Days 19-21: Hong Kong pt 2/2

Day 19 – Dog Island

I was still a little residually angry with Josh the next day, but being on the ferry for Lamma Island helped. Water tends to calm me. Ray had told us how to get to the ferry for Lamma Island (the largest of the Hong Kong Islands not connected by the subway), and it was really quite simple.

A weird thing that happened before we arrived at the ferry was the massive amount of people along the overpass, sitting on folded-out boxes, eating lunch and generally having a good time. When we first came across them, we thought they were homeless, but there were FAR too many people set up for that to be the case. It was confusing, and we probably should have asked what they were doing, but that’ll just remain a mystery now I suppose.

It was a little strange, taking a ferry out of the city to an island, and able to see all the freighters and other ferries and skyscrapers just beyond the haze. The haze never really cleared up in Hong Kong (I’d hoped it would be a little clearer there, but no, I guess I’m spoiled by always living in suburbs without much air pollution). The island was beautiful, and I’m sure is more bustling in the summertime. There were still numerous shops and restaurants lining the cute streets, and there were DOGS. EVERYWHERE. All the dogs were extremely friendly and played with as many of them as I could.

After an early dinner, we headed to the first beach we could find. It was beautiful, and I could have played in the sand and water for hours if I could. There were dogs on the beach (that loved the water) as well, and I ran around with them a little.

We didn’t quite time our return to the ferry port, and so we had to wait about twenty minutes for the next ferry back to Hong Kong Island.

We were all quite tired and returned to the hostel for naps. We got ready again and headed out to Nathan for the parade. There were a few exits from the metro blocked off, and the amount of people crowded around the street was INSANE. It was hard to know where to stop and wait, and I probably made a slightly bad choice since I couldn’t see any of the parade for the first 30 minutes. We’d arrived around 8:15, but it didn’t start until about 9, though it lasted about an hour total. I had to stretch and angle my camera down at the street to “see” anything. Very slowly people in front left, and I got a better view for the last half of the parade. It was worth it to experience the massive amount of people. And it was quickly obvious who were nice parade-viewers and who weren’t. I also dislike children a little more now because far too many parents would hoist their children on their shoulders RIGHT in front of me, effectively blocking anything from my view.

It was still a tiring day with the morning and afternoon spent in Lamma Island and the hustle and bustle of the parade, so we made an early night of it. I read some of my new book and slept.

Day 20 – Sara

The next day we planned to hook up with Sara, a fellow Beloiter and Honger Konger. She was about twenty minutes late, and came from the New Territories where her home and school were located. We had lunch at Genki, a Japanese restaurant with kaitenzushi (rotating sushi… YESSS). I had as much as my wallet and stomach could agree on, along with green tea mochi for dessert.

We’d seen a lot of the major things on our Hong Kong to-do list (for me, it was a physical one, for the others, it was only mental), and so we asked Sara for suggestions. Since she was from the New Territories, she said she could lead us around there if we wanted. First though, we had to have a ride on the trams, which we kept referring to as “Knight Buses” ala Harry Potter (though no, they were not purple. Ours was red). So we hopped on the first one we saw, rode on it for probably ten minutes, got off, and found a park. There was nothing terribly of note there other than a fire-boat museum that was closed. So we found the nearest metro station and got on that to actually GO someplace.

We took a LOT of trains to get to the area Sara was from, and went to her favorite park after probably our cheapest meal in Hong Kong. There was nothing particularly SPECIAL about the meal, but it was cheap, and the fried egg on top was good.

We sat on the hill in the park and chatted for a while and headed back towards the city again after a few hours. (We did essentially nothing in the New Territories… but I can say I was there! Very briefly.) It was a good thing we left when we did, because though we were having fun traveling, it was getting very close to FIREWORKS TIME and we needed to get to the Avenue of Stars, or at least somewhere close.

The bus dropped us off as close as we could get on the route to the Ave, which was not very close at ALL. We thought we could take a shortcut through a mall like a lot of other people were doing- the Elements Mall. It was such a BAD IDEA. We got trapped. There were no direct, clearly marked exits to the street ANYWHERE. We tried one floor and ended up in a parking garage with no outlet but a ramp only meant for cars. So no go. Went down a floor—gates and highways blocked our way. So we went back inside, to go to the metro station and then exited THAT way. It was very un-intuitive to exit the mall and escape the Elements.

We dashed toward the harbor as fast as the massive crowd allowed us. Sadly, it was another case of, “where and when do we stop and decide it’s a good place to watch?” And I think we may have misjudged. But we eventually got a decent view of the great fireworks show. Though the kids on shoulders drove me and Sara crazy. We made a lot of comments about shooting them off their shoulders so we could see. Some lucky (and likely filthy rich) bastards got to watch the show from in the air in a DHL balloon. Sara and I joked that she should make her goal in life to marry the president of DHL so that she could watch the fireworks show from the balloon.

There were some patterns that took us a few tries to figure out. We could tell there was a heart, and “I”, but we couldn’t tell what we were supposed to be loving. At first, I thought it was “I HEART U 2”, or “I HEART U !!”, but then we realized that the letters were slightly askew and it actually said “I HEART HK”. And also because of the huge amount of smoke that the fireworks created, the finale was slightly obscured by its own smoke.

