macau and the last evening in hong kong

Not surprisingly, hana and I got out the door later than intended the last day we were in hong kong…it took us a while to figure out what we wanted to do, then took us longer to get going for the day…oh well…we decided to go to macau…like hong kong, macau is a SAR – special administrative region of china…like hong kong, macau hasn’t always been ruled by the Chinese…for over a century, macau was ruled by the Portuguese…it wasn’t until 1999 (two years after hong kong) that macau was given back to the Chinese…and like hong kong, macau has the same provision in the handover agreement: the government of the area is to stay the same for 50 years…I wonder what changes china will make in each region after the 50 years are over…

To get to macau from hong kong you have two options…fly, or ferry…we took the ferry, as it’s only an hour, and not very expensive…finding where to buy tickets was probably the most complicated part of the day…though hong kong is really good about signage just about everywhere else, once you’re in the subway station you know is the correct station, there isn’t much signage telling you where to go…we got turned around several times before finding where to get our tickets…oddly enough, when you buy tickets for the ferry, you aren’t assigned seats…you only get seat assignments a few minutes before you board…I don’t know why…going through emigration was easy…the worst part of the day for both of us was sitting on the boat and waiting for it to get going…it was rocking all over the place; I don’t know about hana, but I was quite concerned as to whether it would be like that for the rest of the journey as well…that would’ve been miserable…absolutely miserable…fortunately, the actual ferry trip wasn’t so bad…not great, but not bad…

Once we docked, we went through immigration again, another quick process…then out the door of the ferry terminal…we didn’t have the whole day to spend wandering, but we had a few hours, and decided to take local public transport to the center of town…bus fare was 3.20MOP…macau patacas…they’re tied to the hong kong dollar at the rate of 103MOP to 100HKD…the atm dispenses 100s…I was able to break it into 10s…but the bus doesn’t give change…argh…hana had to go buy another sprite and ask for small change…we were worried about figuring out where to get off the bus, but that ended up being okay…the official languages of macau are portugese and Chinese, though not many people speak Portuguese there anymore…English is more common…but even English isn’t that greatly used…the Chinese influence seems so much stronger on macau that on hong kong…(though they’re both very Chinese in nature)…fortunately, I had slight memories of my visit to macau in 2007, so it was easy enough to know when to get off the bus…

We alighted at largo senada…it’s a large public plaza…easily identifiable by the pink and yellow building, as well as the zebra striped sidewalk…there is a small market on one side street, and while we were there, a display of macau history in another area…while waiting for the ferry we’d looked at the map mom gave us, and figured out a couple places that sounded interesting…there is tourist signage for various sights, so it was easy enough to figure out which way to go…

Our first stop was the ruins of st pauls…probably one of the most famous sights of macau…though if you’ve never been to macau, it isn’t really known outside of the colony…originally built as a church, that’s what it was used for in different denominations for years…then, at one point it was turned into army barracks…how or why that happened I don’t know…then a fire burned it all down…what you see now is all that was left after the fire…in other words, all but the front façade was burned…still, the front façade, with the steps leading up to it is a pretty photo…we posed for pictures of our own and pictures for a random Chinese man in front of the church…(both of us have been in tons of photos for strangers over the years, we don’t much care anymore)…lol…under the ruins, at the back of the church is what used to be the crypt…we were the only ones in there at the time, which was a bit of a surprise, simply because the air con was going strong, and with the swampy feeling of the weather outside, I’m surprised people hadn’t found the aircon for a brief respite…there were displays of various bones up the walls on either side, I didn’t know whether to be creeped out or not…

After the ruins, we walked back down the steps, and I convinced hana to get one of the Portuguese egg tarts…everywhere the Portuguese colonized then left, they left behind these tasty egg tarts…a sweet egg custard tart…with buttery, flaky crust…yum…I could eat tons and tons of them…especially when they cost less than $1USD!...clearly, some people buy a lot of them, as all the places that sell them have boxes of different sizes to make it easy to carry a lot of them…the other food we noticed for sale all over the place is pork jerky…there are tons of different flavours, some more spicy, some more salty, some more sweet…I like it, but didn’t want to buy any…

Then we found what was just called the cathedral…I don’t remember the history behind this one…since the Portuguese colonized macau, and the Portuguese were catholic, macau was catholic too…that’s one legacy that is still there, all the churches…I liked this church, but wasn’t able to stay in there long, as there were no fans going, so the hot muggy air just sat on your shoulders…when hana first walked in she was just wearing her sundress, which has no shoulders…the nun motioned to me that hana needed to cover her shoulders…thankfully, she’d brought a sweater along that day for just that reason…after coming out of the church, she couldn’t get that sweater off fast enough…

From there we wandered down a lane on which was a typical mansion back in the day…I think it was two stories, though you’re only allowed to go in the first story…there were stained glass windows in the house, I thought they were gorgeous…not much about the rest of the house made me think it was very fantastic…anywho…we enjoyed the sidewalk in the lane outside…mosaic tiles made up designs in the sidewalk…lovely…

The next church to see was st dominics…this one is on a lot of postcards as well…a bright yellow on the outside…the church is nice, but the best part is the museum of “costumes” they have displayed on three floors…I don’t know the correct words for a lot of the stuff…chalices and communion serving sets, the robes the priests wear at various times of the year, especially those worn by higher ranking priests…a couple paintings…I liked walking around that area, though hana probably appreciated it more, knowing what all the stuff was…

