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Christmas in Hong Kong

Not exactly a Chinese festival -- but still the people in Hong Kong do celebrate Christmas.

So what do Hong Kong people do on Christmas?

• Party!
• Go to TST East to see the lights on the buildings -- it is really very pretty.  You see those buildings up close, then look out across the harbour to the Christmas Lights on the Hong Kong island.
• See what the Ocean Terminal in TST has put up as Christmas decorations
• Have dinner on Christmas day in a Hong Kong hotel
• Visit the "Hong Kong WinterFest" -- these are a new idea but have been really successful.  For Christmas 2007 this is more of a distributed thing with multiple Christmas themed events all over town rather than one fair is it was in prior years.

The day after is a holiday too -- "Boxing Day" based on the English tradition.  Of course most people take days away between this and the New Year to make a long holiday break.

The Christian churches run religious services as you would expect and St John's Cathedral and so on are busy -- we used to go to the Union Church one most years in the old days as my family were friends with some people there though we are not religious ourselves. 

Local International schools have school fairs -- we went to the ESF Kennedy School Christmas Night Market 7th Dec, though this year it was a bit less interesting than prior years.  It is a very English style school fair -- except it is all be on concrete, not a blade of grass to be seen.  But that's Hong Kong for you.  At least it will be warm enough to go in short sleeves which you can't say for Christmas in England I think.

This view taken in Statue Square shows the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on the left, then Jardine House, the giant Christmas tree, and finally IFC Two on the right.

This view of the harbour from a ferry shows the Hong Kong exhibition and convention centre in the middle -- the low dark structure, and behind it the brightly lit buildings of Hong Kong.  The tallest tower in this view is Central Building, which is nowhere near Central!  It's in Wanchai, but never mind.

The view is really wonderful and pretty but hard to capture in a photograph, at least with my limited photographic skills.

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