John Stennis (CVN 74) - Naval Cruise Book

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HONG KONG i - s e -V, After a three-day visit to Pusan, USS John C. Stennis sailed Southwest through the South China Sea and into pleasant weather and one of the world ' s largest and busiest ports: Hong Kong. JCS ' visit was the first by an American carrier battle group to the city in almost a year. During the day, two images stood out on the liberty boat ride into the city. The first was the combined skyline of Hong Kong and Kowloon, a seemingly endless formation of towering commercial and apartment buildings that surrounded the small bay like a fortress. The second was the hne of smaller ships from the JCS Battle Group anchored proudly in formation near the mouth of the harbor. Anyone passing in or out would know that the U.S. Navy was present. At night, Hong Kong ' s buildings lit up with the number ••2000 and giant dragons that stretched several hundred feet into the sky. It was the height of Chinese New Yeai , the Year of the Golden Dragon. Hong Kong is similar to New York and Chicago in that the city is a tourist attraction in and of itself. The cutting-edge archi- tecture of the newer buildings like Pel ' s Bank of China and the Uppo building was made even more spectacular by the older, smaller build- ings that filled in the spaces betwe.en them. They say that saving money on a deployment is easy — until you hit a port like Hong Kong. The city is the electronics capital of the world, and its shops boasted the latest and greatest in modem gadgetry. Sailors and Marines bought watches, Mini-disc players, com- pact cameras, and hand-held digital video cameras that would come in handy for recording their adventures in the Arabian Gulf and Australia. Hong Kong also offered an exciting nightlife with a wide range of scenes to choose from. W r ,00 HoM KOM ; chrm