By this point I was starting to get nervous about catching the bus back to the ferry terminal…we got some food to go at a popular eatery, and in a quick walk through the start of the market I mentioned earlier, hana got some fruit she’d enjoyed while living in the Philippines…lanzonas, I think she said? I have no idea if I’m spelling that right…then we got back on the bus (having prepared correct change ahead of time) and went back to the ferry terminal…I wanted to exchange the patacas I had left, but that proved to be more difficult than I thought was worth it…I guess cousin Kevin will be getting more patacas than I originally intended…

The boat ride back went just as smoothly as did immigration on both sides…and again, we had trouble getting out of the building, and down into the hong kong subway system…go figure…we made it back to the hotel in time for a brief rest, then went to mom’s room to go for our last outing in hong kong…

One of the most famous sights in hong kong is the city skyline…and the best place to see that is from Victoria peak…I reckon most visitors to hong kong go to the peak while they’re in the city…there are three ways to the peak…one, hike…two, bus…and three, the peak tram…we’d intended to take the tram both ways…it’s quite steep, to say the least…howeva, when we found a bus we thought would take us to the base of the peak tram, it turned out to take us to the peak itself…along a really windy road…which meant hana felt like crap again…I wasn’t feeling so well myself…mom wasn’t feeling great knowing that both her daughters were suffering and there wasn’t anything she could do to fix it…it seemed like the bus ride went on and on and on…finally, it ended…when you get off the tram or the bus, you’re directed into a plaza area, with two large malls on either side…going into one of them, you have the opportunity to buy tickets to get out on the viewing platform…I think they call it the sky terrace? Those tickets are $30HKD each…from previous experience, I thought it was worth it…you don’t get that view from anywhere else…there ended up being a lot of fog the night we went, but we all still enjoyed the view…that skyline, both at day and night, is on a lot of hong kong postcards…we took the tram back down, then the subway back to the hotel…

The next afternoon we flew back to seoul…

hong kong festivals

the next day, 10 may, was a big day…it was the only day we spent mostly together in hong kong…this year, 10 may was buddha’s birthday…when we first got to hong kong, I wasn’t sure whether it would be as big a holiday as it is in japan and Korea, but it is…it was also the day of the cheung chau bun festival, which takes place on one of the smaller islands of hong kong…I’d never heard of this festival, and wouldn’t have known about it if not for the brochure we were given at the airport…when we first got the brochure, this one the thing hana immediately knew she wanted to see...

we left the hotel just after 0800…as that was earlier than we’d gotten going previous days, I don’t remember hana and I being quite with it, but oh well…we headed to the ferry pier, and after figuring out which boat to take (the fast one or the slow one…we just wanted the next boat to leave, we didn’t care whether it was fast or slow…but there didn’t seem to be a list anywhere of when boats were scheduled to leave) we were good to go…an hour later, the ferry pulled into the dock at cheung chau…according to the guidebook, it’s a small, crescent shaped island…pretty quiet most of the time, this festival is the busiest day of the year on cheung chau…

everyone poured off the boat, and the three of us found each other and set up a meeting point and time…as many people as were already there, and as small as the lanes and alleys were, we knew there was a good chance we’d get separated…so off we walked…and we did get separated…hana and I walked past lots of little shops and stands, many of them selling bun festival souvenirs…you can buy just about anything…keychains, pillows, t-shirts, etc…we walked until we saw four bun towers…one in the middle of a basketball/soccer/rugby/play pitch, and three others right next to each other in front of a temple…I don’t know what the support is for the towers, but the outsides are covered in buns…you know, the white, fluffy ones you can eat all over china…usually the buns are stuffed with meat, veg, red bean paste, or just about anything…most of the buns for this festival are stuffed with red bean paste, or something else, I can’t remember what it is…

the highlight of the festival is the bun scramble…when the starting sound goes, contestants climb up the tower and collect as many buns as they can…the buns at the top of the tower are worth more…the person who collects the most buns, wins…there were supposed to be practice sessions, but we didn’t get to see those…hana wanted to try climbing, but that didn’t seem to be possible…the official bun scramble takes place at midnight, so we didn’t get to see that either…it would’ve been awesome, I’m sure…I don’t know how many people participate…

there was a temple close to the bun towers, and when we got there it was jam packed with incense and people…it wasn’t any different from any other temple I’ve seen, but the incense was pretty intense…huge sticks of it, small sticks of it, and every size in between…the inside of the area was cloudy from all the smoke…add that to the heat and humidity and I wasn’t feeling so steady…WHOA…as we were leaving the temple area, we were stopped when a couple dragons entered…and by dragons, I mean two people working together covered in a costume…a very colourful costume with a huge headpiece…there was some dancing around, and it probably meant something…and a whole lot of people trying to get the perfect picture…

from there we walked down another lane, which seemed to get smaller and smaller as we kept walking…or maybe it was just the increasing number of people who seemed to be around…or maybe it was the heat and humidity continuing to get to me…I don’t know…

as we walked down the lane, we ended up watching as two dragons “fought”…one of them ended up bowing down to the other…I’d love to know the story behind what happened…that probably happens all day long…further along we found a couple of the bakeries that make the buns…apparently this year not as many were made, because some law was passed requiring that the stamp on the outside of the bun be put on on the premises of the bakeries…in the past I guess they’ve done it elsewhere…having to do it at the bakery somehow meant that not so many buns would be made this year…I’m not exactly sure how it all works…anywho, from the time we got off the boat hana and I knew we wanted to buy one of the buns, just to see what all the fuss was about…we watched as they put the buns in the steaming ovens, and as they took them out…HOT HOT HOT…then one lady got to work stamping…it’s not difficult, but it must be hot as all get out…as soon as she stamped all the buns in a tray, it was moved over to a table, and the buns sold…for less than a dollar each…hana and I each got one, then moved out of the way…as we kept walking, we realized there was a long queue…did we jump the queue when we walked up to the bakery from the other side? We never did figure that out…apparently mom did jump queue, and was told to go back about 300m at some point while she was wandering around…

