So upon leaving Kathmandu, the security process was quite thorough where it seemed like every few hundred meters, we were going through a booth to get frisked again. From Nepal to Delhi, for my layover, the flight was pretty uninteresting, but I did meet a girl on her way home to Austria after a three month volunteer trip in Nepal. Since both of us had about a seven hour layover before getting onto our next leg, we hung out in a secluded part of the airport and tried to get some shuteye on these pretty comfy recliners but ended up talking and playing cards for most of the time. Every so often, the manager of the little food stand near us would come talk to us and so we decided to try out some of their samosas at 2AM in the morning. It wasn't too bad as far as airport food in India goes.
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| Chilling out with Stefanie |
Well, when it was finally time to part ways, Stefanie and I made sure to exchange contact info and I got onto my next flight for Hong Kong! Finally getting out of the airport in Delhi, I was on my way to the motherland! Well... My mother's land anyway. And the plane was pretty vacant so I had two seats to myself to figure out how to maneuver my body to get some good sleep. My efforts were futile as usual and I just hoped I could push through the next few hours speaking coherent Cantonese as I met my dad at the arrival hall and for the first time, my cousin, Daisy, and her husband, Wing. When I was first planning my trip, I knew I wanted to visit Hong Kong and my dad had wanted to visit with me so we had planned to meet in early November. Since I refused to use my phone to make phone calls to avoid charges, with the bouts of communication we had, I successfully found my dad in the arrival hall.
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| I made it! |
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| Texts with my Aunt Selina upon arrival |
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| Beautiful views of the water |
It was around breakfast time so they decided to take me to a restaurant called Honorary Family for some dim sum and I remembered one of the reasons why I was so excited to visit. I'm used to wiping down my chopsticks and plates every time I went to dim sum with my family but here, extra precautions for cleanliness were taken with each table being given a teapot of hot water to completely wash down all the plates, bowls, and utensils and since SARS broke out about a decade ago, each person has two sets of chopsticks - one set for personal use and one set for picking up food from the communal dishes in the center which meant twice the effort to getting food delivered to my mouth. Almost all of the plates were pretty familiar to me except for dessert which was this fried type of hard something topped with what looked like cotton candy. And after a scrumptious meal, I left with a food baby in tow.
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| Getting ready for some delicious dim sum! |
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| Cotton candy-like dessert |
Hong Kong is the first place that I've felt this type of humidity since traveling and it kind of took me by surprise. My dad had told me that the weather in Hong Kong was going to nicer in the fall than the summer so that's why we had planned to meet now but I did not anticipate the heat this late in the year and neither did he because he said he had brought a winter coat. I guess I was going to have to start adjusting to warmer weather from here on out.
During lunch, my dad had mentioned how good the crabs here are and that's exactly what we started our dinner with. Even with my family, I usually don't partake in eating whole crabs and I think I was reminded why during this whole ordeal. While it was delicious, it took more time than I am willing to give to eating something with extracting the meat from each of the eight thinner legs by using its thinner part of the claw to push the meat through the larger part and cutting through the pincers and scooping out the middle of the body. And while I was wrestling with this little surprisingly hairy creature, the food just kept coming out. There was soup with veggies, fermented egg, and fish, veggie and bacon stir fry, scrambled eggs with veggies and meat, chicken, steamed fish, and my eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach. It was all so delicious!
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| Get in my belly! |
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| Hello Mr. Hairy Crab |
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| You're no match for me! |
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| So much food for dinner! |
All throughout this area, there were places where incense could be lit and used to pray for luck or whatever wishes one might have. I'm used to doing it during Chinese New Year or when visiting the graves of family members and my grandma always led the way so I didn't know if it was appropriate to do it at this point. So without lighting any incense, I still sent my own little prayer to the gods.
Coming from the monasteries, there was a little food shop where we got sago pudding, yummy bean curd dessert, mango pudding, and soy milk. It's always cute to me when I see monks doing everyday things like there was one monk at this little café which wasn't that surprising but it still seemed out of the ordinary to me. Later in the day, I saw a monk ordering food at a Subway and that seemed even more peculiar to me but monks are people too, I suppose.