After being shoved along with the crowd and Sara informing us of the dating habits of Chinese, which includes the male always buying EVERYTHING, which is completely ridiculous and not fair, (I think we got on the topic because of the fact that we always split the bill for everything) we decided to return to Soho, since it was only around 10 or something at night. (I apologize for that crazy long run-on sentence.) We arrived there without incident this time, and began our bar hopping. The Spot (again) and Josh got a photo with our adorable female bartender friend, The Peak (had very tasty drinks and a good appetizer, though the most expensive bar we would go to), Cochrane’s (specialty beer), and then back towards the metro after an exorbitant amount of time waiting for the bus to bring Sara home. Seriously, it was like an hour, and I got incredibly antsy and had to run around (literally) to expend some energy.

We FINALLY got on the metro, just before it closed, for the Wan Chai area to finish out our night. Not much more of note happened once Sara left, and it was bed time once again. Though while we walked back to the hostel , this time without walking in circles like we attempted the first time, we came across some lovely painted pigs. Which you can see here.

Day 21 – Space and Jay Chou is a Terrible Actor

This day would have been our last moments in Hong Kong, but we figured to stick around one more day and night. After considering how much money we’d spent the last few days, we made our brunch out of food from the nearby Wellcome Grocery Store (which we could use our Octopus card at, also no, that is not a spelling error). It was a lot like buying dinner with Lisa for dinner at Lund’s. I got sushi (predictably), bread, and a fruit combo of dragon fruit and watermelon. I took far too long debating whether I wanted strawberries and pineapple or dragon fruit and watermelon. It was a difficult decision.

The park we ate in was one we hadn’t explored thus far. It was dominated by female Filipino and other non-Chinese looking women. And they ALL had what seemed like ripped flat plastic bags as “blankets”. It was the only time we got stared at in Hong Kong, and it was disconcerting then because we’d gotten used to being normal. We weren’t sure if it was because we were white, or because we had a boy with us, or… what.

But the food and weather were delicious, and the next destination was the SPACE MUSEUM. Finally! It was open! And we bought tickets for both the exhibit portions and an iMax showing of “We Are Astronomers”.

There were two exhibit rooms, the space science portion that was noticeably outdated, and tried to emphasize what China has done in space (um, not much), and the astronomy wing with more information about stars and planets and such. They were decent, though I think I had over-hyped myself a little. I still enjoyed it though.

We had a bit of time left before the 6:10 skyshow, and so we exited the museum through the back door and onto the Avenue of the Stars once again. We got to see a fake pirate ship cross the harbor, and see part of the sunset.

The skyshow itself had two parts. The first was incredibly corny. It was a seasonal show about “guest stars”, and the English audio (we got headphones with a choice of audio on the armrest) was very Chinese and awkward sounding. For example, they said the words ‘visible’ and ‘subsequent’ with the wrong emphasis.

But the second main show “We Are Astronomers” was awesome. It had friggin’ David Tennant narrating which was BRILLIANT. It was a cool show with a very cool song at the end, though I noticed Marlie fell asleep at one point. Well, that just meant more astronomy and freaky cool space information for me.

Our last dinner in Hong Kong was at Shakey’s Pizza, since we promised ourselves we would have pizza while in Hong Kong. It was quite good, and apparently an American establishment originally though I’ve never heard of it.

We met with our friend Ray again at Manchester United once more for a drink, and to thank him for his assistance in our travels the days before. We got to use his iPad and iPhone to add ourselves as friends on facebook, and bid him adieu.

Now all through our adventures in Hong Kong, we’d seen commercials and advertisements for The Green Hornet, and I suggested that we see it for our last night. We weren’t sure where a movie theatre was by the Manchester, but we’d been seeing them frequently enough in Hong Kong, so we assumed we could find one nearby. And we did! We saw it in what was supposedly an iMax theater (it wasn’t) but it was in 3D. Not that we wanted or cared that it was.

The movie itself was… mediocre. Seth Rogen played the same character that he always does, which is not very super-heroey, and so I was hoping he would be a bit different. But no. And I think Cameron Diaz is far too old to be the love interest in movies anymore. The whole movie felt off, and rushed, and I never felt fully engaged or interested in the characters. Blodnofsky (the villain) was just… strange, and could have been so much better than he was, considering he was played by the same actor who played Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds.

And then there’s Jay Chou. Dear god, I don’t see the attraction of Jay Chou. His acting was incredibly forced and his character and (I think his real persona, since he can’t act) extremely arrogant. His delivery was stilted and pulled me out of the movie every time. He was an Asian Mary Sue.

Like I said, we saw it in 3D, and I wish we’d had the option to see it normally, because I don’t think there’s any point to 3D unless they are animated movies like Coraline. That’s the only movie I’ve seen in 3D that I actually remember the 3D effects AT ALL. The ticket was a little expensive, but at least we wasted two hours, I guess?

We weren’t up for much more after the mediocre showing of The Green Hornet, so we returned to Causeway Bay, got some snacks at Starbucks (surprisingly open at about midnight) and slept.

Next up... epic failure in Macau.