Hong Kong - Day 1

Wow. What a day! Jam packed. 

We slept in a little and then got all of our duckies in a row. 

Yesterday we spent two hours at an agency preparing, repairing, re repairing, and submitting our applications for Chinese visas. There was much white out involved.  They will reject your visa if you use two different color inks...... Sigh. Hopefully those will come through for us on Thursday and we can be on our way to Guilin. 

Today we decided to head to Lantou which is the island just west of Hong Kong. It is very mountainous but has some low lying flat spots perfect for building mini metropolises like this one. 

I took this beauty from the Ngong Ping cable car which goes up, up, wayyyy up over a mountain and down the other side to the village of Ngong Ping. Those are all apartment buildings. This is just a small town here. (Think like Waukesha, WI in comparison to Chicago).  In Ngong Ping we saw this guy:

He is the world's largest Buddha - officially the Tian Tan Buddha . He is pretty darn big but much thinner than most Buddhas I've seen. No ubiquitous Buddha belly here. 

 

You have to walk up many, many steps (200 some) to get to the Buddha. There were lots of people off to the side huffing and puffing but we champed it and went straight to the top. 

There he is. Way up there. Being all big and Buddha-y.  

We also visited a monastery. It was interesting to me that the vast majority of people were there for tourist reasons. Very few people seemed to be there for religious/spiritual reasons. There were a few people praying. More were lighting incense. It was very reminiscent of 12th-16th century European churches with alcoves along the sides owned by wealthy families. It was (and still is) very monetized. Those with the most money can worship their god better. Many idols. Many candles. Many rituals. And always things that smell. Why are there always things that smell?  

While waiting in line for the cable car we saw this guy. 

Check out that mullet!!  With the perm on the top and everything. Good entertainment for a few minutes. 

After Ngong Ping we took a 50 minute bus ride to a small fishing village called Tai O. The bus ride was...insane. Picture a big greyhound bus going down switchback mountain roads sometimes only wide enough for one direction of traffic at probably 60 mph.  I caught myself stomping on my imaginary brake pedal a few times. A number of times the driver would stomp on the brakes hard and we would all fly forward in our seats because he was about to go around a corner when another bus was coming in the other direction. It certainly kept us on our toes. (Miraculously, I somehow did not get sick)

Tai O is a very small village right on the edge of a bay. It seems to be from a different age. We saw very few signs of improvement or technology from the last 40 years. It is called the Chinese Venice because the "roads" are really only about 5 ft wide and eventually there are no more roads and instead plank ways. Half of the village is built up on stilts over the water. We walked all through the village and saw a lot of dried fish. Fish heads, fish skin, fish fins, pretty much anything. It all looked like rawhide to me. One of the shops had a bunch of plastic tubs on the ground with water and  different kinds of fish. As we walked past an Indian family stopped to admire the bucket of eels. We watched them watch their 8 year old (estimate) son take the grate off the top of the tub and stick his hand in, grab an eel and pull it out. The grandma running the shop nearly keeled over she was shouting so loud. Apparently eels can bite. (Who knew? Right?) The dad just murmured a "sorry" and they moved along. Perhaps they were just hoping to get a photo.  

Many of the buildings in the village, both on land and stilts, were very dilapidated but would be right next to newish nice buildings. 

Case and point. To be fair the house on the left was probably the nicest house in the whole village and the one on the right was one of the worst. But it shows you the spectrum. 

This was more of a typical house. 

It is impossible for you to see but there was an old woman sitting at a table just to the right of the ladder eating some dinner. Think they pay more taxes for having water front property?  I snagged all of these photos from a little boat excursion we went on that took us through the village and then out into another bay. In that bay we saw some pink dolphins jumping. Pink? Yup. Pink. Like someone dumped a couple tons of red kool aid powder into the bay and they swam around in it for a couple of weeks. Obviously that didn't happen but they were quite pink. I tried to get a photo but they were fast little buggers. 

After we were sufficiently sunned out and tired we took a 60 minute bus (still hair raising but not as much of a knuckle biter) back to the Tung Chung Station where we would pick up our subway a little later on. First we had to do some shopping at the outlet malls and get some more food. There was a fantastic bakery that we had stopped at on our trip out to Ngong Ping which we hit up again for treats. Chocolate bun anyone? 

How about some happy cheese cake? Maybe the colors don't come through but this cakes was bright pink, orange, and green. I think each was a different flavor. 

We also stopped for tempenyaki, which is a food preparation style where the chef will cook your meal on a flat grill right in front of you. 

I know. Not the best photo but I was more interested in eating than photo-ing. You can see my greens, sprouts and garlic shrimp in the background. Soooo yummy. 

At the outlet mall I bought a daypack. I had been using a very basic Nike drawstring bag and it works okay but it is certainly not good for my posture and leaves most of my things to the hazard of commingling due to single compartment syndrome. FYI: camera + water bottle + humid (condensation conducive) weather = eeeeekk.  I got a great deal on it and it is a pretty green color. I'm happy. 

On the subway ride home we sat next to a mixed family of a (by our best educated guesses) Swiss  dad and Hong Konger mom (yes that is the demonym), it was interesting to see them interact with their kids. Everyone seemed to be fluent in both Swiss German and Cantonese. Swiss German is hard enough to understand as it is but throw a Cantonese accent into the mix and I was really struggling. We also saw this little man. He was a full grown guy, not a little person, and I know the photo isn't very good but if you can tell he actually would fit under my armpit. 

His arm was fully outstretched to reach the handles that my head kept banging into. Wow. 

Once we had ridden the subway for 30 minutes we were back to Kowloon and had a short underground walk to go to reach our hostel. The subway system in Hong Kong is extensive. And there are many underground passageways connecting many stations. We walked through a lot of this and found a little mall. In the mall was a sweet shop where they hand make little rolled hard candies with messages or pictures inside. Of course I forgot to take a picture of a completed candy but we stood and watched them laboriously pulling the sugar and then molding and layering it to make the perfect shape. They were making smiley faces when we watched. 

We also had to do some shoe shopping. None were purchased but they might be before I leave ;-) (I'll be taking donations if anyone would like to support the Bess Needs Comfortable Sandals fund) 

Now we are back at the hostel, enjoying the air conditioning, and discussing plans for tomorrow. 

This little fellow is waiting to be eaten for breakfast 

Flatbread with cheese, bacon and black olives. **stomach grumbles**

Sleep for now. Because I will have so much to write I will discontinue Q&A Fridays. Instead just leave any questions you have in the comments and I will do my best to address them in the next post or respond directly in the comments. 

Thanks!