I worked on a project in Hong Kong for three weeks.  My hotel was in the busy part of Hong Kong island called Causeway Bay.  This area, along with most of the built-up parts of the island, is packed with shops - mostly restaurants and mobile phones.

Hong Kong was a British colony, leased from China until 1997.  The people I worked with said they saw no real change since the Chinese took over, although they can apply to receive a Chinese passport or keep their Hong Kong Special Adminstrative Region passport.

The island is a lot more mountainous than I thought - there is a cable-tram to the highest point called Victoria Peak. The view from there at night is spectacular because most of the skyscrapers are decorated with large neon displays, currently celebrating the approaching Year 2000.

Across the bay from Hong Kong island is Kowloon, which has a large park and again tons of shopping. Further north of Kowloon is the New Territories. If you cross the river at the far north of the New Territories you enter mainland China in a city called Shenjhen.

The picture to the right is the Hong Kong Jockey Club. The people of Hong Kong are mad about horse racing, I saw at least 3 tracks in this city where every square inch of space is put to use.

I'd like to thank Yvonne Lee of IBM Hong Kong for helping me show me the sights and understand how the city works. It was a shame that she waited until my third bowl of hot and sour soup to point out that the things that I thought were long, stringy mushrooms were actually blobs of congealed pig's blood.