Waygooks Wandering

Installment 2 of 4. This time it's about our crazy, rushed time in Beijing. Technically, we spent 5 days there, but we took 2 day trips, so we really only spent 3 days in the city itself.

We left Hong Kong in the early afternoon, so we arrived in Beijing at around 3pm. The flight was only about 3 hours. We landed in Beijing and followed the directions to the subway station mentioned in our AirBNB host's directions. In this case, he asked us to call a friend of his to come pick us up since he was on a business trip. The only problem was that we didn't have a working Chinese phone...so I had to ask a random person on the street to use his phone. The apartment that we were staying at wasn't far from the subway, but it would have been difficult to find on our own. You had to walk inside the apartment building complex and then through the maze of the interior of the building itself. The outside of the apartment building was a little sketchy and not that nice. I think that's mostly just because the buildings are a bit older than we are used to seeing in Korea. But the apartment itself was very nice. We had the entire second floor to ourselves, including our own bathroom and a kind of living room area. The friend who came to pick us up didn't speak much English, but our host came back a few days into our trip, and he was great and really helpful. By the time we got to the apartment, we really didn't have any time to see the sights. Instead, we grabbed some dinner at one of the many restaurants on the street between our apartment and the subway. The restaurant we ended up going into was actually on the second floor. We didn't realize when we walked in, but the first floor of the place was more of a lobby area. The maitre d brought us up to a beautiful ballroom-like restaurant with chandeliers. People weren't dressed too nicely, but we did feel a little bit out of place. We didn't know exactly what to order, especially because the menu at this place, and at many of the other restaurants in China that we encountered, was HUGE! It was really overwhelming to decide what to eat. We got some spicy fried chicken with dried chili peppers. The whole dish was super salty and dry. As you were eating, the salt made it feel like your whole tongue went dry. Not the best. We did have a good scallion pancake though. After our quick dinner, we went back to the apartment so that I could look at a map and plan a bit. As soon as we landed in Beijing and go on the wrong side of "The Great Firewall," we lost the ability to use gmail as well as Facebook. I knew that would happen, and yet, for some reason, it completely stressed me out. I needed ask mom to contact people for me, and once she did, I felt better. Also, the air pollution was way work in Beijing that Hong Kong. Gianni and I both had headaches from it our first night there, and at times, your mouth tastes like you licked a lot of stamps...not the best for your health, but probably okay for a short trip. They have regulations in place to try to decrease the air pollution. You have to have a permit for your car to drive in Beijing, and there are only certain days you can drive. Most people use electric motorbikes instead.

Notes for travelers to Beijing: Beijing is an important place to visit because of all the historical sites to see, but it was probably the least tourist-friendly city of the three we visited. There were signs in English, but the level of English spoken by people seemed much lower than that in Korea. In Korea, most people seem to speak basic words in English, but in China, it was hard to find people to help us if we were lost. We had to ask in hotels, and even then, we ran into problems at times. Be prepared for security checks as you enter the subway as well as many of the tourist sites. Also, if you are looking for a specific exit from the subway, you may only be able to get there from the actual train platform. Usually, staircases out of the subway tracks will meet on one main platform, but in Beijing, the staircases in some stations went to separate places. Look for your exit letter as soon as you get off the train. There are bike lanes for bicycles, which are popular in China, and motorbikes in Beijing and Shanghai. Just be careful crossing the street. I like the bike lanes though because they are way safer for pedestrians than in Korea where you can get hit by a motorbike anywhere you walk. Another important note is that the tourist sites all seem to close by 4pm in the winter. They might be open a bit later in the summer, but if you're going in the winter, plan to get up early and get things done before then. They also do not give directions in terms of rights and lefts. They use north, east, south, west in giving directions, so use a map or your phone's compass to help you get around and find other tourist sites.

Tuck in people, it's time for another long one. This time it's about China. I'm going to write in three or four different installments so that it's easier for you to read and follow. This first one is going to be about the first leg of our 2-week long winter vacation trip to China, which was spent in Hong Kong. We spent 5 days there from January 17-22.

