Hong Kong #1: Victoria Peak and Trivia
For this vacation, we went to Hong Kong with a day at Macau. But before I go into the details of that, some assorted titbits on the Hong Kong. Hong Kong is an SAR (Special Administrative Region) of China ever since it was handed back from the UK in 1997. It is governed under the “one country, two systems” principle, in line with the 1984 agreement with the British which was made prior to the handover (China guarantees Hong Kong's economic and political systems for 50 years after the handover). As a result, you have this weird situation where Hong Kong has its own currency (Hong Kong dollar). While the Chinese yuan is accepted, it is not the preferred currency. Lastly, Hong Kong drives on the left unlike China (proper) which drives on the right! Hong Kong is the world’s 3 rd largest financial hub (after New York and London). The biggest Chinese tech companies, from Alibaba to Baidu to TenCent (WeChat) are all listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange. ~~ ...