Who ever thought you'd see those two things lumped together?...Anyone who's spent a good weekend in Hong Kong, that's who.
So it was Halloween weekend, and as such the city was crazy. I had some inkling that Hong Kong would go all-out for the holiday because when I took Henry to one of the outdoor markets last week to get a costume I had trouble finding anything for a 3 year old boy among all of the "slutty nurse", "skanky pirate", and "really skanky...prostitute with bunny ears?" costumes. I stayed away from Lan Kwai Fong, the biggest party area, assuming it would be too crowded to even be any fun. Instead, I went with Jasmine, a really nice local girl that I've met and hung out with a few times, to a party at a bar in Times Square. A couple of her friends, who are French/Chinese (just the right mix for me, I suppose) reserved a section of a bar and, for a small cover charge, kept the Chinese beer coming all night long. They taught me to play a couple of the dice games that the Chinese people are generally obsessed with. The first was basically a version of poker played with dice, so that wasn't too hard--the person with the worst hand twice in a row had to drink. The second game was a version of bullsh*t, which is too complicated to explain here. The third, 789, is played by taking turns rolling the dice, then doing the corresponding action--7 means you fill the communal glass, 8 means you drink half of that glass, and 9 means you drink the whole glass. All other numbers are inconsequential, unless you get overzealous when rolling the dice and one drops out of the bowl, in which case the offender has to drink whatever is in the communal glass. The unlucky guy sitting next to me was nicknamed "Mr. 9" by the end of the night. He was fun. I talked to a very nice French guy named Franck for part of the night--he's in HK starting up a high-end lingerie company with a friend of his; in 2-5 years, look for the brand PIMP in a store near you. I'm pretty sure he wasn't lying :)
I was worthless all day Saturday. Sunday, I got my act together and went out. Just outside of Lan Kwai Fong, I came across a biker rally--I think it may have been a premier of Ducati's 2009 line. I was just excited to see a Chinese biker gang:
After that fun, I made my way to the central pier to catch a ferryboat out to Lantau Island--the largest of the many islands surrounding HK. Disneyland is there, which I plan on visiting at some point. I went to see the Po Lin Monastery and the Big Buddha. The Big Buddha is so named because it is the largest outdoor Buddha statue in the world; it is quite impressive. The monastery is pretty amazing too. I find that the Chinese, in general, aren't big on subtlety--everything that is meant to be impressive or luxurious is pretty over the top, often edging into gaudy. It works in the temples though; they are awe-inspiring, covered in gold and flowers and always smelling strongly of the incense lit by the people who come to pray. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I had lunch at the monastery; you can buy a meal ticket for the vegetarian restaurant on the grounds and receive a 4 course meal: soup, fried egg rolls, sauteed bean curd and mushrooms, and sauteed peppers, served with tea and a big pot of sticky rice. Really delicious. I'm getting better at eating with chopsticks too. My technique is fine, it's just that my muscles fatigue about half way through a meal...I'm working on it. Anyway, enough talk; on to the pictures:
First thing I saw on the island--when they have to point out that it's a "Cooked Food Market," it just makes you less confident. They're overselling it.
These guys looked like fun...
Yes, those are Sunkist oranges, direct from the USA, being offered to the diety. Do you think they get a special discount?
I followed the Wisdom Path from the monastery and found this outdoor exhibition. It's an ancient philosophical passage about finding enlightenment, written in caligraphy on a series of wooden planks set into the mountainside in a figure 8 (a very lucky number in China). I only wish I had some clue what it said...it probably has the meaning of the universe or something, but I don't get to know just because I don't understand ancient Chinese characters...darn.
This was just a cool mountain. It looked like the clouds surrounding it
were about to swallow it whole.
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