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| Dessert! |
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| Monk-friendly |
After finishing our snacks, I wanted to walk the Wisdom Path so we started to walk into a more secluded area with lots of green. I wasn't sure how to tell my dad where we were going so I'd point to the sign that contained both Chinese and English and he would read it but he still didn't know where we were going. He kept telling me that there was nothing to see and it's just a walking path but I just kept walking and he followed. Eventually, we did get to an area where there were halves of tree trunks lining a pathway that had Buddhist prayers written on them.
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| Another view of the Buddha |
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| Walked through this exhibition before getting to the tram |
It was amazing that a tram could traverse a peak like that. I think we were at an almost 45 degree angle for most of the ride up or at least it felt like it. All along the way, peering through the trees, I could catch glimpses of the lights from the high rise buildings. When we finally got to the Peak Tower, we had to ride several escalators up, past several levels of restaurants, a Madame Tussaud's and many souvenir shops before making it to the viewing platform.
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| Waiting for the tram |
I'm not sure if it was just us or if the Peak Tower is just confusing to navigate because it took us a while to figure out how to get outside. When we finally did, we found an elevator that would take us to another viewing platform so we decided to check it out. The view wasn't as brilliant as from the Peak Tower but it was free and it was still beautiful.
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| Leaving the Peak Tower |
Getting out of that building was equally as confusing but when we finally got out, we took the Peak Tram back down and we hopped a taxi to Causeway Bay for some dinner. Whenever my dad would ask what I wanted to eat, I kept saying that I wanted cheap and tasty street food so for this night, we ended up ordering two rice dishes, one with curry beef stomach and the other with tofu and pork with a side of veggies at a cozy little place.
I had to keep reminding my dad that I would be staying for longer than a week because it seemed like he wanted to fit everything into one day, suggesting that we go to the Mong Kok markets after dinner when it was already quite late and we both needed to get the MTR before it closed at around midnight. So after dinner, I told him that I wanted to go do some things by myself during the day and we set to meet at Yuen Long station in the afternoon of the next day.
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| Dinner! |
I woke up fairly late in the morning so I tried not to dilly dally too much in the flat before heading off to the Museum of Hong Kong History. It was fairly easy to walk to once I got off at Jordan station and it was free admission on Wednesdays which is why I chose to go this day. The first exhibition goes through how the land was formed, going back 400 million years and having displays of the different types of rocks and models of animals living in the forest. From there, the next exhibit showed the first sign of humans, the Yue people who moved from Southern China, and the types of tools and things they had. This part introduced the four types of people that inhabited Hong Kong, the original inhabitants, the immigrants, the boat dwellers, and the boat dwelling immigrants. There were placards that wrote of the activities such as salt making and clothing of these various groups which then wrote of how the Han and Yue and one other tribe started to blend together. Then, I walked through some artifacts through the different dynasties. Since I had planned on meeting my dad in the afternoon, I had a limited amount of time in the museum and wanted to make sure I got to everything so quickened my pace through some exhibits.
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| On my way to do some exploring |
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| Museum of History! |
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| About to check out The Hong Kong Story |
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| All the geological info |
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| Learning about the early people of the city |
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| Salt-making |
I always enjoy learning or just relearning the customs of my people so it was cool to read about the tall bun towers that are built during festivals and how people race to get the buns at the end of the celebration for good luck but this tradition was replaced with a safer contraption due to some casualties from falling bun towers. I read a little more about the incense and paper offerings that are made to the gods and our ancestors and I always love seeing the lion dancers because it always symbolized happy times for me and my family (and when I was young, many red envelopes filled with various denominations).
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| The traditional clothing is so great |
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| Love this tradition |
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| Bun tower |
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| Opera costumes |
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So many buns!
