Welcome to Hong Kong!
The 2016 China Ag trip is off to a great start. Not too much waiting in the Chicago airport,
but just enough to provide some good walk-around time before the 16 hour
flight. The flight was great with old
and new movies being watched, books being read, and some attempts at
sleeping. We arrived in Hong Kong around
5:30 pm Tuesday, which is 4:30 am Tuesday in Brookings. We got through Customs, got our luggage, and
were then greeted by Chas, our tour guide in Hong Kong, and Janet Sun (better
known as China Momma by the 2015 class!).We had about a 45 minute bus ride and
learned a lot about Hong Kong. Hong Kong
has approximately 8 million people in an area of 430 square miles, or in a
space of 20 miles by 22 miles. Hard to
fathom 8 million people living in the same space as two of our counties. Since land is so valuable, apartments go for
$2,000 to $3,000 per square foot on Hong Kong Island! Since it is so mountainous with so little
land, 98% of all their food (and pretty much everything else) gets shipped in
from China. We drove past the Hong Kong
container port, which is the third largest in the world.
We had a great supper served family style with more
good things than you can imagine. Pork,
duck, steamed fish, tofu, pork tongue, chicken, lots of vegetables, beef soup,
and sticky rice. Everyone did well with
chop sticks, and Dr. Marshall led the way.
After filling ourselves with food, jet-lag started hitting and some of
heads were nodding before we got to the hotel.
There is a lot of wealth in Hong Kong because in two blocks we saw new
Jaguars, Mercedes Benz, Masseratti’s, Porche’s, etc on the streets. However, no F-150’s or Silverado’s! We’ve
checked into the hotel for a good (?) night’s sleep, and then off to another
great day on Wednesday starting with the US Consulate and US Meat Export
Federation.
Keep checking out blog, and share the link with all
your family and friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment