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Archive for the ‘Hong Kong’ Category

The plan for the day was to go out to Lantau island and take the Ngong Ping 360. Love the slogan: It’s blue. It’s green. It’s love naturally. We needed to get some HK money first. The man in the luggage claim of the subway was nice enough to get up from his counter, show us where to go, and tell us which exchage had the most favorable rates. We’re used to the US style of customer service, which is usually a blank stare followed by “uhhh, I don’t know, its not my department”.  After a lot of going back and forth, and breakfast, we didn’t get to the cable car to the monastery until after 12:30.

The suburban outlying areas, it must be the middle of nowhere because they had an outlet mall:

Hmmm… how odd. All the people are coming down the ramp, away from the cars. And none of the cablecars seem to be moving. And if you look real close, it sort of looks like people are in the cars, but that can’t be right? An announcemnt comes on and says there is a slight delay and they apologize for the inconvenience. So we wait in line. And wait, and then wait some more. The nice cablecar lady tells us it will be up again in 5 minutes. So we wait some more. Ok, 30 minutes later, we figure screw this and get in line for the bus. Which was a very good move. We find out later on the news that the cars broke 15 minutes before we got there, stranding people for hours in mid-air. The whole thing was closed all day and the next day. Yeah it’ll be going again annnnyyyyy minute now.

By the time we got on the bus, the line behind us was quite long as people in line for the cablecar gave up and started to take the bus instead. On the way up to the monastery firetrucks and ambulances were speeding by us heading for the station to rescue all the stranded people.

The big buddha:

delicious vegetarian snack made by monks. Fried taro root, noodles, dates, and green tea cake:

good advice.

Random Hong Kong note: Officially the iphone isn’t released here, but every single electronics store had them for sale. And I saw more Nokia N95’s in just the economy section of the plane, than I’ve seen in the US ever.

Kowloon Night Market. So here is where we learn the concepts of copy-watch and copy-handbag. Basically as you walk the blocks of stalls , people will call out to you if you want to buy a copy-handbag. They have the selection of fake designer merchandise plus nice printed glossy catalogs for you to choose your designer fakes from. They had a  bunch of tacky Mao watches with the watch hands as his hands. I figured I would see them everywhere, so just wait to buy them later. Nope, never saw them again.

Ate at this market on the street. Had curry chicken ( had too many bones), and sweet and sour pork. Unlike here at home, it was mostly delicious pork, and not mostly dough.

I remember reading this article in Wired 10 years ago. And since then my imagination was full of all the wonders of pirate software and computer goods I would find at the Golden Arcade Shopping Plaza. In reality, years later it was just a mostly regular shopping mall like anywhere else there. We must have really looked lost, since a very nice woman came up to us and asked us if we needed help finding someplace, and pointed us in the right direction. There were a few stores with pirate software, but not that many. I WISH I could have had my camera out to take a picture of the fantastic signs in one of the pirate booths. Over the rack of photoshop and game copies for HK$5 the sign says basically “Do not steal these discs, police will be called” Oh, the irony! I looked all over for the rip-off versions of Final Fantasy 7 and Titanic for NES, but I couldn’t find them anywhere.

After the arcade, we grabbed some fantastic pork and berry buns from this store:

A seriously drunk guy, who was double-handing Smirnoff Ice sat down and stared at us, and gave us a napkin. So we left.

Note on Hong Kong:

Restaurants do not give out paper napkins. Some places will sell you a little package of tissues. So if you go, hoarde any napkins you can in your bag.

After arriving late at night, we basically walked around the block, and had dinner at the hotel’s mediocre chinese restaurant. I left the camera at the hotel , and bought a SIM card and a voltage adapter, then went to sleep. First thing in the morning we went up to the Peak. which I guess is mandatory if you are  a tourist.

rement, originally uploaded by frogwasteland.

Here is the beginning of the flood of pics to come from Hong Kong. The Re-Ment aisle in Toys R Us. What is a bizarre niche hobby in the US, gets its own aisle in asia. Awesome.