another purchase along that lane was some sort of juice for me…it was red…other than that, I know it came from a tree…I’m assuming there was a fruit on that tree, but the picture they showed me had no fruit…anywho, it was good, and liquid, which I very much needed…from there we found our way back to the path along the water, which was marginally less crowded…there is a parade with this festival, scheduled to start at 1230…so barriers were being set up for that…at one of the souvenir shops hana ended up buying a festival t-shirt, the same shirt many of the guys involved with the dragons were wearing…we figured that made it “official”…I’m pretty sure the shirt was big enough to hold three of hana, but that’s beside the point…mom bought a pillow with the festival logo on it…I bought a small tote bag…

we got back to the ferry with good timing, and ended up near the front of the line for the next boat…I ended up standing where a fan was blowing, which felt great…the ferry was an hour back, and pretty calm…I don’t mind those kinds of ferries…back at the ferry dock we were hungry/thirsty, and mom and hana wanted caffeine…of course we went to starbucks…just like in seoul, there are starbucks every two blocks in hong kong…(if only coffee beans were that common!)…

from there we went to the subway station, and started making our way to lantau chau…the biggest island of hong kong…it’s the island on which the airport is located, but not an island that is heavily visited by tourists…there are plenty of good hiking trails all over lantau, and a mate from high school tells me a good group of expats live there as well…the train seemed to take foreva to get there, but we did have to ride to the end of the line, and it definitely wasn’t express…oh well…from the subway station, we walked toward the cable car…at first, our plan was to take the cable car up to a temple, and then take the bus down…in the end we decided it would be easier just to take the cable car both ways, and bought round trip tickets…we bought tickets for the regular cable car, not feeling the need to spend an extra $50HKD per person for the crystal cabin…the only difference (that we could figure) was that a crystal cabin has glass on the bottom so you can look straight down …when I’m in cable cars I don’t spend any time looking down, and we were able to see everything anywho…hana amused everyone in our cabin by reading about the views we’d have from different places during the ride…one view was fantastic, another beautiful, etc…I think there were five specific views in all, and they all had adjectives to go with them…I guess you had to be there…is the view of high rise apartment buildings ever that exciting? Or an airport?

At the top of the cable car we got out of our cabin, and headed straight for the loo…I was keen to get to the temple to see a performance listed in the booklet we’d been given at the airport, but bodily functions have to be taken care of, eh? When you first get out of the cable car, you walk through a village that is entirely made up of souvenir shops and places to eat…there is nothing about real life there…I think there was a theatre of some kind, but it didn’t sound interesting to any of us so I doubt hana or mom remembers either…after walking through the village we finally got to a big plaza area…on one side was a set of steps leading up to a huge Buddha…on the other side was a path leading to a temple…I wanted to find the “hall of heros” to see the performance…when we got there, I was a bit disappointed to see a clown on stage…really? For buddha’s birthday you have a clown performing? I think there was some kung fu later, but it wasn’t as interesting as I had hoped…oh well…we walked through the temple (which was quite small, there were donation boxes everywhere – they are collecting money to pay for a big expansion to the temple) and bathed Buddha…there were several places where a bird bath type of fountain had water running, and you could take a little bucket and pour water over a little Buddha…I’m not sure what this is supposed to signify, but everyone was doing it so we did as well…some people seemed to think Buddha was really dirty, as they poured quite a bit of water over him…others stuck with only one or two scoops of water…

We met up with mom in between the temple and the big Buddha…right before meeting up with her hana noticed a cow wandering around, so she went to take photos…we also shopped a bit in one of the souvenir places…they were selling little bookmarks with people’s names written on them in Chinese…my name was easily found…hana’s and mom’s names, not so much…though we found dagmar and other not so common names…I had fun teasing hana about that…

it turned out that mom had already gone up the stairs to the Buddha, so she waited while hana and I did the same…the views from up there are great…it’s the largest outdoor seated bronze Buddha, or something like that…I don’t remember…what i do know is that there are a lot of big buddhas all over asia, and many of them claim to be the biggest in one way or another…

the line for the cable car on the way back down was pretty long…when we got our tickets to come up, the lady said that the last cable car going down would be at 1830…thankfully, because it was a holiday and there were so many more people than usual, they kept running the cable cars after the normal closing time…I guess normally they tell people that you have to walk down if you’re late, but not on this night…seeing the footwear some of the people in line had on, it would’ve been really amusing (for me, anywho) if they’d had to walk down…there is a path that basically runs under the cable car, and it would be beautiful, but not so much after dark, and it definitely wouldn’t have been a quick walk…for whateva reason, the guy in line who sticks out in my mind would’ve had an easy time walking down…he was simply head and shoulders above everyone else…I wonder how tall he was…he actually stuck out from the crowd, due to his height…I don’t know why I’ve mentioned him at all…anywho, after the 25 minute cable car ride, we got back on the subway and went back to our hotel…a long day, and I think all of us were exhausted…

