Stairway to Heaven

As our church had no Sunday School for the children this morning, we decided to visit Island ECC, a church where many of Craig's colleagues attend.

After the service we took a tram to Central. The following two video clips were the view from our window as a march/parade went past. We're not altogether sure what the march was about, but Craig thinks it was about promoting constitutional reforms. In any case, it all seemed quite calm and civilised.

This is Queens Road where we got off the tram and went looking for what are known in Hong Kong as the Mid Levels Escalators.

According to  The Guinness Book of World Records, the Central-Mid-levels escalators in Hong Kong are the longest outdoor covered escalator system in the world. The entire escalator system covers over 800 metres in distance and elevates over 135 metres from bottom to top.

This clip gives you an idea of how these escalators are covered but still considered to be outdoors. (I also did some fancy camera work; you'll know it when you see it!)

You can see from this photo that there are stairs alongside the escalators for up or down traffic.

Many people rode the escalators alongside us as an ordinary commute up the steep hill to their homes, but we enjoyed looking out at the passing shops and restaurants on either side. We hopped off the escalators  at an outlet book store and when we spied a sign for an Australian restaurant called "Chicken on the Run".

Their menu looked tempting, but as we were told we couldn't take any photos inside the shop, we had to settle for posing outside.

It took us around half an hour to travel up the twenty or so escalators to the top. Our children usually enjoy going on escalators, but even they had had enough by the end!

We found a little cafe for tea called "Cul de Sac" with plenty of Western food on the menu. I had a kebab, Craig had fish and chips, Tirzah had a slice of pizza, and the other two had hot dogs. Craig liked the Coke in glass bottles too.