It was 70 degrees out there! Good thing I left my jacket in the room. I wandered the area around my hotel, which is a prime shopping district. So far, Hong Kong feels like an enormous, very modern, very clean Chinatown.
Of course, that is the micro view of it. I decided I had better get the big picture so I took advantage of SCBWI coordinator Mio's offer to take me to Victoria's Peak...
and got the macro view of it. Also, a nice view of I.M. Pei's Bank of China, the "sting ray" convention center and Norman Foster's special building that has the best feng shui of the city. I only know this because Robert especially pointed them out to me before the trip and said to look for them.
From the peak, you can see Kowloon which means "Nine Dragons." This is because (according to the legend Mio told me) the emperor, as a boy, was on Kowloon when he noticed that there were eight hills and said, "There are eight dragons protecting us." His servant, replied, "With you, the emperor, there really are nine dragons protecting us."
Isn't that neat?
The sun was just starting to go down, so Mio and I decided to have dinner until it got dark so I could see the city all lit up. We went to the Peak Lookout Restaurant (that's Mio below. She doesn't like to have her picture taken which is why she is mysteriously shrouded in darkness)...
where I opened up the menu to see:
Boston Lobster! Gee, I traveled half way around the world to get Boston lobster! I'm sure it was quite good, even though I didn't order it because, heck, it came all the way from Boston. Probably not the freshest, though. Maybe that's why it was a "supplement."
Anyway, we spent so long with dinner that I forgot to go back to the lookout view to take the night photo I had planned. So instead I took the picture from my hotel room, where I am now about to fall asleep yet again. Here's hoping that I can stay awake for more than 3 hours at a time tommorrow.