hong kong with the fam part 1

After the fun of a rushed transfer in Beijing (for those of you who care, you do get a stamp in your passport when you transfer through mainland china, even if you’re not staying) we landed in hong kong after 2100…baggage claim was easy, as was just about everything else…while waiting in line for immigration both hana and I were given brochures with events happening in hong kong around that time…and a decent tourist map of the area as well…yay…

we wanted to take the train into the city, which was also easy…for some reason you can buy cheaper tickets one way if you get more than one at a time, but you can’t buy those discounted tickets round trip…I don’t get it, but whateva…we also bought octopus cards, which can be used for most hong kong public transport, as well as in 7-elevens and other various places…mom had a mixup with her airport express and octopus cards, but we still made it to our intended stop all right…we checked into our hotel and were a bit surprised at the smallness of the rooms…but it’s hong kong, and unless you’re paying through the nose, you’ll never have much space there…hana and I went to sleep straightaway…

the next morning we met up with mom, and figured out where to start our day…we all wanted breakfast…despite numerous trips to hong kong, I haven’t spent time in any restaurants save one, but I figured it couldn’t be too hard to find food…one of the areas on mom’s list of places was times square, and I figured there had to be food somewhere around there…I’m sortof ashamed to say it, but we ended up at a place that starts with mc and ends with donald’s…then we decided to split up and shop…we set a meeting point and time, and went our merry ways…

hana and I headed first to lululemon…it was originally a Canadian company, though I think it might be American owned by now? (Americans are taking over the world, you know)…it’s a yoga/workout sort of clothing company, and I love it…it’s a bit on the pricey side, but the quality of everything is absolutely fabulous, and well worth it…it would’ve been really really easy to spend a LOT of money in there…as it was, I came out with a tank top and jacket, hana got a jacket as well…I also pointed out what I’d love to have as a Christmas/birthday gift if I happen to end up in a place that has a winter season next…hee hee…I don’t really expect that to happen…that particular lululemon store isn’t easy to find, and operates by word of mouth…despite this, it’s a pretty busy place…one lady in there seemed to want to try on and discuss every bit of clothing in the store, which was annoying as there are only two dressing rooms, so a small queue formed, to which she was allegedly oblivious…oh well…that store has now moved though, so they were stamping the new address on the back of everyone’s receipts…

after lululemon I was happy, and didn’t really care what we did the rest of the day…so we meandered through a number of different places, just checking things out…it’s been quite a while since I’ve spent that much time shopping for nothing in particular…we met up with mom at the designated time, and had dinner at the spaghetti house…very western, but fine…none of us were really feeling the need to have Chinese food…and that was it for the day

the next day was mother’s day…so we started the day with a fight…argh…so we separated for the day…hana and I took the ferry to Kowloon…somehow, I’ve never taken the ferry before…crazy to think that before the subways went under the water, people had to take the ferry every single day to get back and forth…it’s not a long ride, and the ferries go regularly, but it would still be a huge pain…it was very warm and humid, especially in comparison to the weather we’d had in Korea, but the breeze felt good…we got off the ferry and the first place we visited was starbucks…I really ought to buy stock in that company…we wandered along the avenue of stars (I think that’s what it’s called) which is amusing more than anything else…just like in Hollywood, they have stars on the ground of famous Chinese actors, complete with handprints…there were very few whose names I recognized, but oh well…hana showed off her muscles in front of the statue of bruce lee…lol…

from there we took a footbridge over the road, and started walking up Nathan road…it’s the heart of tsim tsa tsui…sometimes referred to as TST…i probably don’t say it right…that’s the area I stayed in with ivan and layna, it’s full of tourists and touts and craziness in general…along the way we were offered copies of designer purses and tailored suits, but we weren’t interested…and do I really look like someone who wants or knows anything by prada or any other designer name? I briefly took hana through the chaos that is chungking mansions…one of the only good things about that place is all the Indian food you can find on the ground floor…we each got a piece of naan as a snack for later…we continued up the road and ended up on a bench in Kowloon park to eat our naan…since it was Sunday, the place was packed with Filipinas enjoying their day off…there are a lot of Filipinas domestic workers in hong kong, and the standard day off is Sunday…according to the paper, they don’t even get minimum wage!! The union is fighting for a pay increase, who knows if it will happen…hana listened a bit and enjoyed hearing the familiar sounds of tagalog…at some point, a guy from the ivory coast (was it the ivory coast? Maybe Ghana, or Kenya, I don’t remember for sure) stopped and talked to us…then we moved on, and ended up at a little plaza…

there was a sign put up that said this was the kung fu corner…according to the sign, there was a show every Sunday, from 1430-1630…it was 1400, so we grabbed seats and waited…it was fun…the first act was a dragon…one of the dragons where it takes 10 people to keep it going, and the choreography is pretty complicated…after the act was finished, they invited members of the crowd to stand inside the dragon to have pictures taken…I was going to stand inside, and have hana take the picture but a guy offered to take it for us, with both of us in the photo…yay!! After that little photo session was over, the next offer was for kids in the crowd to be part of the act…really cute to see some of the kids hold up parts of the dragon…the next few acts were various people demonstrating different types of kung fu…I know nothing about it, but it was neat to watch them…I liked the lady with the fans the best…

we didn’t stay for the entire show, but continued up Nathan road, just wandering…hana got a bit turned around and thought we were walking back toward the water, but I knew where we were…getting turned around in hk is very easy to do…we found a couple places to get food, and on the way back to the ferry, picked up Indian food for dinner back in the hotel…the ferry ride back was nice, though it was good to get back into air con…we were both sunburnt, but oh well…