First, I want to mention that we went through a travel company, Soho Travel, based in Seoul for this trip. They looked all our flights and organized our visas through the Chinese consulate in Seoul. They were a really big help and made the process quite easy. Unfortunately, Chinese visas is more expensive for Americans than for people from any other country. We payed about $210 each for ours. That being said, there was a recent law passed that makes it mandatory for Americans to buy multiple entry visas that are valid for 10 years, and they don't cost much more than they used to. Basically, it makes it worth it to pay a little bit more because you can easily come back to China anytime within 10 years. This logistical info is just for anyone in Korea at the moment looking into taking a trip to China. Soho travel is way easier than doing it all by yourself, and they speak English well. One more thing: we, obviously, visited China during winter, meaning that it was off-peak season. During our trip, we waited in very short/non-existent lines for attractions, and, at times, paid less for entrance fees. It is cold (except in Hong Kong) and some attractions do close early because of the shorter days, but if you are traveling on a budget, it may make sense for you to come in the winter too. It wasn't all that much of a problem.

We had an early flight to Hong Kong from Seoul in the morning on the 17th, so we actually headed to Seoul on the 16th and stayed overnight at a place I found on AirBNB that is about 10 minutes from the airport. We used AirBNB the cover our accommodation for the entire trip. I had never used it before, but it turned out really well. Tylor and Soomi are a married Korean couple who we stayed with in Incheon. They were lovely people, and their extra bedroom was very comfortable. Tylor even drove us to the airport in the morning to catch our flight. The flight to Hong Kong was only about 4 hours. We had really comfortable seats that seemed like they were business class, but I don't think they actually were. I guess the travel company booked us the nice seats. I watched Boyhood on the way, and I know it's critically acclaimed and up for Best Picture this year, but it really didn't do it for me. The beginning was good, and there were definitely parts I liked. I thought the adult characters were well-acted. Obviously, it is an interesting concept to track one kid as he grows up for 12 years, but the when he is a teenager, it just kind of felt like an adult's idea of what a teenager is doing and thinking--some of it was accurate, but I just found myself thinking "who talks like this?" Maybe it's just that I wasn't like that nor did I have friends like that, but it was just weird at the end. Anyway, this isn't a review of Boyhood, it is a post about our vacation in China. Back to that.

A few notes about Hong Kong for travelers: I should mention that Hong Kong is a little different than the rest of China. "The Great Firewall," which blocks some websites (like gmail and facebook) in the rest of China, does not exist in Hong Kong. You also do not need a Chinese visa to visit Hong Kong. It's just a very different system that is very easy for foreigners and tourists, steaming from the fact that Hong Kong was owned by the British and only transferred back to China in 1997. I'm sure the British made some visa and trade agreements with China when that occurred, making Hong Kong's laws quite different from those in the rest of China. There are actually a lot of lingering British influences in Hong Kong. The actual city of Hong Kong is separated into different parts. The New Territories are on the main land but kind of far out, so we didn't actually go to that area. Then, there is Kowloon, which is where we were staying on the mainland. There are also several islands. Hong Kong Island is the biggest and most people also visit Lantau Island. I planned to spent 2 days seeing things in Kowloon and 1 day on each of the islands, and my plan went very smoothly when all was said and done. Hong Kong is super simple for tourists. There are signs on practically ever street corner pointing to the famous tourist attractions, and the level of English seemed higher than in the other cities we visited. Some people could speak English, and most places had English menus. I'm sure the increased focus on English is another bit of British influence. Also, they speak Cantonese not Mandarin Chinese, so learn a few words from each. We learned "hello" and "thank you."

the never-ending train

When we landed in Hong Kong, it was the afternoon. China is only one hour behind Seoul's time, so we didn't have any problems with that. We made our way to our accommodation for the 5 days there. It was quite easy to find because it was only a few minutes walk from a subway station. That being said, the subways and public transportation are hugely crowded in Hong Kong (and in all the cities in China). The subways are interesting because the trains are all open, so there's no break at the end of a car. You can look down the train and see all the way straight through. It pretty cool to see. There is also not a lot of seating on the trains. They are wider, and there are a lot of hand-holds, so people are kind of expected to stand. Anyway, we got to our subway stop and walked a few minutes to get to our place. Good thing I was looking for numbers on the buildings because our room was actually on the 24th floor of a building that was having some construction done in the "lobby" area. You might not think it was residential because there's no main door, just a large opening in the wall. The lobby area is basically just a room with a bank of elevators. Most buildings in Hong Kong have businesses on the ground floor and apartments above, which is way different than Korea. In Korea, you have the big apartment buildings or, at least, apartment buildings separated from business buildings. But not so in Hong Kong. Additionally, most things in Hong Kong happen at street level because that's where all the restaurants and shops are. You don't have to look up to find things like you do in Korea. Because of this, the

Just a few of the many neon signs

signs for businesses jut out into the road quite far. They compete for your attention at every turn, and they have definitely elevated neon signs to an art form. Some of these signs were beautiful and very colorful, even if we couldn't read them. I think Gianni had it right when he said that "Hong Kong is what Korea would be if the buildings in Korea had been built in the 1980's." The buildings are all older, and they have to get enough housing in to account for the high population density. Actually, we found out later that our room was smack dab in the middle of one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Hong Kong seems to renovate from the inside. The buildings look really old from the outside, but it seems like they are slowly being updated on the inside. For example: the hallway outside the elevator on our floor of the apartment building looks like a scene from the movie Hostel, but once we got into the smaller hallway with our room and a few others, it was all updated and nice looking, as was our room itself. I guess you would have to renovate like that because there is no room for doing large construction projects outside. Anyway, it was very simple to check into our room. AirBNB is usually a website that lets you stay with local people in their apartments if they have an extra room, but in the case of Hong Kong, most of the room situations seemed to be more like guesthouses, which is what we stayed in. I was fine with that, and the guy who checked us in spoke great English and made some great recommendations. Because of how many people live in Hong Kong, the rooms/apartments are all really small. Our room had the tiniest bathroom ever. You had to sit on the toilet to shower. It basically only fit a bed and a little side table, which was just fine for us. It was cleaned everyday, and the guesthouse staff were friendly. They even gave us a SIM card to use in China for free. After we checked into the room, I took a few minutes to regroup and locate us on the airport tourist map. I had a list of things I wanted to see but no idea where anything was. I spent some time finding things and seeing what was near us, and we got a good recommendation from our guesthouse manager for a barbecue place. We were starving, and the food there was excellent. We found out that in China they serve hot/warm water with your meal instead of cold. We got used to it after a while. After that, we headed out to one of the

Ladies Market

very famous markets that was quite close to our room. The Ladies Market is a big market with tons of stalls. Vendors sell anything from clothing to electronics, including some Chinese souvenirs. I probably spent a bit too much money since most things can be bought elsewhere, but everything was so cheap. I went to China prepared to haggle, and I got everything for below asking price. I'm not a great haggler, but hooray for small victories anyway. The currency in Hong Kong is the Hong Kong Dollar, which is about 7.75 to 1 USD. The $10 HKD is actually made of plastic and not paper, and it is really colorful and crazy, so we ended up keeping one for ourselves since it isn't worth a lot anyway. After walking the market, Gianni and I were already tired from our travels, so we went back to the room for a quick nap. Well...Gianni napped while I planned our next few days in Hong Kong. Once we had the rest we needed, we decided to walk a little ways to the Temple Street Night Market. It had some of the same things as the Ladies Market, but it also includes food. Gianni and I stopped and grabbed some delicious street food for dinner. We had some dumplings and buns I believe. It's a really nice market, and people sit outside to eat at most of the tiny restaurants nearby. I should mention that the weather in Hong Kong was lovely--sweatshirt weather, but no big coats! After our little market trip, we headed back to the room for bed.

