My Favorite attraction spot in Hong Kong--Victoria Harbour

I had shared some of my favorites about Hong Kong in the last few posts. This time, I want to share my favorite tourist attraction in Hong Kong—Victoria Harbour. Victoria Harbour is a well-known signature of Hong Kong. If you see the background of my blog, the harbour in the middle is Victoria Harbour! It is really pretty so it becomes a major tourist spot in Hong Kong as well. If you visit Hong Kong, you should definitely visit this spectacular spot!

Victoria Harbour Day Time

Victoria Harbour Night Time


Some history of Victoria Harbour: It is a natural landform harbour formed between Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. (If you look at the background, the side near you is Hong Kong Island and the other side is Kowloon Peninsula). The harbour was first called as “Hong Kong Harbour” originally. After The Second World War, Hong Kong became a British colony. The harbour was renamed as “Victoria Harbour” which is named after Queen Victoria.



The Dark Knight Shooting in the tallest building in Hong Kong

Since the Victoria Harbour has a world-famous stunning night view, it is constantly used as a place for fireworks display during Chinese New Year and National Day. Moreover, the beautiful view is world-known that have attracted Hollywood to film here. If you have watched the "batman" movie The Dark Knight, you may not know that there are some screen shots were shot in Hong Kong actually. And it has used the marvellous night views of Victoria Harbour. I personally think the night view of Victoria Harbour is amazing!
 It is a little bit hard to see, but the background in this picture is the Victoria Harbour (movie The Dark Knight)


On the other hand, there is no bridge between the two islands. You can either take the three cross-harbour tunnels or take the ferry to cross the harbour. The ferry on Victoria Harbour becomes another traditional characteristic of Hong Kong.


Ferry on Victoria Harbour


Lastly, because of the shortage of land, Victoria Harbour has been under several reclamations. It is sad to admit the fact but the harbour is become narrower and narrower. I hope people in Hong Kong can treasure this beautiful view and be environmental friendly. Otherwise, people will not be able to visit this famous harbour in the future.



More information of Victoria Harbour on this link:


http://www.chinahighlights.com/hong-kong/attraction/victoria-harbor.htm

My favorite transportation in Hong Kong--MTR

 A Song with all the MTR Stations name

In this week, I am going to talk about the transportation in Hong Kong. In United States, almost every family have own at least 1 car because we don’t have many public transportation here. However, the situation in Hong Kong is totally different. In fact, lower class family cannot afford to buy a car at all. Somehow we consider car as a luxury good in Hong Kong. It is not necessary for a family to own a car because there are so many public transportations and it is very convenient to go out. Our transportation include: buses, mini-buses, train, railway and taxi. Out of these, my favorite transportation is MTR which stand for Mass Transit Railway. It is the biggest transit railway system in Hong Kong. It has 150 stations in total and they are all over Hong Kong. It is very common and popular transportation and many people treat it as the main transport. Basically, you can go to anywhere by taking MTR in Hong Kong. Moreover, because Hong Kong is really small and crowed, the road traffic is a serious grow problem. We really need to run MTR to reduce the traffic. Most importantly, it is efficiency and affordable. It takes 3 minutes in average to go from one station to another and cost like$ 4 HKD only. (around 25 cents USD) I have a MTR station really close to my home in Hong Kong. It takes me 5 minutes walking distance to the MTR station so it is very convenient to me! I took MTR to school or go out to have dinner with friends. Therefore, I feel very different here in United States because I need to have a car to go out (mostly) and almost everybody drive here, it is inconvenience!

The official website of MTR is below:
http://www.mtr.com.hk/eng/homepage/cust_index.html

 The Station that near my home

My favorite Chinese game-- Mahjong

A video tutorial of Hong Kong Mahjong

In this week, I am going to introduce my favorite Chinese game –Mahjong. Mahjong is a popular traditional game that commonly played by four players. Mahjong has a set of 152 tiles with four different Chinese characters and symbols. Bamboo, circles, characters and honours. It is a game that involves skill, strategy and calculation at once.

Characters suits

Circle suits

Bamboo suits

honours suits

In China and Hong Kong, many people consider it as a gambling game and people play mahjong for gathering. It is also a popular game for Chinese New Year! Here are the rules: Each game has four rounds which determine by the directions East, South, West and North. Each player will get 13 tiles in the beginning and they will draw and discard one until they complete a legal hand with 14 tiles at the end. The goal is trying to get 3 tiles in the same symbols and they must be in order. Players draw and discard until they have a legal hand with 14 tiles. (For example, Bamboo two, three, four and Bamboo seven, eight, nine) The rules are really complicated, you can find more information from this link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong

In fact, mahjong is really famous in China and Hong Kong. It is very common and a lot of people know how to play it. It is always consider as a leisure game for adult as well (sometimes teenager as well). I personally love this game very much and I will play this with my family and friends. Mahjong is also a traditional game that can represent Chinese culture as it has a long history. Chinese started to play mahjong many years ago and we still playing it now.