The Hong Kong Social Network: Meeting Old Friends and Making New Friends

Announcement: My return flight to Canada has been rebooked (hopefully for the last time). It's official. I will be returning to Toronto on September 3! Are you excited? I think I am, but I'm not sure yet.

June 5, 2008

Today Will and I were going to do some sightseeing and take care of some business.

First, the sightseeing! After a morning of sloth, we descended from the relative tranquility of Midlevels Hong Kong to hectic, hot, and humid Central. We met up with Will's host mother, Fun, at IFC Mall. While Will was working in Shenzen (in Mainland China, very close to the border with Hong Kong, Will was living with some family friends: Fun and Andy. The commute from Hong Kong Island where his sister lived to Shenzen would take over an hour and a half. Fun and Andy lived closer to the border (but still in Hong Kong), so the commute was much more convenient for him (though he still had to cross the border each day).

Fun no longer has full-time employment, but spends her days wired into her cell phone doing odd jobs for many people. She is the ultimate "go-to person" and knows Hong Kong extremely well. People call her all the time with advice about places to go. She is extremely organized and keeps track of many different people's responsibilities and activities in her head. She called Will very often to remind him to do this or do that. She really was Will's host mom!

Will and Fun had been planning a side-trip for Will and I. I put input in once and a while, but Fun did almost all of the legwork. She has connections all over Hong Kong and hooked us up with a travel agency that would hook us up with a really cheap flight and hotel package for Seoul. Today was the day that Will, Fun, and I went to the travel agency in TST (in Kowloon, directly across the harbour from Hong Kong Island) to pay for our trip and pick up our tickets. We ended up paying about HK$3500 (about CA$460) for a four day/three day night stay in Seoul, including flights on Air Korea. For what we got, I feel it was a really good deal.

While we were waiting for the travel agency to prepare our tickets, the three of us roamed around Kowloon. Normally, we would have taken the MTR train under the harbour to get there, but today we rode the world famous Star Ferry across the harbour. I don't know why the Star Ferry is so famous... it just is. We snapped these great photos of the Hong Kong skyline from Kowloon.

The really tall building behind us is IFC. IFC Mall (which I keep mentioning) and Hong Kong station are located at the bottom of that tower, which I believe is the tallest in Hong Kong.

Everyone and their cousin knows that the Summer Olympics this year are in Beijing, China. Since Hong Kong is in China, too (even though there is a border with passport controls between them), there was Olympic propaganda plastered everywhere in the city. Did you know that Hong Kong is the site of the equestrian events of the Summer Olympics this year? You'd only have to be in Hong Kong about five minute to find out! I walked past the Olympic Countdown Clock in Hong Kong Station nearly every day. Part of the pre-Olympic propaganda was the five mascots. Some of them looked like pandas, the others look like crazed Asian dolls. None of them were cute. These mascots were designed by committee, and that committee's chief operating detective was to creep me out and haunts my dreams. In Kowloon we found some inflatable versions of the mascots.

Not cute. Scary. *shiver*

Unsurprisingly, it soon started to rain on us, so we hid in the Kong Kong Space Museum. I thought it would be cool, but it kinda sucked. Fun said that she had gone to the Museum shortly after it opened the first time about thirty years ago. It seemed that few of the displays had ever been updated in that time. There was mention of the recent Chinese manned space program and the International Space Station, but that was it. Many of the demonstrations were broken, except for the moon-gravity simulator. Will Chau was too tall to use it, but I was within specified parameters so I got to try it out. There were some harnesses and straps that were fastened close to some of my sensitive areas and they pinched me... down there.

It may not be clear from this really bad picture, but I'm in some pain here.

At least the entrance fee was cheap (HK$10, or CA$1.30).