The wall of the Walled City

On the second day, I figured we would acquaint ourselves with our area and see some sights in Kowloon. First, we got breakfast. Hong Kong breakfasts are very British--they had eggs, sausages, toast, etc., and milk tea (black tea with milk) is very popular. I was a big fan of breakfast in Hong Kong. They also love sweetened, condensed milk, and they put it on a lot of things. Every morning for breakfast, my meal came with a bread roll with butter and condensed milk on it. It was interesting, and I didn't hate it at all--my sweet tooth! We then took a double-decker bus, driving on the wrong side of the road, (other bits of British influence) to Kowloon Walled City Park. I should mention

Kowloon Walled City Park

that people actually wait in LINES for buses! It's amazingly controlled and makes it so much easier for people. We need to instate this policy everywhere! The buses don't talk nearly as much as they do in Korea. Also, we only noticed the signs on the bus in English at a few stops, which made things a little confusing for us since we had no idea how to read Chinese and no idea where we were. That was the only minor difficult part about Hong Kong that we faced. Kowloon Walled City Park is a beautiful little park in the northern part of Kowloon. It has a long history and had several other functions before being made into a park in 1995. The Walled City was actually built as a Chinese military fort in attempts to stop the British from taking over the city during the Opium Wars (which I will talk more about later). I think the British later took over the fort. Later, it became an alms house. Post-World War II, the

a model of what the Kowloon Walled City used to look like

population of the area swelled, and Kowloon Walled City was built up to accommodate that. Massive illegal tenement buildings were built up. The Walled City is only about 6 acres, but more than 33,000 people lived there in the 1970's. The buildings were slums, and the apartments were tiny. There was an exhibit at the park featuring interviews with former residents of Kowloon Walled City. There was also a model of what the buildings looked like and how close they all were together. The area was almost completely unregulated by the government. Drugs and prostitution were very common there, and the Walled City was demolished in 1993. Walking around the beautiful park that replaced these slums, I couldn't even fathom fitting all those people into such a small area. It would have been a site to see, that's for sure. Gianni was also right to question what happened to all those people after their houses were torn down. They were, in no way, a good place to live, but where did all the people go afterwards?

Wong Tai Sin Temple

garden at Wong Tai Sin Temple

praying with incense

Our second stop for the day was Wong Tai Sin Temple. On our walk between the Walled City and the temple, we noticed a few terraced cemeteries. There are so many people in Hong Kong that the space for cemeteries would be insane if they did it the way we do at home. Instead, there were big, terraced hills completely covered in monuments. This is a little morbid, I realize, but it was something interesting we noticed. Back on track-- Wong Tai Sin Temple is actually not a Buddhist temple, but a Taoist one instead. I don't know a whole lot about Taoism, but it is a way of life that emphasizes simplicity and naturalness. They believe there is a tao (force/way) that flows through everything. It is a religion, but the principles of it can be applied to other aspects of life. It mostly speaks about how to live your individual, spiritual life. If you've heard of "ch'i" before, that is part of Taoism. Taoism has a long history in China. This particular temple is famous for answering prayers. The purpose of a Taoist's life is attaining immortality, and this temple is dedicated to one man who was able to do this, Wong Tai Sin (Great Immortal Wong). It was super crowded when we went. There's a massive gate out front, and before you get to the main build of the temple, there are the statues for the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac. It was our first temple in China, but we visited Buddhist ones later, and people of both religions prayed in a similar way. It is always really interesting for us to see the different ways Buddhism is practiced. It's all the same religion, but in Thailand, the temples were super ornate while in Korea they are very simple. In China they are not as ornate as Thailand but still more than Korea, and they pray using a lot of incense, which is not done in Korea. The incense were hard core at Wong Tai Sin temple. We couldn't hang around for a long time because of it. Behind the main temple buildings, there was a lovely little garden with a pond.