the next day we split up as well…hana and I started our day by taking the subway to the bank of china tower…you can go up to the 43^rd floor for free and have a great view over the city…while on our way to the tower, we met a dutch guy who had a long layover on his way from holland to new Zealand…he was using the time to wander around hong kong, though w/out a map he wasn’t really sure where he was going…or where he wanted to go…we ended up seeing him in the tower as well…from there hana and I went to the tea museum…it’s a free museum, one I hadn’t seen previously…all about tea in china…where it’s grown, how it’s served in different places, the importance of tea in society, etc…boring, but fascinating at the same time…and apparently there had been a contest of some sort, people entered ceramic tea pots and cups they’d made…I loved all the displays…

our next stop was a food court under a nearby building, where we had more starbucks and sandwiches from prêt a manger…(a chain I’ve also seen in the UK)…from there we walked out to st john’s cathedral…I can’t remember why, but hana wanted to see it…it’s a beautiful church, and still active…next on the list was the mid levels escalator…they say it’s the longest covered outdoor escalator…it’s not all in one stretch, there are a bunch of different bits…if you travel the whole thing you’ve gone about 800m…from 6-10am it goes down, but the rest of the day it goes up…after each section you can get off and take stairs down to street level…hana and I rode it all the way up, then walked back down…on the way up I’d spotted a salad shop, so on the way back down I got a salad for dinner…even though I’ve been out of Mongolia for a couple weeks, I still find myself craving veggies more than I ever did before…weird…

that was the end of that day…I don’t remember what time it was, but hana and I were both ready to be done with the day…

hong kong rugby style

the hong kong tour is one that all the rugby girls who have gone rave about...everyone loves it...and now, after having the experience myself, i totally agree...what a fantastic weekend...
friday evening immediately after school i hopped on a bus to the airport, which takes an hour and a half...at the checkin counter i met up with several other girls, so we all ended up sitting together on the plane...security and emigration doesn't take very long at the airport in incheon, it's a really efficient airport...no body scanners or patdowns, i reckon those will get here eventually...the checkin line was long, but it didn't take long to go through and get our boarding passes...the plane took off on time, i think, woo hoo...
we landed in hong kong around 2245 local time, and ended up waiting in the airport for a while for colin, our manager...we knew he was supposed to arrive around the same time, and we were supposed to meet up with him so he could get us all to the hostel, but for whateva reason no one thought to make a specific meeting point...anywho, after we finally found him, it didn't take long to get to the hostel...there is a train from the airport that gets you into the city in 24 minutes...brilliant...from there it was a quick cab ride (cabs in hong kong are all red) to the hostel...we'd all thought we'd be in rooms of 2,3 or 4 people, but 10 of us ended up in an apartment, which was actually awesome...(except that there was only one bathroom)...AND, every one of us got a key, so no one had to worry about making sure someone was 'home' or finding someone with a key...yay!! (with a group like ours, that's actually a pretty big deal)...

nat, our unofficial team captain found us at checkin, showed us the apartment (it wasn't in the same building as the checkin desk) and got us going to go out that night...fortunately, very few people needed showers...we just used makeup to cleanup...nat had arrived the night before with three others, none of them had to work on friday...(jealousy is my middle name)...they'd spent friday shopping and relaxing after going out hard thursday night...our first stop of the night was a place called devil's advocate...it's in the wan chai area of hong kong, which is an area full of bars, and plenty of expats...i think a lot of hong kong rugby people spend a lot of time in the advocate, but it was pretty tame while we were there...after a couple drinks we made our way to a place called dusk till dawn...whoa...crazy busy...the bouncers outside were counting the people going in and out, they were right at the limit allowed...i didn't go in, i hung out outside with a few of the girls and just chatted...there were people coming out every now and again, but from what we could tell, it was going to be really really crowded/busy in there, so we never went in...the girls who did had a good time i think, but they all mentioned that there was a constant flow of people bumping into them...i went to those bars in uni, and while i was living in garmisch, but i don't like them much now...anywho, i went home "early" around 0300, with one of the other girls...there is a 24hr supermarket near our hostel, and she and i were hungry, so we took the opportunity to wander around...the staff were stocking the shelves so there were boxes everywhere, but oh well...anna and i were amazed at the variety available...there definitely is NOT that variety in korea...sure, there are big groceries in korea, but not with the variety of international brands...she and i must've spent over 30 minutes just wandering around...(probably with our mouths hanging open from shock)...when i laid my head down that night it was spinning, as if i'd been drinking!!! crazy...i haven't had alcohol in nearly 7 years, and there is no smoking in hong kong bars, (sure wish it was that way in seoul!) so who knows how i ended up with that feeling...oh well...i didn't hear everyone else come home, but everyone made it safely...

morning came fast...too fast...we're all used to getting up for work, and hong kong is an hour behind, so all of us woke up naturally a whole lot earlier than we expected, or wanted...oh well...not that we got moving very fast, but the point is that we were awake...