I also bought an awesome t-shirt at UNIQLO! It was a Ranma 1/2 shirt. You know Ranma 1/2, right? Aren't you caught up with your late 1980's Japanese animes? I would consider the shirt to be cheap at HK$100 (CA$13). Fun assured us that the T-shirts at UNIQLO were high quality. The next day, I bought another awesome t-shirt at another UNIQLO branch. The other shirt had a picture of a MOS Burger (Japanese burger chain) and read "Nature's Finest. That's why it is delicious!" Hilarious!

Fun also helped us raid the vegetable market for raw ingredients for dinner that night. I decided to make pad thai in Serene's puny kitchen. It was my first time making pad thai since my cooking class in Chiang Mai, Thailand. There were a few complications along the way, but Will and I agreed that the dish turned out really well! I ended up making too much of it, and we were able to have leftovers the next day! Yippee! Who wants me to make pad thai for them when I get back to Canada in September?

June 6, 2008

What did Serene's flat look like? We spent a lot of time hanging out there, so I feel justified showing you a picture of the place.

Will and I slept on that space between the couch and the TV. I had to leave my stuff piled up on the shelf beside window. Of course, I had to leave everything packed in my bags otherwise the cats would do unspeakable things to them.

Today was a shopping day. We met Fun at Sha Tin far out in Kowloon. Sha Tin consisted of three large shopping malls all connected together. We spent many hours roaming around, sometimes backtracking over the same sections as Fun showed us from store to store looking for cheap deals. Shopping is not very fun for me, though. I don't really get a whole lot of enjoyment running around malls for hours back home. When I don't have the money or baggage space to support shopping, then its even less interesting. Particularly frustrating for me was the mobs of other shoppers in the mall. Many of the Asian shoppers didn't seem to understand the advanced Western concepts of "personal space" or "walking in a straight line."

I bought my second Hong Kong t-shirt here. I needed to buy shoes. Fun took us to many stores. I decided what kind of shoes that I wanted to buy, but decided to postpone my purchase until I could revisit the cheaper stores in Mung Kok. After many hours of walking, Fun and Will detected my frustration and tiredness (and crabbiness, too) and we stopped for a tea and cake break. My tea was cold, but filled with exotic Chinese flavours that I really enjoyed. I forgot what its called, though. Will had a jelly made from turtle shells. I had a taste of it. It was very tasty. However, I don't think I approve of eating something made from turtles. The cakes were from a supposedly famous bakery. The pastry was buttery and flakey and the filling was made from a mild wintergreen mixture. It wasn't overpoweringly sweet like many Asian sweets typically are, and I greatly enjoyed it. When Fun saw how much I enjoyed it, she ordered me a second one. She really is nice, isn't she?

To be honest, I don't remember what we did that night. It must not have been very interesting since I didn't take any pictures of it. I'll have to assume that Will and I returned to the flat to drink beer, listen to music, and watch anime. Some things never change!

June 7, 2008

Will and I were supposed to go to Macau today. However, it was not to be. while I attempted to sleep that morning, lightning flashed in the sky, thunder boomed, and the rain poured. And it poured. AND IT POURED! The weather report on the TV (which we almost never watched) showed a black cloud. There are three levels of rain warnings in Hong Kong: amber, red, and black. When the rain cloud on TV is black, then many of the public transit services are suspended and its best to stay indoors. In fact, later we learned that the rains that day were the worst rains ever recorded in Hong Kong. There were land slides in Lantau Island (where Will and I saw the Big Buddha and climbed a mountain a few days before) and on parts of Hong Kong Island (not close to where we were though). We were supposed to meet Mike Micacchi in Macau today, but we had no choice but to postpone the trip.

By the afternoon, the weather cleared up somewhat so Serene took Will and I went for my first Hong Kong dim sum at a restaurant in Causeway Bay (on Hong Kong Island). So yummy!

Will told me that dim sum literally means "afternoon tea" in Cantonese. The meal consists of many dishes in small bite-sized portions eaten while enjoying kettles of Chinese tea.