Nan Lian Garden

Chi Lin Nunnery

It was kind of a nice segue into our next stop: Nan Lian Gardens and Chi Lin Nunnery. The Garden is a classic, Chinese-style garden built in the style of Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD). It had all kinds of beautiful plants, trees, and flowers as well as interesting buildings. The best part of a beautiful gold-painted pavilion in the center of a lake with a bright red bridge leading up to it. It was really cool to see the juxtaposition of a natural garden area with the big buildings of the city right behind it. We walked around the garden for a bit, and I bought a fan charm for my charm bracelet from the gift shop. Connected to the Garden is the Chi Lin Nunnery, which is a beautiful Buddhist temple complex built in 1934, again following building techniques of the Tang Dynasty. I wasn't aware that the term "nunnery" could be applied to Buddhist temples as well. I didn't see any monks, but I believe it is the same. Nunnery is the name given to a temple that is run by female monks. You learn something new everyday. We were both famished by that point, so we grabbed a quick lunch from a food court in one of Hong Kong's many malls. It was packed in there, and it took us forever to find a seat. Gianni and I got a pot of soup with dumplings and chicken to share. I also got a smoothie (very common in Hong Kong) and some egg bread (kind of like waffles, but with puffed out bits that look like small-eggs).

replica of a resting buddha from one of the caves

model statues and paint from one cave

After lunch, we headed to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum because I had heard it was the best museum in the city. It's built on a river, and there are paths along the river that people actually run on! People don't run on the streets in Korea, but they definitely do in China (Hong Kong at least). The Heritage Museum houses special exhibits as well as permanent ones about Hong Kong culture and history. Unfortunately, the permanent exhibit had been moved out because of a special Poster Art Competition, but at least that was interesting. There were posters from around the world in the competition. We even caught one advertising Taekwondo for Korea! There was an interesting special exhibit that took up the majority of space in the museum about the Dunhuang Caves. The term "caves" is a bit misleading. It's more like small family temples carved into the cliffs. Typically, you have to go to Dunhuang to see them, so it was great to be able to learn about them while in Hong Kong. We took an English tour of the exhibit, and the tour guide was really funny (unintentionally on her part). She kept saying "mhm yeah" after everything she said, as though she was affirming to herself that she was, in fact, using the appropriate words in English. Anyway, they had several artifacts and statues found within some of the caves, and they had recreated a few caves as well. The caves were built by wealthy families (donors) for monks to meditate and pray, and every wall of the caves are covered in Buddhist paintings as well as, sometimes, paintings of the donors themselves. They are really quite beautiful. The caves are estimated to have been built starting in 4th century AD. There was one cave, called the Library Cave, where important Chinese manuscripts were discovered. It had been sealed in the 11th century,

Bruce Lee Exhibit

perhaps to keep invaders away from them, and discovered in the early 1900s. Wouldn't it be amazing to be a modern person who could actually read documents from thousands of years ago because your language was actually that old!? I mean I know there would be some differences, but to be able to legitimately read most of the things in museums and know how old they are would be just wonderful. After spending quite a bit of time at that exhibit, Gianni and I went to see the Bruce Lee exhibit that was going on. Bruce Lee is a native of Hong Kong, as are a lot of the action stars that have become household names, like Jackie Chan. I guess Hong Kong is just like a mecca for martial arts masters for some reason. There were former costumes, letters, and film clips from his life and career, and it was all displayed in recreations of 1950's style buildings. Bruce Lee died suddenly at the age of 32 in 1973, and the cause of his death is still debated. Unfortunately, his son also died quite young due to an accidental shooting on the set of a movie. It was quite an interesting museum, and I think we got to see some pieces of Chinese history. I just wish it had taught us more about Hong Kong specifically--at least that's what I had anticipated.