since hearing the night before from nat that there was a new lululemon store in hong kong, that was my only goal for the day...i hadn't planned to shop at all, buuuut, i've been drooling over lululemon online for the past couple months, and i couldn't pass up this opportunity...YAY!!! nat was staying in another room from me, but colette was in my room (the big apartment) and she had visited the lululemon store the day before...(according to nat, they'd all spent a LOT of money there)...colette was still sleeping so i waited until 1100 to wake her up to ask where to find lululemon...she ended up coming with us, and spending more money:)...i had an asthma attack while trying on pants, it was soooooo embarassing...i've been really sick lately, and coughing a lot...for whateva reason some of these coughing fits have been so bad that i end up gagging, which has been causing asthma attacks...ugh...after calming down, drinking some water and using my inhaler, i still had a red face but wasn't coughing so badly...i bought two pairs of pants...(thank you to mom for the birthday money:)...after that, anna and i returned to the supermarket, bought sandwiches (they were huge) for lunch, and went back to the flat in the hostel...some of the girls had shopped a bit, the only sightseeing anyone did was to go up to victoria peak...when the weather is clear there is a great view of the hong kong skyline...when it's hazy/polluted, not so much...

eventually everyone gathered on the street, though of course some people were later than others...we got in a taxi line, (on a side note, taxis in hong kong are red) and made it all the way to the front, only to find out that we had been in the wrong taxi line, and that we needed to go somewhere else to find taxis that would take us over to the kowloon side...(hong kong isn't just one island, it's an island, and a little bit of the mainland)...of course, that made the group arrival at the rugby pitch later than anticipated...(not much of a surprise, as moving bigger groups around never happens on schedule)...quick changes for everyone, very little time to warm up...as this was the first 15s game for 75% of the people playing, we had a lot of learning to do...we'd done some scrum stuff in practice, but never against another team...part of the pregame stuff included building the scrum with both sides, so that everyone knew what they were doing...the ref made sure everyone was binding the way they were supposed to, and she told us how she would call it, so we would know the correct pace...(i know that probably doesn't make any sense if you don't know rugby, sorry)...

then we played...we got our asses kicked, but we did get better as the game went on...to be fair, as i mentioned earlier this was the first 15s game for most of us, and the hong kong girls are the best team in hong kong...(there are 7 women's teams in hong kong)...rugby is part of the culture in hong kong, everyone (even those who don't play) have at least a vague notion of the game, unlike in korea where most people don't have a clue...the longest running asian rugby tournament takes place in hong kong every year, a massive party called the hong kong 7s...
i ended up with another asthma attack during the game and had to come out...which pissed me off, cause i really wanted to play...i just couldn't stop wheezing...maria was hurt during the first half, but i think she was the only injury...anywho, after the game we took the normal picture with both teams...that seems to be just as much a part of rugby as the game itself...tradition, i guess...both teams mix themselves and smile for the camera...this time no one actually had a camera for a minute, whoops...after the game a couple of the hong kong girls (one of whom used to be a seoul sister!) showed us to the subway, so we skipped the taxis on the way home...somehow half the team went down the wrong escalator, including our coach...he realized it though and hopped the rail...lol...

we got back to our hostels, showered, and put on the costumes nicole and others had bought earlier...roman-ish i guess...i'm not big on fancy dress, so it didn't matter to me whether we had them or not...amazingly, people seemed to mostly be ready on time...tanya (the former seoul sister) met us at 2100, and walked us to a place called ruggers...it was just recently opened up, and is owned by four girls who all play for different teams in hong kong...how awesome is that? there was a bar (obviously, this is rugby after all) and they had a food menu as well...the place isn't big, but that didn't matter...anywho, it was a relaxing time for people to catch up, hang out, etc...after an hour or longer, someone called a court session...they gave out the normal awards (mvp for both teams and other assorted awards) as well as fines for various ladies...details of that stuff stays in the court session, of course...i drank my water and hung out, i was sad to have to turn down the glass of sangria everyone else got...:(...i went home not too long after that, around 0100...that was when everyone was leaving ruggers, and the hong kong girls were going to take us to other bars in the wan chai area...since i was sick, i opted for going to sleep...a couple girls stayed out till 0600:)

the next morning rachel woke all of us up at 0730...we thought we had to be out the door at 0830, so it was probably a good idea to wake us all up so we could move as slowly as we needed but still make it out the door on time...we ended up having an extra hour, so amy and i went for a walk to times square...i hadn't been in that area before, and since it was so close to where we were staying, i figured i should get a few photos while i had the chance...amy hadn't drunk much or stayed out late the night before either, so both of us were able to get going quickly...there was a display of some sort so we had fun posing...hee hee...i can't help it, i like photos of myself:)...while we were out walking amy showed me a photo she had taken from the window of her room...(she was staying in another room of the hostel)...it was a view down the street, which normally wouldn't be anything fantastic, but they were on the 10th floor, so she could see boats and water...of course, i had to take the same photo for myself:)

the team had chartered a bus to take us to a junk boat we had hired for the day...the junk boat is the part of the tour that everyone talks about afterward...and now i know why...it was AMAZING...just after we started cruising, they started bringing out drinks and appetizers...i had cranberry juice, but other people had sea breezes or beer...appetizers included chicken satay, lamb something or another, and chips and salsa...everything looked and tasted good...woo hoo...after an hour of cruising (i don't really know how long it was, i'm just guessing) we dropped the anchor in between two beaches...after some debate as to which beach we wanted to swim to, we chose, and jumped off the boat...i was pretty proud of myself for jumping off the top of the boat, i'm not big on jumping off heights of any kind...i can stand up high no problem, but i don't really enjoy jumping...(except that i do want to go skydiving someday, which totally doesn't fit into that at all, i know)...it wasn't warm water...it wasn't freezing exactly, but it was chilly...on the beach we threw a rugby ball around a little, but soon we drifted off a bit...at some point we decided it would be fun to take a picture of all of us laying down at the water line...fun, but cold when the waves came up...lol...not long after that, i climbed on some of the nifty rocks just because it looked like fun...nicole and jana came up afterward, the three of us had a great conversation...

