Sunday we finally had a chance to take a little free time and explore Hong Kong. We saw so much, walked all over the place and took just a few photos (for those of you who know me you know that I am under-exaggerating here).
WARNING! THIS IS A PHOTO-HEAVY POST!
We started out the day walking across the street from our hotel to the Kowloon park (I think?). There are tons of flamingos living there, so naturally I got out my camera. It took me 5 minutes to get a shot and check it out.
It was so humid I could not keep my camera lens clear! After many fuzzy shots I was finally able to get the camera to equilize with the environment and I got some much clearer photos.
Much better. Well, walking in Hong Kong was like walking in a city wide sauna. It was so hot and humid! And already at like 9am! So next we got on the subway to head to Mong Kok, a market district. We had some crazy run-ins at the subway station. A tiny old Chinese woman was asking Jeff for help with the subway and with his big heart but limited Chinese he was not able to help her much, but did spend her money and buy her a ticket, though we are not sure if it is where she wanted to go or not? Then a lady startled me by yelling in my face but was actually talking to the woman behind me on the escalator. It was pretty hilarious because they all started laughing at me. I am pretty impressed by the Hong Kong subway system, it is organized very well, clean, trains often, and there is good airflow on the trains. All the cars are interconnected (like the double long buses) so you can see down the 10 or so cars of the train which was really weird. Plus it was pretty cheap in American dollars compared to what Chicago or DC would be.
Mong Kok was sensory overload. So much to see, so many people and music and then add in the smells of the street vendors! There was the overly nasty smell of fermented fish and tofu that made me almost get sick while walking past. And then there was the roast duck or chicken? Not sure which.
There is a crazy long market street with vendors selling everything you can imagine. No imitation handbag or watch for me this trip, sadly. Though, I did buy myself a present of a cashmere wrap for $11 (score!) and it is so soft and wonderful. Oh, and Joel I bought the cats 2 new lazer pointers for $1 each! With batteries!
One thing that really struck me was that every single storefront you would walk past was blasting the AC, but there were no doors! Every storefront is just completely open to the street and you could totally feel the AC just walking in front of the stores! It was pretty crazy.
We also walked through the Gold Fish Market where it was all pets and fish for sale.
The fish come to market in these large bags and then are repacked into the small ones.
There were lots of lizards and turtles for sale as well. I almost bought one, the theory is that customs would never notice if I brought a tiny turtle home in my pocket, right?
We also walked through a fresh food market with mostly fresh seafood.
Next, we hopped back on the subway and went to the Wong Tai Sin temple. It was so beautiful, and weirdly set right in the middle of the city.
Oh, and I made friends with a turtle in the ponds. I pretty much got all up in his face and he didn’t really seem to care! Next, we headed out of Kowloon down onto Hong Kong Island. Since Jeff has made many trips, he has learned a bit about Hong Kong. Apparently there are many maids in Hong Kong from the Philippines and Sunday is their day off. So they swarm the city in mass shopping and eating and just hanging out in any public area they can find space. In the photo below they just put blankets out into the street and were playing bingo and singing songs and having a grand old time! It was pretty amazing.
We then headed up to Hollywood street where there are a lot of antique/arts&crafts vendors. I almost bought a dinosaur egg. $200 for a dinosaur egg. How cool would it be to own a dinosaur egg? Or an authentic antique giant Buddha? Ok, actually the Buddha kind of creeped me out and I would be afraid to put it in my house because it seemed like something I would worry about coming alive in the middle of the night. But anyway, and dinosaur egg would be awesome!
We ended up having dinner at an Italian restaurant (strange, I know) and look who was cheering us on from the sidelines!
It was kind of a weird feeling to eat pizza in Hong Kong, but I suppose you can’t eat chinese food every day? Well, lastly, on the way back to the hotel we stopped by another temple. This temple was much smaller but it had very interesting insense formed into very large cones that could continuously burn for what seemed like it must be a very long time. There were many beautiful decorations and carvings at this temple as well.
From here we made our way over to the star ferry, and for the cost of about 25 cents we rode 1st class back to Kowloon. Wait, scratch that, we did not head right back to the hotel, there was a Hagen Dazs standing in the way and we just had to stop. We made it back to the hotel just as our representative was getting there to pick us up. And so the next leg of our journey was beginning out into mainland China.
By the end of the day I realized one thing. Hong Kong is an amazing city, but I could never live here. It is just April and already the heat and humidity were more than I could bear. Most of the day I was crazy sweating and overheating and not feeling like I could cool off because it was just so dang humid! So Joel, no worries, we can stay in Portland for now.
If you just didn’t get enough photos from this post, you can always see more on my special flickr set here. Enjoy, and thanks for looking!
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