Shenzhen

Shenzhen is located at the north of Hong Kong. It is a mainland China city, which is classified as a special economic zone. It is a modernized city. Some visitors like to have a one day trip to Shenzhen. It is encourge to take Shenzhen Metro to ravel around the city.

Visa is necessary to go to mainland China. However, visa only for

Shenzhen can be apply at the immigration counter at Shenzhen. It is suggested to use MTR(KCR) to Lo Wu Station or Lok Ma Chau Station in order to enter mainland China. You can interchange

with Shenzhen Metro at both port.

Shenzhen is a big city. The metro cover most of the urban area, you can enjoy shopping, dining and entertainment by metro.

The design of Shenzhen metro is similar to Hong Kong MTR, so you can enjoy the journey there.

Yuan (RMB) (The currencies in mainland China) is suggest to use in Shenzhen, the rate to Hong Kong Dollar is 1 Hong Kong Dollar to 0.94 Yuan, it is recommanded to exchange Yuan in Hong Kong.

Detail of the Visa: Only for Shenzhen and 7 days. Apply at the Shenzhen custom counter at Lo Wu or Lok Ma Chau. Fee ($150) and photo is necessary for such Visa, also, your valid Passport is also needed. Operation Hour: 9am - 9pm. Hope you can enjoy a trip to Shenzhen.

(The information of visa are reference fro Yahoo! Knowledge, original version is in Chinese, http://hk.knowledge.yahoo.com/question/?qid=7007110802205)

Useful Link:
Shenzhen Travel Guide - http://203.175.146.90:10000/index.aspx?aspxerrorpath=/VisitShenzhen/index.aspx
Shenzhen Metro (Chinese) - http://www.szmc.net/index.jsp

Santa Claus is coming to Town

It is one month before Christmas, however, the city is full of joy. The Christmas decorations are ready to show in Tsim Sha Tsui and Causeway bay. More and more decorations will be ready for you to enjoy in the coming couple of weeks. Come and feel the joyful in the town. See you in Hong Kong this Christmas.

Most light decorations will be closed down after midnight, except Christmas Week and New Year Week.

Recycle Right

Hong Kong is running a recycling system in order to classify three major types of wastage. The government is educating people to throw those materials into the boxes with different colors.

- Blue for Paper

- Yellow for Aluminium Cans

- Brown for Plastic Bottles

It encourages people to classfiy the wastage to boxes of different color. This "three-color" boxes are located in various locations in the city. Besides the litter box, please try your best to classiffy those materials for recycling. Thanks very much.

This is a promotion video abut Recycling produced by The government.
URL - http://www.info.gov.hk/isd/tvapi/recycle/english/high_eng.htm

Miniatures Exhibition - Hong Kong Treasures

Joseph had visited this exhibition a few days ago.

The exhibition shows some models of Hong Kong scenic spots, however, those are mostly spots with historical memory. It is worth to visit, because Hong Kong is a city of life, but old stuff are not keeping well. Non government organization are very indeed to keep the historical information of the city.

This is a good chance for everybody to revisit and remember those good day in our daily life.

This is a typical scene of old style apartment. This may currently exist in some old district.

This is the entrance of the old Wan Chai Market, it is going to be demolish, so there is a banner of protest of the new market arrange there.

This is an old-style hair-dressing stall located at open area.

















This is a pawn shop in Wan Chai, also the interior view (left).

The lower picture is the actually view of that pawn shop.



Exhibition Name: Miniatures Exhibition - HK Treasures

Location, 1/F, Devon House, Taikoo Place

Transport: Exit A, MTR Quarry Bay Station

Opening Hours: 8am - 9pm, till 30th November, 2007

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Ngong Ping 360 Reopen around the end of 2007.

Ngong Ping 360 is a new cable car service(serviced since Sept 2006) linking up Tung Chung Town Centre and Ngong Ping on Lantau Island. The service will reopen around the end of 2007. (source: Making the announcement at a news conference on 18 September 2007, MTRCorporation Chairman Dr Raymond Ch'ien)

Yesterday, I went for a tour to Ngong Ping Villiage and the Giant Buddha. Since the cable car service is still suspended, so I took the bus route no.23 at Tung Chung MTR station. The time spent on the journey is about one hour. (compared to 25 minutes on cable car).

The locations of Giant Buddha and Ngong Ping Village are just 5 minutes walk from the bus terminus at Ngong Ping. I spent about 2 hours at Ngong Ping. I enjoyed the fresh air and nice scene at Ngong Ping. Finally, I returned to Tung Chung CityGate Outlets for shopping.

