Hong Kong Part Two - The Sights

I think I've finally recovered from jetlag so I'm able to stay awake for more than two hours at a time - so what's the first thing that I have on my to do list?  Blog, of course!  This blog is as much a journal as it is anything else, so I'm sure twenty years from now when I'm a world famous blogger with kajillions of followers, I can look back on my posts and think "oh, remember when we went to Hong Kong?"  Ha!  Anyways, as I wrote in my first Hong Kong post, my second post is going to describe all the sights that we saw of the city.

So where to start?  For this portion of the program, I'll go day by day as it's easier for to remember all the stuff we saw and did on our trip.

Day One - Off to The Races

One of the biggest attractions that Hong Kong has is the Happy Valley Horse Races - millions of dollars run through this place every Wednesday, when the races are scheduled every week.  The people of Hong Kong love betting on horses, and it was definitely on our list of must-dos.  However, this must-do was the first thing scheduled on the day we arrived.  Have I mentioned that I'm insanely jetlagged?  We flew out from Vancouver on the 2am flight on a 13 hour flight, and with the time difference (16 hours ahead of Victoria), we landed at 7am in the morning.  The flight was horrific as Cathay Pacific has changed their seats so they don't recline...so we barely slept a wink and were insanely tired when we landed.  So anyways, the reason why I'm telling you this is that the races were at 8pm on the first day that we were there, so we had to stay awake for a full day after not having slept.  SO not fun, and we were desperately tired but we managed to stay awake and somewhat coherent so we could watch the races.

Here's a picture of the track from the stands:

The rabid horseracing fans in the stands:

The horses being shown before the start of the race (there were seven races that night):

And they're off!

The winner:

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Day Two - Checking Out the Market

After sleeping like zombies on our first night in the city, we headed off to Stanley Market the next day.  This market is in Stanley (surprise!), which is located towards the southern end of Hong Kong Island and required us to take a 45 minute bus ride.  The market wasn't really my first choice as I'd heard it wasn't quite what it used to be, but in the end it was worth the trip because of the journey to and from the market.

I've mentioned before that the taxi drivers are insane there...well, the bus drivers are even worse.  I sort of recall this from my first time there, and vaguely remembered not liking sitting up on the top level of the buses, as they're all double deckers.  On the way to the market, I thought heck...it was probably because I was younger and I'm waaay more brave now.  Not!  The ride is definitely not for those who are faint of heart - the driver drove on narrow windy roads at top speed - you could hear the plants and tree branches hitting the side of the bus, and a few times when the ride was bumpy, we actually went airborne and came up off the seats...there were a few of us sitting up top and I remember us all giggling hysterically...that kind of nervous laughter that happens that with false bravado, because you really are afraid, but don't want show really just how afraid you are.   A few times we thought the top deck of the bus would hit the side of the rock face...it was THAT close.  Here's a photo taken out the front of the bus:

And a cemetary that we saw along the way - amazing (sorry for the crappy pic).

The narrow road wasn't the worst thing though.  To get to Stanley, the road is on the side of multiple hills or cliffs where it's a stomach churning drop to the bottom...unfortunately, I was sitting on the window side, so could see exactly how far up we were and juuuuust how painful it would be if we were to plummet to our deaths below.  I actually thought in my head...I wonder if I hang on tight to this pole, will I live if the buses does multiple rollovers?  Note there are no photos of how we were teetering on the edge of the cliff because I spent most of that part of the ride with my face buried in Hubs' shoulder.

Finally we arrived at the market, and I have to say...meh.  It was touristy, and the stuff in the market wasn't the greatest but you could find some trinkets or neat little things. 

Stanley itself was kinda cool though - it was on the water, and much quieter than Causeway Bay (where we stayed):

Here's the main strip of Stanley, where the restaurants are decidedly Westernized - Stanley is a common place for ex-pats to go to.  I'm once again being a goof and doing "hearts"...another common Asian photo thing. 

And a view to the water.  It was kind of overcast, but still a pleasant, warm day. 

