. Sure, the view from the terrace was pretty cool- here's a couple of shots to show how extensive it is:

I caught a picture of one of the trams descending the mountain, if you look closely- as you can see it passes right through the mountain at one point:

And if you want a full shopping experience at The Peak, there's (you guessed it) a MALL right next to the station called the Peak Galleria:

There was a historic pictorial display on the upper terrace, and I found out something very interesting about the big racetrack area located in Happy Valley- I'll be sending that tidbit out with my next newsletter, so to get the details please enter your email address in the signup form on the right hand side of this page.

Soon it was time for lunch, and as I was checking out the options I came upon this- a rather strange place to see a Forrest Gump reference, or so I thought:

In the end I opted for vietnamese- and the meal starting very promisingly with some yummy summer rolls. However when I was halfway through my bun and found a dead fly (to be fair it was an open-air restaurant), I feel the restaurant handled the situation quite poorly- needless to say, I shan't return.

By the time that ordeal was done the sun had set- I snapped a pic of the upper tram station itself, which had a rather unusual shape:

And of course at this time, the line to take the tram back down from the Peak was even longer than it was to take it up. Before I stepped into the line I got one last snap of the night-time view:

And there you have it, an experience that in retrospect I could easily have forsaken- but I suppose it had to be done once, if only to cross it off my list.

I wish you all a wonderful week, and look forward to any comments you may care to post. 'Til next blog,

J.

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