Serene asked us how hungry we are and what I was willing to eat. Will and I said we were pretty hungry and we'd eat basically anything. Given that information, she ordered a mountain of food. She ate only a very small portion. Will and I had our work cut out for ourselves. We feasted on vegetable dumpings, barbecue pork dumplings, steamed buns, omelettey-like things, soup-filled dumplings (so many dumplings!), and dough-rolls doused in a soy-based sauce. Sorry, I don't know the Chinese names for any of the items except for the barbecue pork dumplings: cha siu bau. I love them so much!

Unfortunately, Serene ordered too much food and Will and I couldn't finish it all. For shame.

After dim sum, Serene went to her yoga class while Will and I tooked an MTR train under the harbour to Kowloon. Christine (the German girl I met in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) had arrived in Hong Kong that day from Macau! We met up with her and showed her around Kowloon for a while and made plans to meet up again tomorrow morning to see the dragonboat races.

Will and I were supposed to meet up with Serene, Fun, and Andy (Andy was Fun's husband) that night to go to a fancy seafood restaurant in Kowloon. However, Andy ended up having to work late so Will, Christine, and I went back to Soho (located between Central and Midlevels) for drinks to kill time. It was happy hour, and we enjoyed several Asahi Super Dry beers.

After a while, Fun called us and surprised us with some fun news! Even though Andy was working late, we could meet him at his office at one of the higher floors (the 65th floor, I think) in IFC. Since it was night time, we were treated to amazing views of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.



We ended up waiting for Andy for a long time. Long enough, in fact, that it was no longer worthwhile to go to fancypants seafood restaurant, which required a length drive into Kowloon. Instead, we all went for hot pot in Causeway Bay (much closer than Kowloon!)

I had hot pot before in Japan in Toronto, but those were Japanese style hot pots (called shabu shabu in Japanese). In Hong Kong style hot pot, we had choices of many dozens of ingredients that we could cook in our own cauldrons of boiling water. That night, I had:

* several kinds of fish balls (not really that great)
* funny textured tofu (really super!)
* regular tofu (almost as good!)
* udon noodles (pretty good!)
* goose intestine (very interesting)
* winter melon (not much flavour)
* orange pumpkin (one of my favourites!)
* corn-on-the-cob (we have better in Ontario)
* apple (super soggy after sitting in the cauldron too long)
* several kinds of mushroom (shimeji are some of my favourites!)
* chinese green vegetables (you don't make friends with salad)
* salmon skin (crispy like potato chips!)

I ate as much as I could, then I stopped. Christine and Serene seemed to stop around the same time as I did. Will, Fun, and Andy kept eating for a VERY LONG TIME. They kept throwing more and more meat into their pot and kept eating more and more. They kept passing more stuff for Christine and I to try, too. Here's Andy enthusiastically passing us some odd tubular fish pieces:



At the end, we squeezed squid-flavoured batter into our pots to make more noodles. It was fun!



The dinner was one of my favourite Hong Kong experiences. Anyone want to go for hot pot in Toronto?

June 8, 2008

Will and I woke up very early this morning -- before 7 AM! We usually woke up around or after 9 AM, so this was quite a feat. What would rouse us from our slumber (which wasn't easy, considering how much we ate the night before)? Right! We were going to see the dragonboat races! You have been reading along, right?

We met Christine in IFC Mall and caught a bus to Stanley Bay, which was on the far opposite end of Hong Kong Island, on the south side. When we got there, we discovered many, many people on the streets and on the beach. Our first stop, though, was the Pacific Coffee shop for breakfast and caffeine. We're only human, after all!

We tried to get there early to see the opening races, but we had no chance. We got there around 8:30 AM, but the first races were around 7 AM. Ooops. We still got to see many races, though. Most of the teams seemed to consist of employees from the various financial companies in Hong Kong. I didn't know that Hong Kong had so many financial companies! Banks! Insurance! Investments! Everything! There was a lot of team spirit on the beach that day, but we were just there to watch... and take pictures!



I'm not sure if dragonboat races originated in Hong Kong, since I've seen them before in Waterloo and Toronto. However, given the number of races and people I saw, it was clear that it was a very popular sport in Hong Kong!