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| Chinese opera |
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| Lion dancers! |
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| Lanterns |
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I always knew that Hong Kong was handed over to China by the British in 1997 but I never knew much of the history behind it. I guess I always thought that it was always a British colony but I never questioned why Cantonese was the primary language spoken there and not English. There were quite a few things that I never really sought to know and kind of just let them go as common knowledge. But walking through the museum shed some light on the history of my family's hometown. It all started when a new route to India and China was discovered by sailing around the Cape of Good Hope (the southern tip of Africa) rather than going through the Middle East by land. This opened up a whole new avenue of trade between the West and the East and Hong Kong became one of the major ports. Long story short, a lot of tea was being exported out of China but not much from the West was being imported in so China was making a huge profit while not making many purchases of Western goods until opium was introduced to them. Once opium came into the picture, the tables turned and crates upon crates were being imported into China, causing both the economy and health of the people to decline.
In response to the effects of opium on the people of China, Commissioner Lin Zexu ceased all imports of opium and burned many crates of opium in one day which, fast forward, spurred the start of the first Opium War. Fast forward some more and with the quality over quantity of the British army, Hong Kong was ceded to the British in 1842 and a document was signed to state as such without much resolve over the opium issue.
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| Delving into more history |
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| Commissioner Lin Zexu |
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| Opium pipe |
Talking about ignorance, I don't think I ever knew about any Japanese invasion of Hong Kong so I was quite surprised when I saw that was a gallery in the Hong Kong History Museum and it piqued my interest. With only a little bit more time to quickly power walk through the rest of the museum, I learned about how Japan occupied a beach in Hong Kong and eventually invaded and took over control during WWII. The three years and eight months that Hong Kong was under Japanese occupation, the goal was to transition all the schooling into Japanese language and culture. Then, with the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the action of the U.S., Japan eventually. retreated and Hong Kong was once again Britain's.
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| Exhibit about modern-day HK that I rushed through |
Then, speed walking through the modern day gallery and reading about the handover back to China, I think I read somewhere that there was an agreement that Hong Kong shall remained unchanged for at least 50 years. I'm not quite sure what that means for Hong Kong's future but I definitely learned a good amount from that museum.
I had wanted to leave with about an hour for travel time but by the time I got through the whole museum, I had about forty minutes and I wasn't sure how long transportation would take but I got to Yuen Long station right at 4PM and found my dad without a problem (not sure what all his fuss was about with getting lost).
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| I love how there are Crocs in the ad |
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| Exits are so well marked |
When we got out of the station, we pretty much bumped right into a street with food vendors. So I immediately started feasting on everything on sticks, from fish balls to chicken to squid to some sort of dim sum. I also got some bubble (boba) milk tea and some soy milk and a stack of sweet dough that directly translates to "little chicken eggs"; I've had them in New York's Chinatown before and they make them so well there that I wanted to try it from the source - in my opinion, much tastier after they've cooled down a bit.
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| Nom! |
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| I just found this lady's shirt to be funny |
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| And even more noms! |
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| Waiting for chicken satay, I think |
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| Alley of food! |
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| Something in curry sauce |
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| The egg pastries |
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| So much food to hold in one hand! |
The last stand down the street sold sticky rice that I couldn't pass up as I've always loved this dish but by the time I got the container, my innie was about to become an outie so I decided to save it for my second round.
Since we were done this round of finding delicious food, I followed my dad onto a double decker bus and a little while later, we ended up in Sheung Shui. I wasn't sure what we were doing here (not a surprise at this point) but eventually, we got to an alley where my dad showed me where his old house used to be and the spot where the pig sty was that was now replaced by another house. We continued walking past another alley of houses when he went looking for one of his old friends and they all recognized him as Lucky. I never knew this side of my dad's life so it was pretty interesting to just sit there and listen to them talk and to see the smile it brought to my dad's face.
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| Sticky rice - yum! |
After a little bit of chatting, we headed out to go to the Ladies Market at Mong Kok. I love how well-labeled all of the MTR stations are because they are quite large that they have lettered exits and they list all the major streets and attractions that can be found at each exit. So without much difficulty, we took the proper exit to get to Tung Choi St. and the Ladies Market.