Our last stop of the day was Sky 100, the tallest building in Hong Kong located right on the water. We went at night, so we got to see all the lights of the city. You can see across to Hong Kong Island, too. Hong Kong Island is kind of the business center of the city, so the waterfront on that side is covered in skyscrapers, each with a different company name all lit up. The tickets to go up Sky100 were a little pricey, and it's nice because the staff will actually warn you about visibility issues due to air pollution (which, btw, is no where near as bad as in Beijing or Shanghai, but is still a problem). When we went up, I believe we were at about 70% visibility, which was fine. We still got some nice pictures. Gianni and I had some tired feet after that day of walking, so it was time to head back to the hotel for some sleep. We got a taxi from Sky100 to take us back to our area. The taxis in Hong Kong are color coded depending on area so that people can be sure they are getting a real, legal taxi. Typical taxis that I am used to are usually pretty nice, new cars (at least in Korea), but in Hong Kong they were cars straight out of the 90's--very boxy and old on the outside, but not run-down. They were actually not too bad on the inside at all though. Also, the drivers have an automatic button that pops the door open for you when you're about to get inside, which is a nice touch.


Our third day in Hong Kong was our Hong Kong Island day. As I said before, Hong Kong Island is the business center of the city. It feels completely different from Kowloon in many ways. Kowloon feels like New York and London collided in China. Hong Kong Island feels more like San Francisco (there are trolleys and hills) and New York combined. There are massive sky scrapers everywhere. We took the ferry across, which was a nice ride. Getting to see the skyline of the Island from a different perspective. The ferry terminal was near Golden Bauhinia Sqaure (name for the golden statue that was built there) and the Expo Center. From there, you can get a nice view of the other side of the skyline on Kowloon. I asked someone to take a picture of Gianni and I, but it was a Chinese guy who didn't know how to work my complicated camera...or so I gathered. He said no, and then his wife roped me in to taking a picture with her instead! Did I ever mention how much I absolutely HATE taking pictures with strangers who don't even bother to TALK to me first!? I know I shouldn't be so sensitive about it because it happens in Korea too, but it's the weirdest thing, and I actually do hate it.

After that we headed towards Hollywood Road, which is a fancy road with all kinds of expensive antiques shops along it. There were some with actual carved elephant tusks, which I know is disgusting, but these were so intricately carved that I couldn't help but be impressed. Also on that street is a really old-looking temple called Man Mo Temple. Apparently, this temple is for the worship of the literature god, Man Tai, and the martial god, Mo Tai. These Gods are worshiped in Buddhism and Taoism, but they are popular with scholars and students. Man Mo temples always worship these 2 Gods. The temple was built in 1847. The altar is covered in offerings to the Gods, like fruits and snacks as well as incense. This temple was made of stone and looked a bit run down outside and in, with the exception of the altars, which were very well taken car of. There were some red lanterns as well as cone-shaped incense burners hanging on the ceiling. It was quaint and, again, interesting to watch people pray with their hands in prayer position and incense between their hands. They shake the incense and move their hands, still in prayer position, up to their heads as well. Every country in Asia has its own style of Buddhist worship.

Antiques Market

Victoria Peak harbor view

We stopped at a small, outdoor antiques market and got a few souvenirs before lunch. There are a ton of small, congested markets in the alleyways on the hills in that area of Hong Kong Island. Most were selling things for Chinese New Year as well as fresh produce. We stopped for lunch, and Gianni got one of his favorite Chinese dishes, mapu tofu. After lunch we tried to get a taxi to take us to the Victoria Peak tram that would take us up the mountain. Instead, we had a miscommunication, and he drove us ALL THE WAY up the mountain. It was alright in the end because we saw the line when we came down, and it was long. We might have done the right thing to pay more and get us faster. Victoria Peak is a mountain on Hong Kong Island. At the top is a large shopping mall (there were malls EVERYWHERE in China, which is strange because we don't get traditional shopping malls a lot here in Korea). The mall has several viewing platforms where you can look out over the harbor for free. You can see the back view of the buildings on Hong Kong Island as well as the Kowloon side and the blue water in between them. The air quality wasn't bad at all, and it was actually pretty windy up there. The view is stunning. You can also go up a bit higher in the special Victoria Peak building, but you have to pay for that, and we were satisfied with our view as it was. We were able to take the tram down the Peak, so at least we did it once. The tram is cool. You sit in a wooden seat, and it goes up and down on the tracks. The view is kind of obscured by trees and plants, but the incline is really steep, so it's fun to go down on.