There were many good photo opportunities that day. Some people lent us their Viking helmets (how nice!):



We stayed there for a long time. When the crowds on the beach became too much for us, we moved to the less crowded pier to sit down and watch. When the races themselves became too boring for us, we walked through the extremely touristy Stanley Market nearby. Christine and I tried to peer pressure Will into buying a cool t-shirt, but he wouldn't go for it. There was nothing that I wanted to buy there, though.

Eventually we wanted lunch, so we took the bus to Aberdeen (also on the south side of Hong Kong Island) since Christine also wanted to see the junks, sampans, and floating restaurants there. Surprisingly, all of the normal tourist stuff at Aberdeen was closed that day because they were hosting dragonboat races there, too! These races seemed to consist mostly of Chinese people, and not the foreigners that seemed to provide the bulk of the participants of the Financial Company Dragonboat Olympics in Stanley. The boats were also much longer!



Christine wanted her first Hong Kong dim sum so we found a dim sum restaurant nearby. This time we ordered a more reasonable amount of food, and managed to finish all of it.

From Aberdeen, we returned to Central. We stopped to watch a jazz trio band in IFC Mall before sitting around outside trying to figure out what to do. We decided to walk to the City Super grocery store in IFC Mall to buy snacks. City Super is a super market that stocks a lot of imported food items. Consequently, its rather expensive. Will and I only shopped there when we needed something that our local Wellcome and Park 'N' Shop stores didn't stock. City Super was close to where we were, though, and had fun stuff, so that's where we went.

When we got there, Christine nearly jumped out of her skin at the selection of cheese they had. It's true that they had a huge cheese selection, but it didn't interest me so much since I recently had all of my cheese cravings well satisfied in Bali. I didn't realize that Christine was an even more enthusiastic cheese connoisseur than I was. She had also just flown in from poorer countries in Southeast Asia where you couldn't find fancy European cheeses. She blew the bank and bought like four kinds of nice cheese, hommous, crackers, and wine. Christine and I both picked up some chocolate, too. We took our haul up to the flat to enjoy. Christine prepared a fancy cheese plate for us:



Hum... I don't remember what we did after that. I know Christine didn't end up staying very much longer. We made plans to meet up again the next day. Other than that, I have to assume that Will and I went back to our default activities of listening to music, drinking beer, watching anime, and playing Nintendo DS Lite! I had finished Puzzle Quest a few days previous and I had started a game of Magical Starsign. The new game wasn't as addictive as Puzzle Quest, so I didn't play it to obsessively. Will, however, was playing a new game called The World Ends With You. He played it A LOT. I'm excited for when I finish my current games so I can start it too, since it looks good.

June 9, 2008

Today was Monday, and it was a holiday in Hong Kong! Taking advantage of their day off, one of Will's uncles invited us for dim sum far out in Kowloon. The name of the restaurant was Happiness Cuisine and it was in a mall called Science Park. These names amused me.

Yes, this was my third dim sum day in a row. I'm not complaining. So good! Of the three dim sums, it was the nicest restaurant and had the best food. It really was happiness cuisine!

Will's uncle picked us up near the University station on the MTR. The diners consisted of me, Will, his uncle, aunt, and two cousins: a boy and a girl. Both of the cousins were kids. The boy was probably about ten years old and spent the whole meal playing games on his cell phone with earphones in his ears. I don't think I heard him say more than a few words. The girl was probably about five years old and was super cute. Will played with her the whole meal.



Being the white guy at the meal, Will's uncle and aunt seemed very concerned about me. They seemed concerned that I couldn't use chop sticks. No worries, there, I'm awesome with the sticks! I had mad stick skillz! They seemed concerned about what I could eat. I told them I'd eat almost anything. They still gave me a small English-language menu so I could check off stuff that I could eat. I checked off a bunch of tasty things from the menu and let them order the rest.