The Ladies Market runs along one street and it's full of tented booths that sell all types of things from electronics to clothes to jewelry and all types of other souvenir items. While I do like walking past all of these booths and seeing what the vendors have, I never was very good at haggling. Even though there are some prices written, most of the sales that take place are haggled upon and it's actually great to watch a deal happen sometimes because the vendors really know how to put on a show of how difficult it is for them to give a lower price and how upset and offended they get when the proposed offer goes way lower than they're willing.
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| Mong Kok Markets |
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| Hustle and bustle of all the booths |
After a little bit of bumping into people through the narrow walkway of the Ladies Market, we went behind all of the tents to get some grub. Since I still had the sticky rice from the afternoon, we ordered a few side dishes and had ourselves a nice little dinner. Since there was still time before the MTR closed, we walked around Mong Kok for a little while before things started to all look the same (we made a few turns) and we headed on our way back to the countryside of Nai Wai.
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| Yummy veggies with rice noodles |
The countryside house is pretty interesting because the kitchen is a separate attachment to the living area (most of the houses around there are like that) with the shower to the side of it and the toilet is around the back in an outhouse type of arrangement. Upon the first glance, I found it a little odd that the shower didn't have a hole for drainage but I guess my mind was being a little bit too westernized because it was until I was showering that I realized that the drainage was a hole at the bottom of the wall because it led directly outside.
It's pretty interesting to me to see how growing up in different environments give us different views on things because I didn't equate this house to comfortable living because I'm not used to it but my dad finds it much more comfortable to live there than in Daisy's flat because it offers him more space and freedom. Also, although much of the living spaces seems to be more open to the outdoors, it's not necessarily dirty and I was able to realize that after staying there that night. In Nepal, it was a little bit different because I saw a few people showering outside and amongst the dirt so even with showering, there was always a fine film of dirt already lining their feet. It definitely is eye-opening to see the contrast between ways of living in various cities.
We went back to Yuen Long for breakfast the next day. I think my dad was finally getting used to the fact that I like to eat at the more local joints so we went to an outdoor noodle shop where there isn't a kitchen so much as an area with a stove and cutting board. All of the items were written in Chinese so my dad read some of them off to me and we picked some fish ball noodle soup, dumpling noodle soup, some sort of meat, and veggies. It's pretty common in these types of establishments to have groups share tables where there are extra seats so this mother and her cute little child sat down across from us. The kid's backpack said "Kindergarten" on it so I assume he was only about five and he was really cute when he was pretending to eat with his chopsticks before the food showed up. There was no register to ring up items but a lady who walked around as a human calculator to verbally give you the bill. I overheard her telling the table next to me that she's 90-something years old and she typically goes to bed around 1 or 2 in the morning! Her mind was super sharp because just by looking at our plates, she knew the prices and added everything out loud for us before giving us the total. It was actually really amazing to see how lively this woman was.
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| Sneaking a pic of the cute little kid with his mommy |
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| Such a cutie pie |
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| Yuuummmmmm |
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| The vibrant 90-something year old |
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| How the whole "restaurant" is set up |
Leaving the Temple, we made our way onto the MTR to head somewhere else to find the hospital to see my aunt (father's sister-in-law) because she just had surgery on her leg. I had met her when she had visited the States in 2005 but I had never met her daughter, Joey. According to what I know about familial connections, Joey is my cousin but I guess something about the connections are said in Chinese that makes her label my sister.
After spending some time chatting, visiting hours were over so Joey came with us to have some dinner and I called it an earlier night than usual because I had a hike planned for the next day.
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| Having dinner with Joey, my cousin |
When I got to Hong Kong, I knew I was going to be doing some things with my dad but I also wanted to do some things on my own so I had searched for some events on the CouchSurfing forum and saw that someone had organized a hike of Dragon's Back on Friday. I decided that with all of the mountains around here, I would be a fool to not go explore the greenery so Friday morning, I headed off to Chai Wan to meet up with the hiking group.
The organizer, Ray, lives in Hong Kong and hadn't done this hike in about a year so decided to organize this event. I met Aleks, from the Philippines, and Sabrina, from Austria, on the CS website and invited them along and at the rendezvous spot, met Angela who was from New York but had been living in Taiwan for the past year and Wang, who is originally from Hong Kong but moved to Melbourne when he was entering secondary school.
