Our tour today took us from Guangzhou to Hong Kong by bus, a trip that should have taken about 2 -1/2 hours except for a roadblock thrown up by the Chinese government. I was under the impression that in 1997, when the British lease expired, Hong Kong became part of China again. However, they seem to be treating the area as a different country, complete with this border crossing facility where we had to take our luggage off the bus and go through an immigration and customs control process. Most of which consisted of standing in line, stern looking people comparing our documents to a computer screen, and stamping forms.

Anyway, we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening exploring the area, taking the Star Ferry across the harbor to Hong Kong Island (we are staying in the Kowloon district) to get a panoramic view of their iconic skyline. More time to look around today and I’m looking forward to taking the tram up to Victoria Peak tonight.