After the meal we took a bus back to Hong Kong Island. The bus didn't drop us off near Central, so we decided to ride one of the classic trams the rest of the way. While waiting for a tram we bought some Cokes from a street vendor and sat down in a park to drink them. In the five minutes we sat in the park, Will got like three mosquito bites. This wasn't the first time Will was molested by insects. He got bit by them all the time. I didn't get bit one time in Hong Kong, though. I don't know why; I didn't use bugspray. Will wasn't the first person I've traveled with that was considered particularly delicious by bugs. Alex was also frequently bitten. I have no explanation.

Today was the one afternoon where the weather seemed good enough to go to Victoria Peak (the highest point on Hong Kong Island), so we rushed back to Central to catch a bus to The Peak. As we climbed higher and higher the peak, we saw more and more clouds roll in from the sea. We were getting very nervous. We wanted to go to the Peak to get amazing views of the city, but the clouds would spoil them! Did the Hong Kong weather know no mercy?

When we got there, we still managed to snap a few good photos. There was a tower at the peak. For a small fee (charged to Octopod, of course!) we were able to go to the roof. I think it was worth it!



More and more clouds continued to roll in, so we didn't stay for that long.

On our way out, we passed by the wax museum at the base of the tower. We saw the most amazing thing there... a wax replica of the famous Bruce Lee! Lots of people swarmed around it to get their photos with the wax master himself... including us!



That night would be a special one! Will, Christine, and I met up with Alex Weaver (the girl I traveled in Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia with) and her two friends, Alex and Courtney, in Kowloon. Alex was at the end of her trip. In a few days she was flying back to Canada! She recently found out that she was accepted to law school in Windsor, Ontario, so she had lots to look forward to back in Canada.

I had asked Will a few days ago if Hong Kong had a Little India. Little Indias in places like Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Penang had provided me with really cheap (and tasty) meals before. Since everyone wanted cheap food, I felt that Little India was the place to go. However, Will didn't know of any Little India neighbourhoods in Hong Kong. His Lonely Planet, however, did list a couple places in Kowloon that were really cheap and would let you bring in your own beers. So, with stashed Strongbows (AKA "Apple Juice") in hand, we all went to Kowloon to find cheapie Indian food.

To be honest, I think we did find Little India that night. However, it was all in one big building. It had all the things I've seen in other Little Indias before: saris for sale, cheapo DVDs of Bollywood movies, Hindi techno music blaring from tinny speakers, sweets for sale from stalls, and touts trying to find patrons for their restaurants. All of this was found in one building on Nathan Road in Kowloon!

We had a hard time choosing which place to eat at and no one was making any decisions, so I took charge and let one of the touts on the ground floor direct us to his place. Sometimes you have to "go with the flow" and let things happen that way. We ended up going to this divey place on one of the upper floors. It turned out fine! The food was cheap and delicious. Our Strongbows were warm by then, alas.

We sat around for a long time. It was fun to hang out with Alex again. It was hard to believe that it had been over five weeks since we went separate directions from Siem Reap in Cambodia. We got to talk about all the places we've been since then.

Amy and Courtney (both from Cambridge, Ontario) were teaching English in Guangzhou, China and they told us some crazy stories about life in Mainland China. Although Hong Kong is quite civilized, life in Mainland China is much more erratic. Aggresive drivers and bizarre foods are just the pick of the litter. Before China, Amy and Courtney were teaching English in Japan at Nova. Will and I had heard about Nova and how they went bankrupt last year. The bankruptcy was mired in heaping piles of scandals and controversy. Teachers weren't being paid for months. Given that most of the teachers were foreigners living in Japan on meagre budgets, it was a pretty big deal. Amy and Courtney said that they eventually got some of their lost pay back. They weren't able to stay in Japan any longer though, and went to China instead.

After dinner, more drinks, and lots of chatting, it was late and time to get back. Our group as having fun in Hong Kong and would have loved to get together more, but Will and I were leaving Hong Kong the next day. It was finally time to go to Korea. We were so excited!