Hong Kong is a city of skyscrapers. All of these buildings have lights on them. Some did mini light shows at one time of night or another. Then along came some bright guy who said, "Hey, what if all the buildings did their light show at the same time?" And thus the Hong Kong light show was born.
Think about that for a minute, an entire city coordinated into one giant light show. That's pretty darn Supercallifragilisticexpialidocious! So when we found out the ship would be going to Hong Kong, the light show was at the top of our list of things to do.
And that is how we found ourselves boarding the top floor of a double decker ferry (because everything in Hong Kong is double decker) and sailing across Victoria Harbor to Kowloon.
We waited, with a crowd of a couple of hundred toursits and locals on the Tsim Sha Tsui prominade.
Junks and ferries bobbed on the water in front of us. Behind us KCR clock tower reached toward the sky, and a colorful dragon advertised the Asia Games. I asked Grant for the time every thirty seconds. Finally, it was eight o'clock.
A sound system poured music over the crowd and a pair of voices introduced the light show in English and Cantonese. At last it began.
Cameras shutters shnicked. The water turned purple and green and blue and white. The music played on, turning this flashing of lights into a dance.
Somewhere in the middle of all this I thought: "Holy crud, I'm on the discovery channel." Just months before I saw this on my television and now, here I was, standing in the middle of it. Remember the scene in Mary Poppins when they jump into the sidewalk art and dance through the pictures? It felt like that, but with an Asian soundtrack.
The videos don't do it justice. But I'll stick one on here anyway.
I leave you today with a quote from Mary Poppins, spoken by Bert the chimney sweep, "What did I tell ya? There's the whole world at your feet. And who gets to see it but the birds, the stars and the chimney sweeps." and me.
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