Somehow, during a vacation where I’m not doing that much, I don’t seem to have much time to blog! So this is a multi-day summary, all being written at the same time actually – this is now all post-trip, but I’m still trying to blog chronologically so you can sort of follow along.
On Thursday in week 2, went to Ocean Park. Turns out most of Mainland China also went to Ocean Park that day, since they have the entire week off for CNY, whereas Hong Kongers went back to work on Thursday. My family told me it would be crowded, but even they didn’t realize how crowded it would be!!! Lineups were: 1.5 hours to take the cable car up to the Headlands, where all the great exhibits were (also a great scenic ride); 1.5 hours to see the Jellyfish exhibit (while it rained on us – hard); 75 minutes of sitting in the rain, for a 20 minute dolphin & sea lion theatre show; 45 minutes to see the aquarium. No line up for the underwater shark tunnel, but the tunnel was like a 1 minute viewing thing. Oh – and every time we went to the washroom, it was at least a 20 minute lineup. We ate at odd times so we could avoid the food lineups (p.s. – do not eat hot dogs in HK, they are gross!)
So ok, the lineups and rain were really annoying, but they were not the worst part. The Chinese people were. The exhibits themselves were awesome, and I would totally go again to see them (the aquarium in particular, which took the longest, was amazing! Such a huge variety of fish, and tons of them! There were 3 stories worth of fish, and I saw just about all of the ones from Finding Nemo!) But even after all the lineups, once you got inside, it was ridiculous. Frankly, Ocean Park should not have let in all those people, because they could not handle the capacity. It was wall to wall Chinese people, and (I’m stereotyping here, but I get it from my aunts) the Mainlanders have the worst line up manners. My dad says it’s not really bad manners, but the result of scarcity of resources. Whatever – there’s no such thing as lining up when it comes to Mainlanders – it’s constant pushing. Pushing forwarding, pushing backward, pushing sideways – pushing you into the person in front of you even when there’s nowhere to go. And butting! If there’s the smallest open space between you and the person in front of you, they will slide right in there. And they have no concept of personal space. Not only are they pushing, but when they’re just standing still, they have to be standing so close to you that they’re touching you. Why can’t they leave some space? Oh yeah – because if they do, some other Mainlander will go there! Argh!!!! So even after the hours of lineups, once you get into the exhibits, you can’t get close to the display windows, and it’s really hot and full of pushy people. I felt really bad for my aunts because they basically only went because I was going, and I chose that day because I didn’t really have any other days left. I bought them dinner afterwards though. J
The good news is, out of the hundreds of pics I shot, I got a few decent ones – especially of the jellyfish, which I didn’t think was going to be a great exhibit but it was. They’re posted on my Flickr site (linked here), as are the Finding Nemo fish I saw. The clown fish were the coolest – they really did swim in & around the anemones, just like Nemo did! J
Next day we went to Ching Bik Chuen, via Cheung Chau. Cheung Chau is small island (one of the many off of Hong Kong), which you get to by ferry (takes about 1 hour). Cheung Chau is really cool, it’s essentially an island composed of a fishing village, but it’s also becoming quite the tourist spot with many B&B’s, some beaches and big hotels. It also seems to be catering to Western tourists – I saw a few white people there, and I thought it would be all Chinese. The nice thing about it is that it’s still relatively unknown, so it was quiet – and, there are no cars on the island at all, except for an ambulance and a few tractors! Everyone bicycles there to get around (unless you walk, of course). So there are a ton of bicycles for rent, including these 3-seaters that looked like rickshaws, with one person pedalling and 2 people behind them sitting in a comfy seat with a buggy cover. We didn’t rent any, but it was fun to watch all the other cyclists. And the streets are filled with the sound of bicycle bells, as all the locals warn the silly tourists walking obliviously around to watch out! J My uncle, who loves to cook and is a great chef, spent the morning at the local markets (there are many) buying fresh seafood, then brought it to this restaurant he’s really familiar with and got them to cook it for us! How cool is that! If you didn’t know the place, it just looks like any other ratty dai pai dong but it was actually one of the best restaurants on the island. The food was delicious, and afterwards we all trekked up the hill and into this cave which, legend has it, belonged to this pirate – can’t remember his exact name, something like Cheung Bo Tsai. Cheung Bo Tsai was one of the most powerful & notorious pirates of his day, and he found this cave on Cheung Chau island and hid all his treasure there. Now tourists and crawl through the cave themselves and see the great view from the other side. Thing is, the cave is pitch black (no lights at all), and it’s quite steep and narrow at points – so you have to bring your own flashlight, and go in a group of people, very carefully and slowly. If we weren’t with my aunt, who’d been through it once, I have no idea how we’d have done it!