Left: Ngong Ping Villiage. Right: cable car cabinet.

Left: on the way to Giant Buddha. Right: Great views on the cabinet.

Left: Cable car station at Ngong Ping. Right: At the entrance to Giant Buddha.

Left: shop decorations at Ngong Ping Villiage. Right: Cabe cars in maintenance.











Left: Chinese candies. Right: Giant Buddha.

Left: Cable cars in maintenance. Right: Sunset at Ngong Ping Villiage.

Western Market (西港城)

Western Market (上環街市) is an old building. It is a "Declared Monument which was built in 1908. It was really a wet market twenty years ago. However, the newly market complex was built nearby, and this building is quite classic in style, so the government keep it and convert it to current status. It was reopened in 1991. The English name reamins Western Market, but the Chinese name is changed to 西港城.

The ground floor of the building is now facilited with small shops selling gifts/sovenirs. There are several shops selling bus models there, they will organize "Bus Model" exhibitions every year.

The second floor are the so called "Cloth Street", different kinds of "cloth" can be found at this level.

The third floor is a Chinese Restaurant.

The market also organize flea market during weekends.

Transport: Exit C, MTR Sheung Wan Station and walk westward along the tramway for about 5 to 10 minutes.

Opening Hours: 10am - 7pm daily

The Hong Kong Jockey Club / The Hong Kong Racing Museum

The Hong Kong Jockey Club organize horse racing event twice a week, except summer vacation.

Horse Racing is popular in Europe and United States, so we are not introducing how to bet here, just let you know how to go to the racecourses.

Happy Valley Racecourse
Transport: MTR Exit A, Causeway Bay Station

Sha Tin Racecourse
Transport: KCR Racecourse Station

The is a "Racing Museum" located at Happy Valley Racecourse, you can visit it during non racing days. The museum are introducing the history of teh development of horse racing in Hong Kong, also telling the major event of Hong Kong racing.

Opening Hours: 11am- 5pm Tuesday - Sunday (For those racing days in Happy Valley: 10am-12:30pm, Close on Mondays and some public holidays)

Admission: FREE

The pictures are taken in Happy Valley Racecourse

The Hong Kong Jockey Club: http://www.hongkongjockeyclub.com/

Please be reminded that anyone under 18 years old is not allowed to bet or enter the racecourse on racing days.

MTR New Fare System

MTR and KCR is merging on 2nd December 2007, MTR announced the new fare table on 22nd Nov. You can have a look on the new fare table. However, the details of the tourist day pass were not yet release.

The fare Table of MTR


Enquiry: 28818888

(The System Map is captured from MTR website (http://www.mtr.com.hk)

No Plastic Bag

Park'n Shop, one of the chain supermarkets in Hong Kong, announced not to provide plastic bag to customer. It is aimed to encourage customer not to use too much plastic bags. To save more resource of the earth, people are being educated not to waste too much, as well as those stuff that are not bio-degradable. Customers are encourage to donate $0.2 for each plastic bag, if necessary.

Besides Park'n Shop, most of the major chain store are joining a campaign called "No Plastic Day" on every Monday. Moreover, McDonalds having "No Straw Day" twice a month.

So, be reminded, bring your own bag when shopping at supermarket. To save our earth, everyone need to take part. :)

Panda Channel (熊貓台)

An An, Jia Jia, Le Le, Ying Ying. (安安, 佳佳, 樂樂, 盈盈)

They are the names of the pandas living in Ocean Park.

It is wonderful that we can see panda in sub-tropical region. Those four pandas are directly from mainland China. Ocean Park simulate the climate of Sichuan Province, (located at the southeast of China) in order to let the Pandas to approporiate enviroment to live.

Tourists can visit the Pandas in Ocean Park. However, Ocean provides a TV Channel called "Panda Channel (熊貓台)" in order to put "closed-circuit television" of tha Panda Home in Ocean Park online. You can visit them online, at any time and any place.

The photos below are capture from Internet, and nOW TV.

(Left) Website - http://www.now.com.hk/panda/
(Right) PayTV - nOW TV Channel 503 (Channel number maybe different in Hotel TV System)

Pawn Shop

Pawn Shop is the traditional financial service provider in Hong Kong. In the past, people are mortgage by keeping their golden stuff, jewelery, watches, or even bed-quilt in pawn shop.

However they can get back those stuff by paying interest later on.

Most of the pawn shop currently running are located in old building, so you can enjoy to visiting them, not only for the special style of mortgaging, but also the old-fashioned building.