5 posts tagged “hong kong”
August takes a trip across Victoria harbor on the Star Ferry. He gives us an inside look at his favorite place to sit and why he thinks it is the best bargain in Hong Kong. Click here for his report.
The fleet of twelve ferries operates four routes across the harbor, carrying over 70,000 passengers a day, or 26 million a year. Even though there are now other ways to cross the harbour (by MTR Subway and road tunnels), the Star Ferry continues to provide an efficient, popular and inexpensive mode of crossing from point A to point B. The company's main route runs between Central and Tsim Sha Tsui, which is what most people mean by "the Star Ferry". This route has become one of the icons of Hong Kong heritage in the eyes of tourists. From the ferry, one can take in the famous view of the harbour and the Hong Kong skyline.
Kat presents her insights on a little of the history of Hong Kong. With locations covering Kowloon to Lantau Island to the heart of Hong Kong, Kat helps us to understand the conflict of the Opium wars and the ancient tradition of foot binding. She puts it all in her own perspective.
You can click here for the full size version of her report, and like always, if you are on a slower connection it is best to click play, pause it for 5-10 seconds so the file download can get a head start, and then click play. It should play smoother using the play-pause-play strategy.
Day two was an investment in the sport of shopping. Come to think about it, a trip to Hong Kong is one big lesson in supply and demand. The market stalls are where Hong Kong's dedicated shoppers hone their bargaining skills. A little Cantonese helps but sign language is universal. Kyra reports from three venues as she explores the rituals and rites about the dance of consumerism. From Stanley Market (think Pike Place market complete with cheesy souvenirs) on the far south end of Hong Kong Island, to the Jade Market, Kyra learned what it means to strike a bargain.
We have also posted a lower bandwidth version if you are having trouble getting this to play smoothly.
Life is so full of unexpected challenges.
As the media engine on this trip to Hong Kong (principal photography, executive producer, editor, web master and chief bottle washer) Drew has come to expect the unexpected. But he wasn’t expecting this. Our laptop crashed. Big-time. And so five days before we are scheduled to leave we are frantically trying to configure a production computer.
But we are making progress. The new machine is a cute little HP loaded with Vista. As the pround owner of this sleek little gem dad should be very excited. But alas, he is not. None of the production software we have tested works very well on the new machine (Avid, QTPro, Macromedia). In fact the Avid gives us the blue screen of death. Growing pains for sure. But we have moved over the PremierPro (thank you Adobe for building such a great app) and we seem to be back in business.
So here is the first of two tests as we try and figure out how we will get all this stuff to work in a few days. If you click the link on the right it will play full size. This video is Kat asking about flying fish at the Pike Place Market. We are testing the tool we use to compress and upload the video.
The next test will be to determine if our HD camera will work with the new video editing softare. And then we will be done. And the blog will be ready to go. And you won't have to endure our growing pains.
As we get closer to our departure for Hong Kong, the kids get more excited. This weekend was our last opportunity to shop for all that we will need for the trip. The MoKels have no idea what is in store for us, and frankly, the Pacton family has no idea either. At least we will come bearing gifts.
On a side note, Tamara,,, these are not your gifts. Really. We promise.
