Hong Kong Adventures

Today is our final whole day in Hong Kong. :-(

There were those who scoffed at our intention to spend 10 days in the city. "You really only need 4, at most," is what one person said. I can now scoff back at them!

Pah!

While we've managed to check-off all the major attractions and sites of Hong Kong, we could easily spend another 4 or 5 days here. There is so much to do! Some of you may not know that HK is comprised of a bit of the chinese mainland and a few islands, so there's something for everyone. It's fortunate to have a harbour bisecting it, making it very easy to view its famous skyline.

HK seems to do a lot of things over-the-top. There's no such thing as an understatement here. The parks are beautiful and well thought out and carefully maintained. The ones we've seen have man-made lakes, waterfalls, and the big park near central HK has a walk-through aviary. All this is free. The architecture is amazing. I've never tired of seeing this city at night and I don't remember feeling this way about a cityscape before. DC comes close.

And, of course, there's the food. I think what we really like is the diversity. We've managed to eat a lot of cheap Chinese food, which means tons of noodles, dim sum, street food, and a little bar-b-que. But we've also enjoyed a surprising array of international foods: Australian, American, Turkish, Balinese, and Lebonese, for starters. I can't say about all of China, but in Hong Kong people do love to eat. We met Joel and his girlfriend, Sunny, via Couchsurfing and they took us to a hotpot place. Now, this was a lot of fun! More fun than shabu shabu. You get a pot of water and veggies and then you order meaty stuff to add once the water boils (with the help of a hotplate). We let them do the ordering so this is what we got: fried fish-skins, fish balls, shrimp balls, squid balls, shrimp wanton, veggie wanton, thinly sliced beef, thinly sliced lamb, pig intestine, and goose intestine. And, Froody and I ate a little bit of everything! Once all the boiling of all the balls and meats and intestines are done and all the veggies eaten, the flavorful, oily water is thrown out! Joel did say that (if you did this at home) you could separate the fat out and use the water to cook rice in. But, usually, it's just tossed out.

After dinners Froody usually makes his way to dessert. Sometimes it's a bakery. In Central HK we walked by a bakery that was full of people buying egg tart (very yummy) and taking photos in front of the bakery holding their egg tarts! Obviously this must be some famous egg tart place, so after lunch we did the same. Sometimes it's a restaurant. Here we are with a tasty chocolate fondue at a place called Choco-Cat. Yup, they serve chocolate desserts and drinks, and have at least 5 cats that customers try to coax onto their laps. Joel and Sunny introduced us to sweet soup. Froody ordered the papaya soup. It was served hot and had some kind of mushroom in it, too. That really drove home the fact that the Chinese not only like food with flavor, but they like food with texture. Different textures than what Americans are used to. They also aren't held to any conventions about food. Sunny said she could never understand why Westerners eat cereal for breakfast, when in HK you eat pretty much whatever you want whenever you want. Including noodles with wanton for breakfast.

If you are a shopper, then Hong Kong is your city! I'm not just talking about 5-star malls and Fendi bags. The street markets are fun. We spent our days among the flower market, bird market, goldfish market (my favorite), jade market, ladies' market, wet market, and produce markets. Nathan Road, where our hotel is, is also known as the Golden Mile 'cuz it's full of jewelry stores, fancy restaurants, and name-brand everything.

Hong Kong isn't all city. The suburbs are still green, naturally. There are hiking trails outside of the downtown area. (We went to the Wetland Park yesterday, hoping to do some trail walking and birdwatching, but it was closed. :-() Lantau was very pretty, with only a few highrise apartments and the largest outdoor bronze statue of Buddha in the world....

..but it was still over-the-top!! We went to see the large bronze Buddha statue. The trip out there seemed like fun: first you take the ferry, then you take a cable-car, then you walk up to the Buddha statue. I thought it would be a quiet place, full of people who've come to pray at the statue. *pshaw* There were tons of people! It was like a buddhist-theme park! You ride the cable car and a "monkey" takes your pic and you can buy it at the end of the ride. There are two short films, one of a fable about sharing and another about the life of the first Buddha. (We didn't see either.) Between the cable car and the stairs leading up the the giant statue are all sorts of restaurants (really classy places) and gift shops, even a 7/11 and a Starbucks!! We just bypassed all this (excepting the restroom) and walked up the stairs to the statue. It was pretty cool, even in the fog. I wish the day was clearer; the views would've been great.

Overall, we really liked being in Hong Kong. Yes, they're always building something and there's the whole issue surrounding reclamation, but there's something to be said for tearing down the old and making way for the new. The city is able to adjust to its growing population and traffic problems with many footbridges (some go on for what feels like a mile). Buildings can be outfitted with energy-saving technology. Everything has running water and electricity. And functional plumbing!

On the other hand, all this organization requires a lot of rules. Now, India and Egypt had rules, but Hong Kong can afford to enforce them. Another downer is the feeling that you're living in a mall. All the footbridges and pedestrian subways have stores in them. Not just a snack-stand or newspapter stand, but high-class shopping and sometimes you have to walk through a fancy mall just to get to the other side.

Still, I'm going to miss Hong Kong. It was fun and I hope we come back someday.