We had one more day in Hong Kong but weren’t sure exactly what to do. If you remember, this part of our trip was “on our own.” That means no guide.

About a month before our trip, I went online and looked up things to do in Hong Kong. I placed them on a Pinterest board. Almost all were found using Pinterest’s search engine. You can see my ‘Hong Kong’ board here.

So after our general tour of Hong Kong yesterday, we got our touring ‘sea legs’ and decided to be more adventurous.   We hopped on the MRX, their subway, and rode it all the way to the Central Station in Hong Kong.  Since we began in Kowloon near our hotel, this means that the subway tunneled underneath Victoria Harbor.

One Pinterest pin mentioned the Central to Mid-Levels Escalator and how the locals used this to reach the upper levels of the city, located up very steep hills. It is the largest outdoor covered escalator in the world. It is over 800 meters long, about a half mile.

Going to ride this escalator will be a great way to take a truly different type of tour of Hong Kong.  We went in search of it.

It only went one direction, which was “up” when we took it around 11 a.m. We rode it as far up as it reached, and then we crossed over to the tram station. The escalator, by the way, reverses at other times of the day.

These neighborhoods are the real thing with laundry hanging out of windows and neighbors rushing here and there. This is real everyday Hong Kong.

Another Pinterest pin by Conde Nast had a list of what not to do in Hong Kong and what to do instead. You can read it here.

This is how we learned that there is a foot path to and from the top of Victoria Peak beginning down in Hong Kong City. We didn’t exactly follow their lead, but instead rode the Tram back up to Victoria Peak and walked the path back down.

While on the earlier tour we found that the shopping and dining up on Victoria Peak was non-crowded and had awesome views.  Also, it rained that day, so we wanted to return for several reasons.

We took the tram up;

and when we got to the top, we had a relaxing lunch at Bubba Gump’s (their highest restaurant) and then did a little shopping. It was perfect.

At about 2 pm we walked back down.

It was a great path, though very steep in some areas. There were even toilets about half way down.

The vegetation is so lush on this island.

The Conde Nast article suggested quite the opposite, but we knew we were already pretty weary of walking. And we’re glad we went down the path instead. The path was really steep and we had to stop to rest a few times to give the tops of our thighs some relief.

Once back at the tram station below, we took a taxi to the Star Ferry, and we crossed back over to Kowloon.  This time on top of the water instead of tunneling through as we did earlier on the subway.

Again, the views were awesome.

After dressing for dinner, we met some of our tour group for farewell drinks in The Garage Bar out under the city lights next to our hotel. It was a great ending to a wonderful vacation.

By the way we noticed that they use interesting scaffolding in China and Hong Kong.  I finally got a close-up picture to demonstrate.

Take a closer look at this multi-story building.  The scaffolding is bamboo.  How would you like to work on bamboo on the side of a 22 plus story building, as tall as Florida’s state Capitol?  They tell me that bamboo is incredibly strong, but I’m still not buying it.

Today, we fly back to the states.  What we’ll remember most about Hong Kong were the incredible views.