Hong Kong rocks...!

  Hong Kong, China
Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Hmm.. what can I say about Hong Kong? Well, imagine if you will, San
Francisco in all its drudgery and glory, then transplate Hollywood

front pict of cathedral

to there, and replace the hispanic population with more Chinese and african
americans with Indians, brits and aussies and you've got Hong Kong. Its
a very strange metropolitan mix..

Front of huge cathedral that I forget the nam

and I love it! (though maybe its the weather... it's actually a cool 80 here, with a nice breeze coming in
from the sea.. Mmmm... sea...

View of where I got my Visa and sea nearby

:)

Hong Kong is more laid back like Cali, unlike Taiwan which is more
"hurry, hurry, get out of my way" like New York and everything open all
night like Vegas. Strangely
enough, I've only been here for about just a
day, and I already feel more at home here than I have in Taiwan in two
weeks.

Hong Kong Park from middle looking out

Go figure. Maybe its because it is  so much more laid back,  a few more "white boy" faces around, to make one feel a little less alienated (or the fact that the asian women here speak with an English
accent.. I know it drives my co-worker crazy.. :)  Who knows.... its
just a gut feeling.)

bird aviary and tower where I took later pict

Or that I went down to the Soho area, and have had some wine and am now
piggy backing on their wireless to get caught up on e-mails and web
surfing.  Take your pick... :)


The freakiest thing today was (after waiting for an hour in the Visa
office to just hand over forms and run around and get more cash for the
damn express fee... failed to let me nkow how much it'd really be before
hand. :( that with all these lovely high sky scrapers, there is this
huge green park in the middle, and other very lush green parks scattered
about.

View of downtown sky scrapers from tower

I took alot of pictures of that area laone, as it was so cool.

view overlooking aviary

Have to download those to my computer when I get home and get the USB
cable. Don't have it in my bag at the moment.  Taipei I read last night
is the 2nd most crowded/population dense urban city, second only to
bangladesh, in the world. Here in Hong Kong things seem a bit more
spread out and just concentrated in teh downtown area... not like every
single inch of hte city.

tai chi park, check out the figure

THe funniest thing... :)) this monk was walking don teh street towards
me, and did his whole one hand bow monk thing then tried to peddle some
red chip to me.. "for luck" as I was talking towards him. I kept saying
"mao, mao" which I understand from folks is "no thank you" and tried not
to look at him as I passed him by. I guess he thought he'd try some high
pressure sales on me and grabbed my arm below
the elbow. I don't know
what hapenned next exactly, but my mind screamed "mugging!" and I cross
grabbed the outside of his hand with my right, twisted it over in a
small circle like I'd been taught and brought him over low, and I think
if my laptop bag hadn't been over my right shoulder in front of my knee,
I might have brought that up to something soft and painful like his
face/arm pit/nuts/stomach or whatever presented itself. The second that
what was really happening registered in my mind, I just had to start
laughing... This monk had a look of shock on his face that was
priceless... I guess he wasn't expecting to get kung-fued by a
foreigner. :)) I started to profess "de bu chei" (I think that's how you
spell it) which I understand to be sorry/excuse me and let him go rather
abruptly. The lady walking towards me was smiling ear to ear as I walked
away, and I couldn't help but wink at her as I walked on.

Interesting thing.. I've only been in Asia about two weeks, and I'm even
finding how striking it is to see light colored hair o folks walking
down the street. One lady walked by with auburn hair and green eyes and
I think I openly gawked at her. :) It was just so sharply contrasting to
what I've been getting "used to" these past couple weeks. I see now why
the Japanese and other asian trend is to streak or die their hair. When
done well, you really stand out from the crowd. Wonder what my problem
is then?

Sweet! My Penne sausage Thai sytle just arrived, so I'm going to have to
down this after letting it cool for a second and wash it down with
another lychee mojito.. had to try it when I saw it on the menu, and
it's delicous! Highly recommend it!

.
.
.

Mmm.. that was good. Damn good and spicy. I'd have to say, I have yet to
go a day without good food while I've been
out anywhere.

So I made it to the Man Mo Temple (awefully small thing)

Man Mo Temple main shrine

Man Mo what it used to be

but it was
under construction

Man Mo under construction

so my outside pictures are not as good as they could have been.

Man Mo Temple side shrine

Man Mo Temple side shrine better pict

Even got a shot of one of hte ladies burning the fake money in effegy to whoever outside in their not-so-small furnace.

Man Mo front side kiva

Very cool.. 
.glad I could at least make it to that and the Hong Kong Park today.

map of park, didn't come out good. :(

Well, I have time for one more Mojito and then its off to catch a cab
(my back/shoulders are killing me from hauling around this bag.) and off
to the airport shuttle train to ride back through Kowloon and then the
airport. Beautiful ride... looking forward to seeing it at night this
time and looking back at the bay.

View of inner city from tower

Hoping my camera can pick it up, but since its a camera phone (even though it's 3.0MEga pixel) I don't think it'll come through as well [it didn't.. :( ]. It's one thing to see tings in person,
awhole nother to see just through pictures.

view overlooking aviary

Tomorrow I have off due to Taiwan independence, though my boss wants to
take me out tonight since we do have it off, so tomorrow I'm hoping to
setup the website and then I can put up these e-mails in more of a
"blog" with pictures and then share outthe URL. Much easier than putting
this in e-mail and blind carboning folks.

Later as it happens!