after a little while, the boat people told us we should come back to the boat for lunch...YUM...steak, chicken, salmon, salad, potatoes, veggies, bread, and moussaka...all of it really good...if i recall correctly, everyone had a full plate...after lunch several of us laid out on the front of the boat...the sun felt nice, though i think all of us wouldn't have minded a few more degrees of heat...but we worshipped the sun for a while anywho...awesome...after a little while, several of the girls told me i was getting red, and i could feel it in a couple places...so i put on a shirt and wandered around the boat...then they brought out brownies...yum...i could've eaten more than the two small ones i did...hee hee...at some point, nearly everyone came down to the ground floor deck, just chatting, drinking, relaxing...they brought out pizza, yahoo!! after a couple slices of that i went down under that deck and took a cold shower...i wasn't keen on the cold, but i wanted to get all the salt off me...i found sand everywhere...i guess it had all stayed there from when we laid in the sand for the photo...whoops...it felt good to get rid of the salt...

back at the dock, the bus took us back to our hostel...most of us picked up our luggage, and took taxis to hong kong station...there is an airport checkin there, it was really nice to drop off luggage and not have to think about it again until landing in seoul...in that same station, i found a bookstore, and bought the postcards i always try to buy when traveling...then i went with some of the girls to temple street night market...janine and jess miller were definitely ready to shop, i just went along for the ride...we bought matching bracelets, i bought a frog thing for my sister (it'll probably be a while before i get around to posting it) and then the girls bought a whole bunch more...hee hee...it was a typical market, with all sorts of random stuff available...

we took the subway back to hong kong station, took the train to the airport, flew back to seoul, and took buses home...i walked into my flat at 0700, tried to sleep for 2 hours, then got ready for work...monday was a veeeeerrrrrrry long day...

hong kong and china 1

after a ridiculously long day of traveling, i arrived in hong kong around 2200...the airport is quick and efficient, and it's easy to get into the city...everything is just as crowded as i remember it...getting out of the taxi in front of the building where i had booked us, at least three people tried to get me to look at their rooms...apparently, saying "i already have a room booked" doesn't work...anywho, i figured out where i needed to go, and the first thing the guy at reception demanded was money...he wanted me to pay the rest of the amount we "owed" which i refused to do...i hadn't seen the room, met up with layna, anything!!! he became rather angry and belligerent, and i don't react well to that sort of behaviour...i stood my ground, and refused to hand over money until i at least got to see layna and the room...more than anything i wanted to make sure she was there, and that we had a room...
anywho...the room we had was a box...we each had a single bed, there was a small dresser in between the beds, and we had the smallest bathroom ever...(it makes my bathroom in korea look like a palace!)...there was a tv, though it didn't have much of interest...(but it was still good background noise distraction for me...and i watched the entire bbc newscast)
the main reason we went to hong kong was to get our visas for china...we had heard it was the easiest and quickest place to get them, and that ended up being true...though, being americans, our fee was the highest of any nationality...(ugh)...all we had to do was fill out the form, give them a passport picture and our passport...that was monday morning...thursday morning we went back and picked up our passports, and voila, our visas were in there...after being worried for whateva reason, i'm glad it was so easy to get the visas!!
i'd been to hong kong once before with my irish friend ivan, thank goodness...because i spent the next day in bed, in our room, not doing much...trying to write blogs, get a little caught up on email, upload pictures, etc...i also felt like crap, and was hoping the day of not eating anything would help...but it didn't really...everything i ingested, even just water, made my stomach cramp painfully...two days after this (it had already been going on for 5 or 6 days) it FINALLY got better...i guess i can't complain, this is the only time i've actually been sick during this entire trip...i've definitely been lucky!!
the next day i went out with layna in the afternoon...but the weather was craptastic, thanks to an approaching typhoon...rain, wind, etc...we wandered, but not far...that night i met up for dinner with my friend tanya...she's canadian, we got to know each other through rugby in seoul...she and her partner had moved to hong kong less than a year earlier...(i think?)...it was fantastic to catch up with ty, she's awesome...after dinner we also hung out with david (known to most as jr) who had stayed away from dinner due to an ear infection...a great night, totally chill...
thursday night ended up being the only afternoon/evening with clear skies...we took the opportunity to take the tram up to the peak and look over hong kong at night...beautiful...hong kong has a great night skyline...several of the buildings take part in what's called the night symphony...they light up at night, supposedly working with each other...i never noticed that myself, but i loved all the lights, and watching them change...beautiful...trying to get a picture to work out properly just didn't happen though...darnit...good pictures, but we wanted one with the two of us, and we couldn't make it happen...oh well...
friday morning we crossed the border...really easy to do...take the subway to the border, walk through the appropriate lines, filling out a health form, get passports stamped in the appropriate places, etc and walk out on the other side into a city called shenzen...hong kong residents can cross into shenzen for day trips, it's a special economic zone...a whole lot of CHEAP chinese shopping...cheap foot massages too, i wish i had had time for one:)
we took a bullet train to guangzhou, the capital of that particular province of china...walking out of the train station we walked all over trying to find the ticketing office, it took a while...signs seemed to point one way, but when we went that way, the ticketing office definitely wasn't there...anywho, we finally found it, booked our tickets, and took the metro to where we thought we could find a cheap hotel...we did find a cheap hotel, with the help of a tout, though it wasn't the one we were originally looking for...apparently the posted rates in a hotel in china, mean absolutely nothing...we paid about a 1/3 of what was posted!! we had an air con room, each with our own big bed, a nice bathroom, tv, etc...our own water filter...after some of the places we've stayed, particularly in hong kong, this was a palace...we walked around and explored, and found great street food...(this would be the start of my love affair with real chinese food)...and it's so CHEAP!!! our adventure in china began, and i already loved it, even though it was the country i was least fussed about when our trip started:)