Near the base of the peak tram is the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens. It is a beautiful park that has an impressive array of plants and flowers as well as animals. There were tons of children playing around a fountain in the park, and we noticed a fair number of white children playing with their nannies. It reminded me of what it must be like in NYC--all the kids being taken care of by their nannies while their parents are at work. Still, we don't see a lot of foreign children in Korea, especially not in Daegu, so it goes to show how many families of businessmen and women live in Hong Kong and on the Island. The greenhouse at the Gardens was pretty interesting architecturally. It seemed like a lot of the sun was actually blocked out by wooden slats, but there were large windows so you can look into it from a bridge on the second level without actually going in. The zoo was my favorite part. There were all kinds of exotic birds, but there were also some incredible monkeys and apes! I'd never seen some animals like this up close before. The orangutans were pretty cool. The male one was trying to get some plants from through the bars of the cage, using a stick. Pretty smart guy! It was nice to walk around the peaceful garden and see the animals.

We took the ferry back across the harbor and checked out the Tsmi Sha Tsui Promenade. There are a lot of museums and Hong Kong landmarks right along the Promenade. One important place is the Clock Tower. It was built in 1915 as art of the Kowloon-Canton Railway terminus. The station is gone, but the clock tower has remained. It is an interesting landmark as it is done in really European style. There are also palm trees lining the promenade, which makes it feel like you have been transported to LA. The promenade runs right along the Kowloon side of the harbor with nice views of Hong Kong Island. We walked along it for a while and took pictures at the Avenue of the Stars, a Hollywood-style stars walkway with autographs, stars, and hand prints for some major Hong Kong celebrities. It was getting late, and we needed to get some food, so we went back to Mongkok, the area we stayed in.



The fourth day of our trip in Hong Kong was, in both our opinions, our favorite. We took the train out to Lantau Island. There are actually subway stops on both Hong Kong Island and Lantau, so we wanted to try both. The subway stop on Lantau Island lets you off right near the entrance to the Ngong Ping 360 Cable Car terminal. If you are planning a trip to Hong Kong, the cable cars are a MUST do experience to have. People will try to sell you packages along the way, but it's not really worth it. We did buy a package, but one that was directly from the cable car ticket office. We got the land, air, sea package ticket, which included a round trip cable car trip, a boat ride in the Tai O fishing village, and the bus to get to the village. It is fairly easy to get around, and I'm still debating about whether the price was worth buying the package ticket or not, but we had fun regardless. The ticket is a bit expensive for the cable car, but it is a 25 minute long ride through mountains. It's absolutely beautiful. You can see the airport, which is also on Lantau Island along with Disneyland. The cars are small, and they don't pack in tons of people, so it's very comfortable and easy to take pictures. I expect there would be huge lines in the summer during peak season, but off-peak, we waited about 10 minutes. It was a lovely ride. The cable car lets you off in Ngong Ping village, a tourist trap built to get people to buy souvenirs. Don't bother with the food or souvenirs there.

Tai O Fishing Village: houses on stilts

The ticket girl told us exactly how to take the bus to the Tai O fishing village from there. It was very simple. The people who actually live on Lantau Island must be so annoyed because they also use the same buses the tourists do to get around. Their island buses are constantly full of tourists. The buses though are big tour buses, so people don't get packed in and everyone gets a seat. The tour bus driver was going so fast down the windiest roads to get off the mountain. It was kind of insane. It dropped us off at the Tai O fishing village, a sight I was very excited to see. It's a traditional fishing village on the island, so you can take a look around and see the old ways of doing things. Obviously, some things are tourist traps nowadays, but it still felt pretty authentic.

