Today we felt a bit better but still have ground to recover due to jet lag. We understand why the Olympics teams come over a week or more early. Our "body clock" still hasn't adjusted completely but progress is being made. As we catch shuttles, cabs or walk around the city, we are struggling under sweltering heat and humidity.
As we travel around Hong Kong (including the areas of Kowloon and Stanley), we have noticed increasingly that amidst the exotic buildings, upscale houses, and really hot cars that get all of the press here, there seems to be little or no middle class. Everyone else here seems to really struggle to scratch out a living. Wages have to be considerably higher than in mainland China and people do have their own places to live, often in poorer high rises which probably cost most of what they make.
We were able to travel to the other side of the island to an area called Stanley. When we were here 4 years ago, we travelled to this area where there is a large outdoor shopping area. Some items there are really nice, many others are more like an upscale flea market. The travel to and from there is beautiful with beach, golf course, marina with large and small boats, even sail boats, and mountain apartments and estates. Once there, we also noticed several shrines that I didn't see previously (although they are very old and were here). We respectfully entered one of the shrines to see what was there but didn't shoot any photos. There were altars to various oriental gods with incense to burn to each along with kneeling pillows at each altar.
We crashed last night after dinner and watched what Olympics they show here. I told Pat and Caroline that it frustrates me to be "physically closer" to the Olympics than anyone in the states but not seeing nearly the coverage that you are. Unless an Asian athlete is in the event, we usually do not get to see it. We did see the US men's basketball game last night.
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