So I've said the ride there was pretty scary.  However, the ride back was even scarier.  Why, you ask?  Because we were subjected to who Hubs and I have now dubbed "Crazy Bus Lady".  I'm pretty sure she should have been on some heavy duty meds, but wasn't...as people got on the bus, she'd roundly curse you out in Chinese.  Now I'm not the best at Cantonese, but I know what those words mean and they weren't good.  There was a lady who kept talking on the bus, and Crazy Bus Lady must have decided that she had enough.  She got up, and started screaming at Talking Lady, cursing her out in Chinese and English, threatened to report her to the police and told Talking Lady's young daughter who was sitting next to her that her mom was a bad, bad lady.  Whew.  So OK, that blows over....but Crazy Bus Lady decides that Cell Phone Lady who was sitting across from her was pissing her off too.  She stands up, curses her out but then throws in cursing out her parents, her children, her future children and all her ancestors.  Nice touch.  We actually got off the bus early, careful to avoid any eye contact so as to not raise her ire...look away, don't draw attention to yourselves!  Hubs, being the cheeky monkey he is, thought about taking her picture as we got off the bus and as the doors closed.  He was mostly brave because we decided to get off in front of a police station.  Ha ha!

Day 3 - Riding the Ferry

In my first post, I described how Victoria Harbour is the body of water between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.  There's a bridge you can take to get from one side of the other, and you can get there in minutes on the MTR...but the coolest way to get to Kowloon and vice versa is to take the Star Ferry.  It's this little ferry boat that takes you on a short 10 minute or so ride, and it's pretty neat.

The Star Ferry pier:

One of the ferries:

Crossing the harbour:

Poor Hubs...he was too busy looking around and excited about the ride, he didn't notice his seasickness sneaking up on him.  By the end of the ride, he was a little green around the gills!  He felt better fairly shortly, but the feeling of being out on the water actually stuck with him for a few days.  Poor little bugger.

Day Five - Victoria Peak

By Day Five, we'd both become smitten with the city.  We'd tasted what Hong Kong had to offer for shopping (sigh) and we'd definitely tasted the food (double sigh), so we were ready to see one of the sights that Hong Kong is famous for, the Victoria Peak.  The only way to get up to the Peak is by the Peak Tram, which is a cable car built way back in the day.  It's pretty old, but apparently has a spotless record for safety.  Good to know, especially as we would be pulled up a hill at impossible angles!  Day Five was the first clear day that we were there, and it turned out to be the best day out of the trip to go, as the smog had cleared and it was a fairly sunny day.

The Peak Tram:

On the way up:

Ahhhhh...we're here!  Gorgeous, no?  You can see the Bank of China building with all the triangles. 

Day Six - The Big Buddha

Day Six...holy, the trip is more than half over!  Yikes.  Time was going by way too fast.  We were blessed by another gorgeous day, so we decided to head to Lantau Island (on the map from the first post, it's the island in the lower left corner) to see the Tian Tan Buddha.  This is the largest seated statue of Buddha in the world - 85 feet tall and beautiful.  I actually got a little verklempt seeing the statue, as the surroundings and the statue itself were so beautiful.

My first sight of the Buddha on the hill:

The gates to enter the complex:

One of the seven statues that lined the walkway when you walked in:

At the bottom of the steps to walk up to the Buddha - there were 260 steps!  We were a little out of breath after getting to the top:

At the top!  Cool.  Serene.

The bodhivistas that surround the Buddha (there were six statues) - aren't they amazing?

I have to say, this was probably the most memorable part of the trip.  I mean, I loved the food and the shopping, but seeing the Tian Tan Buddha was really something else.  Sigh.

Day Eight - Hong Kong Museum of History

Waaaah!  Only two more days left.  We'd read through our guidebooks, and while the Hong Kong Heritage Museum was more highly rated, it was going to mean transferring on three or four different subways to get there.  Ummmm, no...that was going to take far too much time away from eating and shopping.  We decided to go to the Hong Kong Museum of History, which was totally awesome.  There were different exhibitions, which started off with how Hong Kong was formed geographically, the culture of the people, how people lived, the British occupation, and most interesting (to me) was life in Hong Kong during the Japanese occupation during World War II.  I would highly recommend this museum to anyone who visits Hong Kong.