Before walking around the village, we used our boat ride ticket. We got in a little speed boat that took us around to see the village's houses built on stilts. After checking those out for a few minutes, the boat went out into the open water. Chinese white dolphins are a pretty rare kind of dolphin, and there are a bunch that live off the coast of Lantau Island. We were lucky enough to get to see some on our ride! I was disappointed because I didn't have my zoom lens, but I tried as best I could to take some pictures of the dolphins.

best seafood ever!

puffer fish souvenir

After our little boat ride, Gianni and I wandered around the village and looked for a lunch spot. There are all kinds of twisted little alleyways and tiny shops. At one point we walked by someone who made egg bread using actual fire and a waffle iron instead of electric heat. We also walked by a funeral service being held right out in the street. One shop was selling beautiful, handmade paintings of flowers in the Chinese style as well. Eventually, we settled on a restaurant in the more heavily-touristy area because we knew they'd have English on the menu. This wasn't a big village, mind you, but the tourists tend to stay near the parking lot where they can get back on the bus. Gianni and I were both attracted to the smell of cheese stuffed seafood being grilled right out in front of the restaurant. Inside, the walls were covered in messages about how excellent the food was written by visitors from around the world. We ordered an assorted plate of stuffed seafood, and the notes were right: the best were the oysters and shrimp. It was probably the best seafood I have ever eaten. It was clearly fresh, being that we were in a fishing village, and they were cooked excellently. It was a bit pricey, but I was willing to pay for good food. I bought a few seashells from one of the stalls selling souvenirs. I'm hoping that they were actual seashells that someone found or fished out of the ocean. I think they are. There were other stalls selling dried puffer fishes that were all spiky, and I even saw a friend baby shark that was cut in half!

We took the bus back up to the main area near the cable cars. Just a short walk away was the Po Lin Monastery and Big Buddha (Tian Tan Buddha). The Po Lin Monastery is a Buddhist monastery that was founded in 1906 and the Big Buddha was finished in 1993. The monastery was nice, but not that large, so the main attraction was the Buddha. You have to walk up a really tall staircase to get to the base of it. It was a pretty impressive statue, but the view from up there was even more incredible. After catching our breath and enjoying the view, we took the lovely cable car back down to the base of the mountain and caught the subway back to our area.


We made three last stops before calling it a night. We caught the bird market, fish market, and flower market as they were closing up. There are a ton of random markets in Hong Kong, and so we had to check them out. The flower market smells wonderful. There are legitimate flower shops selling arrangements and loose flowers, but there are also people selling from trucks off the street. It's an interesting mix of vendors. They have any kind of flower you can imagine, and some that I had never seen before. After walking the streets there for a bit, we found the bird market. The bird market isn't just on a street. To get in you have to go up some stairs, and there's a partially covered area for the market. There were TONS of bird varieties all chirping in cages either stacked or hanging in the stalls. Vendors were also selling cages and food (lots and lots of boxes of crickets! yikes!) for the birds. The birds were really pretty. I guess birds are popular pets in China because people like to listen to them chirping. It would drive me nuts, but to each his own. The last market we stopped at was the goldfish market. The fish market is basically just a ton of fish stores in one area with outdoor displays of fishes in bags of water. I should mention, these are live fish of all different exotic varieties, so not for eating. There were tons of bags of fish as well as tanks full of then. The bigger, more beautiful fish were in big tanks inside the shops themselves.

For dinner, Gianni had found good reviews about a place called Dim Dim Sum. We found it, and it was actually really close to our room. There were tons of people inside, but we didn't have to wait for a table. The food was incredible! It was actually on the list of 200 restaurants in the world that you should eat at. We ordered all kinds of dumpling as well as a few things that were recommended by the magazine that ranked them in the top 200. We also got some "piggy buns" because who could resist that name! They were custard filled and really good. It was no an expensive meal at all--most of the food in China is pretty cheap.

figures at the history museum

space museum

art museum