With our fairly diverse group, we grabbed a mini-bus to the starting point of the hike. The incline wasn't so steep to start and we went at a pretty steady pace (I was told later that this path is probably known as the easiest hiking trail in HK) and along the way, Sabrina picked up these clementines by a tree and I was wondering if they were left there as an offering but she figured that if they were there, they were free for the taking. Sabrina had a pretty interesting traveling story where she set off in August of this year and has taken all ground transportation through Russia, Mongolia, and China, and her first flight was to get to Hong Kong. She didn't know how long she would stay in Hong Kong but the only reason she left mainland China was because her visa had expired and she was waiting until she could get another one. It was pretty entertaining to hear her talk about her extremely bumpy 48-hour bus ride across Mongolia where they had to change a spare tire three times.
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| About to start on our hike |
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| I believe we were following the green path |
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| The hiking crew |
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| Still needed to take a selfie |
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| Enjoying a light lunch |
With the wetness, Ray said it would be a little bit too slippery to continue on our hike so we left Sabrina to enjoy the beach while the rest of us went back into the city to help Angela get some money exchanged (her friends in Taiwan asked her to help change their life savings from Dubai currency into US dollars because they couldn't find a place to do it and to exchange money in HK, one needs a bank account there, which Ray did).
Earlier that day, when I was checking the details of the hike, I had seen another event for vegetarian dim sum so I decided that I'd check that out as well and it turned out that Angela and her CS host had decided to organize it. I wanted to go check out a sports store because I was looking up rugby shops in HK since I figured Rugby Sevens originated here that there might be some good rugby apparel I could check out so I had planned to meet up with Angela and Sabrina later that day after we did our own things for a bit. So off I went to Causeway Bay to check out Escapade and was excited to finally find it but was slightly disappointed of the limited selection of rugby gear in the far corner of the store.
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| Nothing too interesting but saw this display at the mall. |
So after a quick look in Escapade, I headed back onto the MTR to head to Mong Kok. Upon finding Angela and Sabrina, we walked around the market before it was time to meet up with the group at
Bodhisattva Vegetarian Restaurant which was right nearby. I was a little bit confused when we were going to get dim sum at night since it's usually a brunch thing but I'm always intrigued by food so I was interested to see what this vegetarian restaurant had to offer. The person who organized this event with Angela, Leo, seemed to organize a lot of different CS events and there was a pretty large group that showed up. I sat next to Angela and someone named Chris who also had a pretty interesting travel story. He had hitchhiked from the UK to Hong Kong (yes, there is water in between) because he is making a documentary of how different people of the world see the world changing. It was really cool to hear his story of the different people he had met and how he had finally made it to HK as his final destination after four months of traveling. Delicious food with good company is definitely something that I will treasure as a part of my trip.
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| Flavored like BBQ pork I believe |
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| Eggplant curry |
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| Nom! |
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| More yum |
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| The dinner crew |
After dinner, as a large group, we wanted to find a place to hang out but because the whole group couldn't come to a consensus of where we wanted to go (we went to several places but none satisfied the whole group), we ended up buying a few drinks from the corner store and walked around the Mong Kok Markets. I wanted to make sure I didn't get back to Daisy's too late so I walked around a bit more before heading back. It was a fun time hanging out with other Couchsurfers and meeting people with some pretty interesting stories.
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| Exploring Mong Kok markets |
The next day got me to meeting up with a college friend, Nams, for some brunch with her group of friends. We met up early to grab a coffee and catch up before getting on the water ferry to head over to this really snazzy place called Aqua for this crazy amazing brunch which consisted of sushi and all these other deliciously amazing foods that, although not Hong Kong food, was great nonetheless.
