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The Naval Association

of Australia

Webmaster's trip to China and Hong Kong February - March 2010.

Thank you for your patience with the website and the non-updating of it during my absence. We intended to be able to achieve this however bandwidth restrictions in China and a limit of 50 emails per day curtailed much of the internet activity that I would normally have undertaken.

We had a great trip and went to a lot of interesting places. You will more than likely recognise some of the places around Hong Kong which I have included in this very brief 'happy snap' preview. Some of the shots will be interesting because you may have been in Hong Kong during your service in the RAN and it has changed dramatically over the years since it was handed back to China on 1st July, 1997.

The photos that I have included of the former HMS TAMAR which is now occupied by the PLA-N (People's Liberation Army - Navy) show how far the development has progressed. There is now a massive highway between the old TAMAR brick wall and the harbour which is now about 500 metres away - simply amazing. The old Hong Kong Island Star Ferry Terminal has been pulled down and replaced with a new facility which is now on landfill about 300 metres closer to the Kowloon side than previously.

Since last in Hong Kong (12 months ago) the crowds have increased and pollution is noticeably worse. You nearly have to wear a face mask simply to avoid catching any of the myriad of colds, flus, or irritating throat infections caused by the pollution.

Apart from that shopping has become more expensive even though our dollar is now worth about $7 Hong Kong dollars. It is much cheaper to shop across the border in China or in the Chinese areas of Hong Kong avoiding the tourist areas altogether.

Transport remains cheap and easy to use. The MTR (with Australian built trains and systems) is fantastic - shame we don't have similar organisation in Australian cities.

Anyway - here are just a few photographs, hope they bring back memories for you, we certainly enjoyed ourselves.

© The Naval Association of Australia