Greetings from Hong Kong! (China Days 1-2)

We made it!  A quick hop to Detroit, followed by 15-plus hours on a 777 to Hong Kong, and here we are.  There were no real travel issues to report, other than a one-hour delay to our flight out of Detroit.  Everything else was smooth sailing!  The nicest part of our travel was meeting up in DTW airport with another family adopting from Guangdong Province. Heather met this mother from Nashville on a Facebook adoption group.  They suffered through the long flight overseas with us.

We got to our hotel on Friday, July 13, around 9:30pm local time and crashed into bed.   This morning (Saturday) we met up with the other adopting family and took a tour of Hong Kong with a guide.  The guide was great and taught us a lot of the history of this "Special Authorized Region" of China.  We took the Star Ferry over to Hong Kong Island, rode up the world's largest escalator (800m long), visited a Taoist temple, went through some street markets, and ate an authentic lunch of Chinese noodles.  All in all, today we rode on a ferry, a streetcar (aka "ding ding" here), a bus, a tram, and a train/subway.  That's in addition to walking several miles.  It was a fun and educational day, despite the high humidity.  See below for a few of our pictures from around town.

Things we've learned today:

• Tons of details of Hong Kong's history, from British Colonization through its return to China in 1997 and that it is in a 50-year period of "one country, two systems" rule (it's unknown what will happen to the current Hong Kong governance in 2047).
• Seven million people live in Hong Kong, but only about 7% own their own cars.
• You can make $10M per year in Hong Kong being an English tutor.  They're treated like celebrities.
• Hong Kong has the equivalent of our Hollywood walk of fame.  We saw Jackie Chan's handprints in the sidewalk.  In fact, the entire Kwoloon district is kind of the equivalent of our Hollywood.
• Hong Kong has its own SoHo district.
• The harbor area of Hong Kong is extremely polluted due to a lack of sewage treatment plants.  Lots of people fish for pleasure, but they release them for obvious reasons.

This day was a great chance for us to adjust to the time difference and prepare ourselves for being in Guangzhou. We'll hop on the train tomorrow at 12:14pm.  We're less than two days from Gotcha Day!!!