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| The pre-Christmas decorations at the mall |
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| View of the other side (Hong Kong side) |
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| Headed to the other side of the water |
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| Fishing? |
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| The building shaped like a nosehair trimmer and the Hong Kong eye ferris wheel |
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| Walking through a Disney-esque walkway |
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| This is what brunch started with |
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| And it just kept on coming |
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| And coming |
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| Nams in the middle and her friend next to her |
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| The girls at brunch and trying to get the skyline in the background |
While we waited for our brunch to digest, Nams and I wandered around and she took me to check out different parts of the city that she knew and grew up in. We walked over one of the MTR overpasses to look down over the streets and explored a temple while we continued to chat and catch up. I believe we walked by Hollywood Street which had some good sights. After a bit of casual sightseeing, I had to head back to Daisy's for a big family dinner to meet the rest of my dad's nieces and nephews and their children so it wasn't long before I headed back to Sha Tin.
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| Wandered around this temple |
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| Love that there's still this old-timey feel to these places |
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| Cool street art |
While we waited for our brunch to digest, Nams and I wandered around and she took me to check out different parts of the city that she knew and grew up in. We walked over one of the MTR overpasses to look down over the streets and explored a temple while we continued to chat and catch up. I had to head back to Daisy's for a big family dinner to meet the rest of my dad's nieces and nephews and their children so it wasn't long before I headed back to Sha Tin.
Dinner at Daisy's was pretty crazy with so many people whom I didn't know yet am related to coming to introduce themselves. And again, it was plate after plate after plate of different items. As dinner came to an end and everyone was settling down into their corners with their phones or on the couch to watch some TV, I had planned on meeting up with Nams again so she could show me some of the night life of Hong Kong at Lan Kwai Fong so out I went again.
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| Just meeting the other half of my family |
Meeting up with Nams again, her mission was to introduce me to the nightlife of Hong Kong which is centered around this one part called Lan Kwai Fong. It used to be a street for hawkers and the like but its transformed into a place swarming at night with everyone looking for a good time. We started at a pretty quiet lounge where Nams met up with a friend and after a drink or two, we went on our way to find what else was going on. We ended up dodging in and out of several places, having no more than a drink at each place and kind of letting the music guide us through the crowd. And when I say crowd, I don't think I would be doing what I saw justice. At one point, there were so many people out and about that a dance battle broke out randomly.
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| Very interesting drink names |
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| View from the top |
After our fair share of people watching and breaking out in random dance to songs, Nams made sure I was set with a taxi (to beckon for taxis to go over the water, she had to do this hand wave to communicate with the taxi drivers) and off I went. It was a fairly quick ride and I think I held a pretty coherent conversation in Cantonese with the driver. I think because I was able to hold a conversation with the driver, he made sure to take the short way back because he actually asked me which way I wanted to go and I told him the shortest way possible. I'm happy that my accent was enough to have him think that I wasn't American.
I had agreed to meet up with my dad the next day and he didn't believe that I knew my way to his country home so he met me at the MTR stop and then had me guide him back to see if I really knew. I passed the test! So after I showed him back to the house, he got ready and we went on our way.
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| I like the simplicity of this house |
It was getting to the point of our visit where my dad didn't really know where to go anymore yet still wanted to show me around so he picked a stop on the MTR and there we started. I don't remember which stop we started with but we grabbed some light breakfast before doing some wandering. We went into this little shop that had sweet herbal dessert-like noms so we got a few and shared. Then, I guess my dad wanted me to try these fried fish skins so we got it with soup at another place and that was what concluded breakfast.We wandered into a mall and it really amazed me how all the malls I had gone into, each was decorated differently from each other and they were pretty extravagant decorations too. Nams told me that the different malls were competing to see who could get the best Christmas decorations up.
So at the mall, we walked into Nina's Fossil Garden and I read about the different fossils that were found at that site while my dad walked around checking out the different specimens. There wasn't much to see but it was cool to still check out whatever was there and become a little bit more knowledgeable.