HONG KONG, SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION, CHINA

Sunday, December 31, 2006
HONG KONG, SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION, CHINA
The Hong Kong part of my winter vacation was completely mellow…Ivan and I flew from Beijing to Hong Kong, which actually ended up being the longest flight of the vacation…3.5 hours…not too shabby…the Hong Kong airport is a lot nicer and more modern than the Beijing airport…MUCH more modern…the oddest part of the flight was checking in at the Beijing airport…you have to go through customs before you check in…very strange…getting off the airplane in Hong Kong was nice…it was a LOT warmer, so we didn't need 67 layers of clothes anymore…we hopped into a cab, and found the hostel where I had made reservations…it was in chungking mansions, which is basically one GIANT building…filled with many hostels, stands to buy just about anything, a few places to surf the internet, Indian restaurants, money exchangers, etc…and tons of touts…Beijing was nothing compared to the number of people who are trying to sell stuff or get us to go to their hostel/restaurant…I'm glad we had reservations ahead of time…we checked into our room, which was tiny…newer than the Beijing hostel, and with a TV…we found it had the wonders of bbc, one of the best news channels ever…
Since we had a few hours, we decided to go to the peak, to see Victoria harbor at night…I'm glad we did, even though it was pretty windy and chilly up at the top…after taking the subway/bus and walking a bit, we found the bottom tram station…the tram ride up is really steep…enough so that they build the steps in the middle of the tram at an angle for those who end up standing…the view at the top of the peak is great…at night, when all the buildings are lit up, it's amazing…many of the buildings are supposedly coordinated together in a light show, but we didn't really see that…there are definitely buildings with changing lights, but they didn't seem coordinated…Ivan is much more a photographer than I am, but I think the two of us took equal numbers of pictures…I played around with the settings on my camera for the first time ever, and found all sorts of good ways to take pictures…black and white, sepia toned, adjusting the shutter speed, etc…fun times…
The next day we didn't set an alarm…didn't even bother to think about what we wanted to see until after getting ready for the day…we walked for what seemed like ages to find breakfast, but we didn't see anything…annoying, so we ended up settling on a convenience store breakfast…ice cream, chocolate and chocolate milk for me, a sandwich for Ivan…we decided to check out Hong Kong park…it's built in the middle of Hong Kong, an 8 hectare park…it's not a huge park, but they have managed to cram a number of areas into it…a fountain plaza, conservatory, Olympic square, viewing tower, museum and aviary…it's a bit odd to see the contrast in photographs, with the park surrounded by skyscrapers…the aviary is nice to walk through, according to the signs, it is home to 600 birds of 90 different species…we did howeva, skip the museum of tea ware…we figured we didn't need to see a museum full of antique tea ware…bowls, teaspoons, brewing trays, sniffing cups and teapots…how exciting does that sound??? Not very…after wandering around, we had lunch at a small sandwich type of place…I guess it was later than lunch, but not really dinner yet…after that came the Hong Kong space museum…it's shaped like a ginormous golf ball…there is a lot about Chinese space history, some of the legends of space, and some hands on exhibits illustrating the laws of physics…you get to see a lump of moon rock, and the 1962 space capsule from Mercury…some of the exhibits were outdated…for instance, Pluto is still listed as a planet, and at least one globe showed Yugoslavia as a country…there is also an IMAX theater…Ivan and I each picked a 'movie' we wanted to see, and agreed to come back the next night…dinner was at Murphy's pub, an Irish pub…they had street signs from a few places in Ireland…one of them was from Ivan's hometown, and a town very close to his…what a small world…
The next morning was the morning Saddam Hussein was executed…since it was pretty much the only thing on the news, it prompted an interesting discussion between Ivan and I about the death penalty…it's always interesting to hear the reasons people have for the way they feel…or the lack of reasons…we ended up getting moving late again, and after breakfast at the Irish pub again, we got on the subway to see the chi lin nunnery…it's a Buddhist nunnery…it's not as large as other temple complexes…but it still has plenty of gates, as I've come to expect…it's like Hong Kong park, in that it's very peaceful…until you look up and see the skyscrapers close by…(also like Hong Kong park)…we didn't actually see any nuns while we were there, but we did see a number of buddhas…after coming back, we walked along the wharf, seeing all the buildings as they slowly lit up for the night…it was pretty hazy, though we weren't sure whether that was due to pollution or just not so clear weather…(the pollution is one of the worst things about Hong Kong)…either way, it wasn't as clear as we would've liked…we went to the Irish pub for one last dinner, before heading up to our room to pack up…over to the space theater again to watch our two movies…Ivan chose one about the exploration of the moon, I chose one about speed…(movement, not the drug)…both were good…howeva, I got really really motion sick during parts of the movie about speed…who would've thought I could feel that sick from just a movie?? Ugh…a quick walk back to the hostel, a taxi ride to the airport, and hop on our flight back to Seoul…arriving back in the land of cold and wind…but it's home, at least for now…