Dinosaur eggs, found in Hong Kong:

Early peoples:

A fishing boat:

Replica of a typical Chinese home in a village:

Wedding caravan:

Traditional wedding dresses:

Huge Chinese statues:

Traditional Chinese opera singers:

Replica of the bun mountains - these things are 10 metres tall and covered with 6,000 buns.  On Cheung Chau Island, they have a Bun Festival every year.  On the last day of the festival, people would be set loose to scramble up the bun mountain and grab a bun as they're considered good luck...however, one year one of the mountains collapsed and people were injured so they discontinued the practice.  They've restarted the practice fairly recently though with a tower made of metal and simulated buns.

Day Ten - Chinese New Year's

When we were planning our trip, we were sooooo excited that we'd be there during Chinese New Years.  CNY is like Christmas here at home (maybe even more so), and is a crazy big deal in Hong Kong.  There were decorations everywhere, and...this is going to sound weird...it made me really proud to be Chinese.  It's not that I'm not proud of my heritage, but I honestly don't think of myself as Chinese first and foremost - I think of myself as Canadian.  Does that make sense?  I was born in Canada and live a very Westernized lifestyle...plus living in Victoria where there isn't a really large Chinese community means that there really isn't a huge focus on all things Chinese.  But being in Hong Kong - I really appreciated having a cultural identity and the things that come along with it - the language, the food, and the customs.  Awesome.

A few day's before CNY, big flower markets open up as a Chinese tradition is to buy fresh flowers for the holiday season.  One of the biggest ones was in Victoria Park, which was almost right across the street from our hotel in Causeway Bay.  It opened up about four days before the first day of CNY, and every night it was absolutely heaving...on the night before CNY day, it actually stayed open all night and the MTR stayed open until the wee hours of the morning as well to accomodate the hordes of people coming from all over Hong Kong to buy fresh flowers.  It's also seen as good luck to walk through the market...so wanting to win the lottery sometime in the very near future, we trucked our little butts over to the market for a little look-see.

View from our hotel room at night - the bright blaze of lights is the flower market...and you can just make out how totally crowded it is with all the people:

The flower stalls:

Look at all the orange trees (very auspicious for the Chinese):

Lucky bamboo:

Cherry blossom branches - unfortunately these didn't open in time for CNY, so they were being offered at huge discounts the night before CNY:

The throngs of people:

It was so crowded at one point, that you didn't walk as an individual...the crowd kind of carried you along and it was like you were moving as one body!

So...now what do the Chinese do amazingly well?  Probably better than any other culture?  No...no...not math...and definitely not so great at driving (ha ha!  actually I think I'm a pretty darn good driver), but what else other than FIREWORKS!!  On the second lunar day of the new year and the day before we flew out, there's a huge fireworks show in Victoria Harbour, and we'd have an unobstructed view from our hotel.  We decided to do the special CNY dinner at our hotel, which allowed us to go up to the pool at the top of the hotel and watch the fireworks.  This was amazing...the fireworks really were something else.  Set to music, you could make out 8s, bunnies, happy faces, and XOs...the show went on for at least 25 minutes, and was absolutely the best fireworks display I've ever seen.  They looked huge from where we were and we were 32 stories up!  What a way to end an incredible trip.  Here's a short 3 minute video of the fireworks from Youtube...Hubs had videorecorded it, but it's long and our camera went out of focus a few times so I thought I'd spare you all. The video just doesn't do it justice though. I was awestruck.

The next post - the shopping...oh...the shopping...

