A Hong Kong Visit

We went to Hong Kong last weekend. It was a two-hour airplane ride to get there.  Although Hong Kong is included in China, the city used to be a British colony. It was returned to China in 1997 and since then, Hong Kong has been a Special administrative region of the People's Republic of China.  This means the city is under a different law/system from mainland China. 

 For example,  the money is different: Hong Kong uses Hong Kong dollars, Mainland China uses Yuan.

These are the Hong Kong dollar bills.

These are Chinese Yuan bills.

In mainland China, the government controls what people read and watch. For example, many books in English are banned and internet access is limited.  But Hong Kong is not under this policy. So, we could access to internet sites such as YouTube, Google, and Facebook, and I could buy a couple of books, about China in English, which I have never seen
in Mainland China.

There are more differences particularly because of the British influence. People in Hong Kong speak Cantonese, which is a different Chinese language from Mandarin.  Mandarin is spoken in most places in Mainland China. Also Hong Kongers (also called Hong Kongese) can speak English very well. People drive on the other side of the road from the Mainland and the U.S. The drivers in the cars sit on the right side of the cars.

Did you know there is a Disneyland in Hong Kong?  This was the first time in Jay's life that he had been to Disneyland, so he was very excited. But as soon as we arrived there, Jay got sick and he couldn't ride many of the attractions...Too bad.  We managed to see the parade and fireworks. Jay had a good time...

  

The next day Jay felt even worse so we remained in the hotel room and we couldn't go into the city of Hong Kong. We will go back in the future..M