Buildings on the harbor in Hong Kong are occasionally built with an opening in them — so that the dragons living in the mountains can reach through to the bay for a drink of water. We saw many of them yesterday when we took a boat for several hours, ending up at the small fishing village of Lamma Island, where buildings are prohibited beyond three storeys, and where many of the locals go out on the pier to catch their dinner.

In the evening, we took the ferry to Kowloon, which meant first taking a taxi to the Star Ferry in Central. Along the way, we passed one of Hong Kong’s extraordinary graveyards, built on plateaued stretches of land between high-rise buildings, much like the vineyards in parts of Italy and Spain — a beautiful, dense field of statuary.