I'm Back Baby

Wheeee!  Hubs and I went for a short run this morning and it felt awesome to get out there again and hit the pavement.  Like I said previously, we've still been keeping up on our workouts and running on the treadmill or working out on our stationary bike, but there's no substitute for foot-on-asphalt action.  Hubs is working Saturdays on a rotating basis (I curse you, ye financial institution that shall remain unnamed) so we had to get up bright and early and hit the road by 6am so we could squeeze in the run before he had to be at work by 8:30.  Now this might not sound that early, but we're still suffering greatly from jetlag so it wasn't a pretty thing to see as the two of us could barely drag our sorry butts out of bed.  However, Hubs is the better person and forced me up - he has extra incentive to run as the shirts he had tailor made for him in Hong Kong absolutely fit him to a tee, so there's no room for any weight gain.  Ha!  So funny. 

We only had time to fit in about 6K (I was hoping for a 10K run) and I felt fantastic the whole way.  My legs felt light and I felt really energetic so I ran some faster intervals.  We'll see how sore I am tomorrow!  Even though we've only been away from our long runs for about a month, it felt great to be outdoors.  Running, I've missed you so, but I'm back.

Let the Games Begin...

Ah yes...let the games begin, my friends.  The running season is officially starting for me this weekend and there's no turning back now!  I'm going to start training for the Oak Bay Half Marathon which is in May...and hoping hoping hoping to break the two hour barrier that's been eluding me.  Three and a half months to train...and unfortunately Hubs has been having issues with his back so we missed some of our runs in January, plus of course being on holidays has delayed the running schedule a bit.  Oh well!  It's not like I've been totally sedentary...we've still been keeping up with our workouts at home so I think this weekend we'll start with a nice 10K run and then start the progression of runs.  I'm kinda excited to get back into the running groove again...but I won't lie, the thought of all the long hours running on Saturday mornings in the heat of the summer isn't really turning my crank....but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, right?  I'm also heading back to bootcamp, as traffic in the mornings seems to have eased up...so excited to see everyone anyone, and hang out with one of my fave girlfriends D.

So to start off the running season, instead of doing what I did last year and wait until I get injured, I'm going to be more proactive in making sure I stay injury free. As I posted here, I had a gait analysis done in December to really narrow down what the issues are.  I sent this to my physio, so we could work on doing exercises to strengthen my muscles and hopefully stop this right foot thing from happening.  I went to see her today, and found out that I have the same issue as Hubs...Weak Ass Syndrome.  Ha!  We have really strong hamstrings and quads, but really weak glutes as our leg muscles tend to take over and do all the work...plus I have really weak external rotators too, so she gave me a few exercises to strengthen my muscles and work on stabilizing my core so I'm not so floppy and all over the place.   I swear, I will run this marathon this year and finish it!

Hong Kong Part One - The City

As promised, here is my first post about our trip to Hong Kong!  We were there for a total of ten days, so I thought instead of doing a day-by-day, blow-by-blow account of our foibles, I would split the trip into four posts describing the city, the sights, the shopping and of course, the FOOD!  I thought the appropriate place to start would be to talk about the city, so you can get the essence of what it's like to be there.  I have to say first though - I truly am in love with Hong Kong.  It's noisy, it's crazy, it's big and it's mind blowing - but as soon as we got there, I felt like I was home.   And no, it's not because everyone wears black there (ha!), but I had this feeling the first time I went there when I was 16.  I loved it then as well and I remember for years afterwards, longing to go back.  As soon as I set foot in the city this time, I just melded right in - well, as much as I could since I totally looked like a tourist!

So to start, I thought it might be a good idea to have a very quick geography lesson on where Hong Kong is.  Forgive me if you know this, but I thought it might be useful to get a lay of the land, especially when I say stuff like the "Kowloon side" vs. the "Hong Kong Island" side. 

