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December 25, 2004

The rest of Hong Kong

So saturday was christmas day. It didn't really feel like christmas, it was so weird. Tom's family and I all went out for dim sum lunch one last time and then to a chinese buddhist nunnery, which was cool. From there back on Cathay pacific to Bangkok, with a special christmas dinner with haagen-dazs and good food from some well known restaurant in HK.

Friday night, on christmas eve, apparently the big thing in Hong Kong is to go to Tsim Sha Tsui (TST) and watch the fireworks and see the lights and make random hook-ups if you're a teenager. That night we spent the night at a very local, and very excellent seafood, where the market is right outside - you pick the poor guys and they cook them for you, HK$50 a plate + the cost of the seafood. It was really good. That day was spent watching Kung Fu Hustle, directed by Stephen Chow, a very campy hong kong movie that apparently referenced a great many chinese movies according to Tom. His brother, Luke, came with us, and he seemed to enjoy the movie a lot, as did Tom. afterwards we all went to the arcade and played games, which was fun. That was pretty much all of Friday.

Thursday was my chill day as Tom went to socialize with friends. I went to Shatin for lunch at Oliver's and some more starbucks coffee, unsuccessfully looked for an adapter for my headphones, and navigated back to the flat. That night we met up at the HMV and from there we went to the peak for dinner and I took shots of the view from the top of the mountain onto downtown and the harbor. Afterwards I had my fortune told by a palm and face reader, who told me I would be rich, which is good because he charged me HK$200 for the reading.

Tom was entertained by the smashable penis that we found, a lewd version of the egg and tomato that he bought the other night at the open market near Tsam Shai Po. Along that same vein were scandalous undergarments of varying themes and shapes, a full range of vibrators and a plethora of saunas and clubs, displaying the female talent on their bulletin board out front.

Tuesday Tom and I went on a tour that he and his mom booked at Shatin. Unfortunately the guide spoke only cantonese and mandarin - guess I should have studied more. So Tom translated the essentials, which equals anything that interested him and that he was up for translating. I didn't push him though cuz I know how annoying that can get. We went to the buddha statue, the biggest in all of asia - though just recently constructed, so I'm not sure how much credence it has. There's a museum built into it, for instance. The monastery across the way was interesting, though a bit touristy for mine and Tom's taste. Before we briefly visited what remained of one of the small villages that used to make up Hong Kong. The walls were still there, as were the chinese cannons, put there to ward off south china sea pirates and the portugese no doubt during the tang(?) dynasty. The British turned it into a police station and a school is the only building that remains inside the walls. The cannons are now pointed at the high rise public housing, in apparent defense of what is left of a pre-industrial hong kong. After the buddha we went to the "venice of hong kong" aka small chinese fishing village. Tom and I liked it the best because it was the least touristy and most ethnically authentic part of hong kong we saw. We took a quick boat trip out to the harbor and saw the airport, and went through the main canal of the city. Then it was on to the suspension bridge that connects the airport to kowloon - probably the second biggest landmark in hong kong after the harbor. At that point we had spent most of the day on the tour. We waited around TST though for night when I could take night shots of the harbor. It was hazy so not ideal but I got some excellent shots later.

Posted by Peter on December 25, 2004 10:11 PM
Category: China - Hong Kong
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