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| Cute little fossil guide |
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| I love that there needs to be a reminder for no gambling. Only in Asia... |
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| Dad checking out old rocks |
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| Amazingly tall buildings |
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| Fossilized tree |
After leaving the Fossil Garden, we found ourselves at a park, and just continued to walk. We saw some turtles, I got to play around with some exercise equipment and chat with my dad and we tried to stay as dry as possible as the humidity was killer. I really like the idea of having equipment set up to encourage adults to exercise. There were also signs to teach people what their bodies would be able to do if they remain healthy and although a little silly to me, is actually really beneficial for some.
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| Turtles just chilling out |
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| More turtles |
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| Community garden! Love it |
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| I love this view |
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| Figuring out where we are and where we're heading |
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| Fishing |
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| About to try out all the fitness equipment |
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| "Dad, say cheese!" |
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| Steady... |
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| Learning tai chi! |
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| Great way to teach people why to exercise |
Every so often, whenever I think my dad is just wandering around aimlessly, he decides on somewhere to go so he started leading us to something but I didn't know where. Since he said it in Cantonese, I could only guess whatever it was since it didn't sound familiar to me. We passed by this market in the MTR passway to get some snacks (love Cantonese snacks!) and these two people were wandering around asking these ladies for directions but the ladies didn't speak English so I felt like such a local when I was able to point them in the right direction. It was such a weird experience for me to feel like I was home but not really in Hong Kong. But anyway, when we got closer to where my dad wanted to go, I started seeing more signs for the Golden Bauhinia Square so I started to look for more of those signs with arrows and when I got there, I realized what it was. I wasn't sure what to expect when we walked around a bunch of construction and into a building but I read some history of the past few years in Hong Kong on some placards that were up and then we headed to the roof of the building. That's when I finally saw what my dad was talking about and there a bunch of tourists from Mainland China hovering around and taking photos. We got there just in time for the ceremony to take down the flags too!
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| Hong Kong and China's flags - not sure the last one... |
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| The Hong Kong eye |
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| Picking up some snacks |
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| Mmm... |
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| Ferry to the other side! |
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| Still not sure where we were headed |
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| Construction site |
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| Ahh... The Golden Bauhinia Square |
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| Dragonboat? |
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| Ceremony to put the flags to rest for the night |
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| Beautiful evening skyline |
After the flags got put away, there wasn't much else to see in the square and it was getting darker, so the real beauty were the lights on the buildings. Nams and I had arranged to rendezvous at the spot for the daily light show which was nearby so this time, I guided my dad to where we needed to be. When we got to the viewing spot, it was pretty packed but we were able to find a spot that seemed like it would have a good view so there we sat while we waited for Nams. She found us right before the show started and she told us how the language switches up every day from Cantonese to Mandarin to English and tonight, it happened to be in English so good for me but unfortunate for my dad. I don't have a mastery on the language enough to point out what the narration was either so I did my best to point out what I could. When the show started, it did seem somewhat like a runway show because each building that was introduced, a light would flash from it and then music would play and lights would flash on each individual building. It was pretty entertaining to see the amount of production that went into this light show. The night view was phenomenal!
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| View from the other side |
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| Looking for a spot for the show |
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| I made my dad pose |
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| Figuring out lighting |
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| To represent the Olympic baton |
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| Dragon boat |
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| Such a pretty image! |
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| More images of the view while we waited for the light show to begin |
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| Last pic before the light show |
After the light show, the three of us headed to grab some grub, per Nams' recommendation. The plan was to hang out with Nams for the night and spend the following day with her. Since I had stayed at my dad's country home the previous night, I was still carrying around PJs in my backpack so it was convenient to stay over at Nam's for the night. At this point, I had learned to be prepared for random events. So we enjoyed some dinner of silky tofu, hand drawn noodles and veggies, and shaolin dumplings before we said goodnight to my dad and Nams and I headed back to hers. There, I met her bear of a dog, Guinness and it was actually really nice to just hang out and we watched a movie on Netflix after skyping with a good friend and laughing about how confusing it is to learn Cantonese; Nams has been trying to learn but has the words written down phonetically but since Cantonese has so many random tones, its difficult to really write it down with the roman alphabet.