Hong Kong is located at the southern tip of China, and is made up of all the areas in yellow in the pic above.  There are many areas and islands that make up Hong Kong, but the three major parts are the New Territories, the Kowloon peninsula and Hong Kong Island.  The New Territories is more rural and spread out and as you can tell by the map, the largest area - this is where most of the residents live.  Kowloon Peninsula sits at the very southern tip of the mainland, and is extremely population dense - the Mong Kok district in Kowloon has apparently something like 100,000 people living in a square kilometre.  Buildings are older, somewhat more run down and the shops not as high end as those found on Hong Kong Island.  When we first went to Kowloon, Hubs said he felt like he was in the movie Bladerunner - neon signs everywhere, building after building of housing flats all crammed together with laundry hanging out the windows, and huge TVs set into the sides of buildings blaring at top volume about the latest wares.  He seriously almost expected Rutger Hauer to come leaping out or something.  Can we say sensory overload?

Contrast that with the Hong Kong Island side, where things are somewhat more spread out...

What a difference, eh?  We stayed on the Hong Kong side, and I remember thinking wow, this isn't what I remember about Hong Kong when I went when I was younger.  I recall the neon signs, the press of people, the Bladerunner-like feeling...and then I realized that I'd stayed on the Kowloon side (I was 16, so you'll have to forgive my crappy memory)!   Hong Kong Island is where all the massive skyscrapers are, including the Bank of China building (below on the left, rumoured to have the worst feng shui due to all the triangles) and the HSBC Building (below on the right, designed to have good feng shui, and rumoured to have done so to offset the bad mojo coming off the Bank of China building - sorry for the crappy pic, it was hard to get both in the photo).

Most of the "action" occurs in the square that you can just barely make out in the map.  This is mostly where we spent out time, and the body of water in between is Victoria Harbour.

When we first got to Hong Kong, we were amazed at the constant bustle of people everywhere - no matter what time of night, the city was always heaving.  Apparently Hong Kong has a population of 7 million people, squeezed into an area of 1104 square kilometres...so one of the most highly dense populations in the world.  To provide homes for all these people, there are thousands upon thousands of flats in the city...here are some photos of the apartments that we saw:

Yep, that's smog - I believe it's a combo of the smoke coming from China from burning coal, plus all the pollution from the vehicles, etc. 

A lot of the flats are up on the hillside, so the city built escalators to transport people up the steep slopes...these run only downward during morning rush hour but go up for the rest of the day...

Most of these flats run about 500 - 600 square feet - and that's not just for one person.  It's not unusual for people to fit a family of four or five in a space that small.  The buildings are incredibly high and when you look at them, you can't help but think that they're not that well made - apparently the building Hubs' grandma owned in Kowloon collapsed to the ground, and it was only 50 years old.  Fifty years would be nothing here in Canada!  Seeing this really gave me an appreciation for what we have at home. 

Check out the throngs of people at this market in the afternoon on a Wednesday in Kowloon - wall to wall people!

In Hong Kong, there's no such thing as personal space.  Everyone warned us about this before we went, and to not get offended if someone got a little too close, or cut in front of you in line...if you leave a gap that would be appropriate by North American standards, that's a yawning gap by Hong Kong standards.  It took a few times of people cutting in front of me before I got the hang of things and bellied up to the person in front of me...personal space be damned, I say!  Hubs is so polite that people kept cutting in front of him.  I was much more cold hearted and thought nothing of pushing my way through crowds!

To get around such a population dense city, most people don't own cars...which in my mind is smart.  Firstly, because the traffic is insane and people drive like they're crazy there - it's like they're all trying to be Michael Schumacher or something!   People just cut in because if you don't, you'll be waiting a long, long time.  Secondly, it's expensive...gas is not cheap there, and only the rich can afford to buy cars...the city is filled with luxury cars...I've never seen so many BMWs, Mercedes, Rolls Royces or Ferraris in my life!  Thirdly, they have an amazing mass transit system called the MTR that is cheap, efficient, safe, and clean.

My MIL showed us how to use the MTR the first few days and by the end, we were zipping off on our own.  The MTR is a massive underground warren, and made getting around Hong Kong a dream.  As long as you knew which stop and which exit to get out of the MTR, you were within minutes of where you wanted to go.  Here's a photo of the MTR around rush hour, around 7pm...you were literally packed in like sardines and you had definitely had to make nice-nice with the people around you.