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| Silky tofu with pork sung |
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| Hand drawn spicy noodles |
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| Shaolin dumplings |
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| Hi Guinness! |
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| Look how large he is! |
The next morning had a late start but with no rush, we headed to a dumpling house that Nams loves but doesn't know the name of since it's in Chinese, but nonetheless, she found it. It was a cute little hole in the wall with limited seating but I guess that's what makes it so popular. After we got our seats, we worked on deciphering parts of the menu neither of us understood by playing "match the characters" and I think we figured out which meal we wanted and ended up getting several plates of dumplings and adding on some noodles in the end. So satisfying and delicious! For dessert, Nams wanted to take me to get a fish bun which sounds weird but it's essentially ice cream served in a fish-shaped cone. Unfortunately, when we got there, the ice cream machine was down so we ventured elsewhere to find some dessert. We found our way to Times Square after passing by some open air markets where there were so many options for desserts! We got something from a place called Cha Cha which looked like a large version of a macaroon and then we got these pudding-like desserts and I think I got mango with tapioca and coconut tofu? I don't quite remember but I do remember it being super yummy. After dessert, Nams had to head home to prepare for work and I had planned to meet up with my dad later in the day so off we went on our separate ways. It still amazes me how I can meet up with friends across the world. I love it!
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| Dumpling place |
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| Waiting to get seated |
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| I thought the drawer for utensils was awesome |
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| Dumplings! |
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| More dumplings! |
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| Finishing it off with noodles |
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| Attempted to get fish buns |
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| Out of service :( |
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| Off to find dessert! |
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| Outdoor market |
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| Times Square! |
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| First dessert |
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| Another interesting mall display |
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| Second dessert! |
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| So many options! |
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| Our delicious choices |
My dad told him to meet him at the University station so I got there a bit early and hung out people watching. When he got there, I asked him what we were doing there and he didn't know either. It was another one of those times where he just picked a station on the MTR and wanted to do some exploring. As we walked around, I think my dad was searching for something he remembered seeing once at this particular stop but he couldn't quite place where he had seen it so we just ended up walking around campus for a little while before he gave up and we hopped back on the MTR to pick another stop to check out.
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| Statue at the entrance of the University stop |
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| Peeking through to the water |
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| Another random sighting of water through some trees |
At our next stop (I can't remember which stop it was), there was more of a direction to walk and seemingly more things to see so we just walked along the water for a long bit while we chatted. We kept walking in one direction until we got to a pretty cool landing with a beautiful view. It was even prettier because the sun had gone down at the point so the lights were up and I love lights and water. When we decided to make our way back, we went on a treasure hunt to find a spot to have some dinner. My dad had seen a spot for roast duck that he remembered seeing on our way off the MTR but we spent some time arguing about where to go before finally figuring out where the place was. For our last dinner together, we had some simple Cantonese dinner complete with a whole fish.
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| Walking along the water at the next stop |
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| Cool bridge |
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| Sunset |
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| The view just gets prettier |
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| Found a pretty little landing to look out from |
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| This view is just amazing |
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| Making our way back |
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| This might be my favorite style of fish |
Since I had a late afternoon flight, I decided to check out Sha Tin, where I had stayed all week but never really explored, before heading to the airport with my dad. I saw some cool statues here and there and didn't know what type of thank you gift to get for Daisy and her family so I found a mall to grab some pastries as a small gesture. Since the bus to the airport wasn't too reliable, according to my dad, we made sure we got an early one and got to the airport pretty early. Luckily, there were things to see at the airport. We grabbed a drink at a cafe and then looked through an exhibit of the history of the airline industry. It was actually really informative. We also got to head up to the rooftop to check out planes landing and taking off. After we exhausted the exhibits, I decided to head to my terminal to head off to Tokyo!
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| Wise words found at a cafe |
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| Airline industry exhibit |
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| View from the top |
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| Another successful landing |
After years of wanting to explore the motherland, I finally did and it was truly great, despite all the humidity. It was kind of surreal to be in a place that was the perfect combination of my two worlds and cultures. Hong Kong was amazing. It's really difficult to find words to describe it but I guess the best I can say is that it's such a beautiful city and mesh of the western and eastern worlds.