And finally, there are taxis everywhere and they're relatively inexpensive to take. 

These are not for the faint of heart though - be prepared to be scared out of your mind as they reach top speeds of 100km plus while driving in the heart of the city.  I just closed my eyes and prayed.  Heh!

Now with the size of the flats that they have, the fridges are teeny tiny so people buy their food fresh daily at wet markets.  Here's an outdoor one that was set close to the escalators that I showed you earlier so people could walk there, pick up food for dinner and then head on home on the escalator (yes, that's me being a weenie...for all the pictures that Hubs took of me, I did the peace sign because for whatever reason, all Asians love to do the peace sign when getting their pictures taken - yes, sweeping generalization...I know).

Here's another one that was in a four story building in Kowloon. 

Check out the poser at the meat stall!  When I was taking the picture, he yelled out "she wants a picture of me because I'm such a pretty boy!!"  Cheeky monkey.  Also...note the peace sign...hee hee!

One part of Hong Kong life that I didn't know about before was the amahs.  These are live in housekeepers, and most of them are Filipino.  These ladies have a hard life - they work like dogs for their families, and do all the child rearing, cleaning, cooking...basically whatever the employer wants - essentially they're like modern day slaves and unfortunately some are not very well treated.  They only get one day off per week, and that's only after they make the morning meal for their families.  To have some fun, every Sunday they congregate at the local parks and get to have some down time with friends.

It was easy for us to get around in Hong Kong because the majority of people speak some English.  Cantonese is spoken here more than Mandarin but with the handover in 1997, that seems to be changing.   I'd say I understand about 80% of what people are saying, as my parents speak a village dialect that is very close to Cantonese...but don't speak Cantonese terribly well but enough to get by.   This came in quite useful at times, as we tended to get better treatment if people thought we could speak the language since we're Chinese.  A story - we were at a tailor getting shirts made for Hubs and when we walked in, we got treated kinda crappy because we didn't speak Chinese at first, and we were dressed like tourists (Hong Kong is a very appearance conscious city).  They talked about us (nothing really bad so I didn't freak out) and would say stuff like "oh, they don't understand what we're saying."  Oh, no you didn't!  We were dealing with this one girl and at one point I thought eff this crap and trotted out the Chinese and she just kind of looked at me with an "oh crap" look on her face.  Needless to say, they didn't say anything bad after that!

So that's a bit about what the city of Hong Kong is like.  Sounds crowded, crazy and hectic, right?  Just a big dirty city with nothing to offer, no?  Not so, my friends...not so.   When you look at this picture, you can see why I love Hong Kong - its so alive and so vibrant.  I can't wait to go back.

Next post - the sights!

I'm Alive!

....but barely...jetlag has hit us really hard and I caught a nasty nasty cold the second to last day that we were there.  We got back from Hong Kong Saturday afternoon, and we had a fantastic time...really incredible...I miss it already.  As we walked around all the various districts, all I saw around me were Asian girls dressed in black...I almost threw up my hands and yelled out "I'm here among my people!" Ha ha...I'm always teased that I don't wear colour and stick with mostly grey, white and black and now I know my affliction is genetic.  Anyways, the city is like nothing we've ever experienced - the sounds, the smells, and there are people out and about at all times of the day.  The city was teeming constantly with bodies.  I was happy that Hubs really liked it - he's not into crowds, but he loved the shopping and eating that Hong Kong offers...and it's an incredibly easy city to get around.  And yes, we ate and ate and ate...my pants are a wee bit snug at the moment, so I definitely enjoyed myself fully!  It actually felt good to eat a salad today and get in a good workout - must lose some of this vacation weight gain if I have any hope of PBing at the half.  And that being said...now that the holidays are over, it's full steam ahead for training for the half marathon in May...gotta hunker down and get down to business.

Anyways, look out over the next few days for posts and pics of our time away - the pic above is a little teaser from our visit to the Tian Tan Buddha, which is the world's largest seated buddha at 85 feet tall.  Le sigh....I want to go back.  Now.