After Cheung Bo Tsai’s cave, we took a small ferry over to Ching Bik Chuen – a tiny bay on one part of Lantau Island, which is huge (it’s the island where the big Buddha statue is). It’s purely a resort area, and my aunt and uncle (same one who likes to cook) bought an apartment in one of the resort condos. (Pictures on Flickr.) The condos don’t look like much on the outside, but they renovated it really nicely on the inside. Just think – it’s like their weekend cottage. While people in Toronto fight traffic for 2.5 hours to get to some overcrowded cottage in Muskoka in the summer, they can take a ferry for just over an hour and get to a private island resort with no one else there but them and other condo owners! The really cool thing about Ching Bik Chuen is that literally, you can’t get off the ferry boat unless you own a place/live there. The people who work on the dock know everyone who owns property there, and they greeted my aunt and uncle by name when they arrived. My aunt said that if she hadn’t called ahead and told them she was having visitors over, we wouldn’t have been allowed to land! Talk about great security – and the feeling that you’re worth a million bucks!
After visiting Ching Bik Chuen we took the small ferry back to Cheung Chau where we had some of their famous fish balls and noodle soup, then called it a night and took the ferry home.
On the weekend (Sat & Sun) before I went to Taiwan, I also managed to:
-tour around Central, a part of Hong Kong with cool shops and businesses, with my Dad as tour guide. (Pictures on Flickr.) The neat part was, we kept running into these professional tour guides who were taking their tour groups to the same spots my dad was taking me!
-Go up to the Peak – the top of Hong Kong island – and get some photos. I didn’t have my polarizing filter with me, when I really needed it – and Hong Kong is naturally smoggy and misty – so although the view (and the weather) was amazing, the photos didn’t turn out great.
-Go to the AIA Hong Kong World Carnival – HK’s version of the CNE which comes between Xmas and CNY. Although it’s very like the CNE, with its cheesy midway games that you don’t ever win, and the midway rides that are scary cause they look like they’re going to fall apart – it was way cooler than the CNE, because of its location. It was almost right on the waterfront, in Central, so surrounding the fair grounds were all these downtown skyscrapers. It was like being at the CNE in the middle of Bay Street! We had awesome weather for it too so it was really fun. AND – we managed to actually win a game! Included in the retardedly expensive entrance fee were 30 coins to play games. It took me 15 tries at the ring toss, but I actually got one! And the prizes were really good – for getting just 1 ring, I won a quite decent sized Pooh bear! My cousin actually won 2 rings, which would have gotten a big Pooh bear – but she wanted the smaller one. All 3 of us won Poohs, which was really cute for photos later that night at our family dinner.
I almost forgot – I went over to TST (Tsim Sha Tsui) at night with my Dad to take pics of the CNY lights (see Flickr). HK is probably the only place in the world where you can do what they do with lights on the skyscrapers – not because of technology, but because they have such a dense population of skyscrapers, and a shore on the opposite side close enough that you can appreciate all the lights. Also at TST is something called “Festival Walk”, which is their version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. A bunch of famous HK movie stars/producers have their Star on a square in the sidewalk, as well as their hand prints. We saw Jackie Chan’s, Bruce Lee’s (couldn’t find Andy Lau’s, although I looked) – and – THIS ONE! Haha – he’s no one really famous but I had to take a picture of it for Ray & Sandra. The funny part is, while I was taking pictures of it, people started to crowd around and take pictures of it too because they thought it was someone really good since I was taking pics. They must have been so disappointed! The highlight of the Festival Walk was definitely this statue of Bruce Lee, which they did as some commemorative piece in the last 3 years or so. Set against the backdrop of the HK night skyline, it’s really quite impressive.
On Thursday in week 2, went to Ocean Park. Turns out most of Mainland China also went to Ocean Park that day, since they have the entire week off for CNY, whereas Hong Kongers went back to work on Thursday. My family told me it would be crowded, but even they didn’t realize how crowded it would be!!! Lineups were: 1.5 hours to take the cable car up to the Headlands, where all the great exhibits were (also a great scenic ride); 1.5 hours to see the Jellyfish exhibit (while it rained on us – hard); 75 minutes of sitting in the rain, for a 20 minute dolphin & sea lion theatre show; 45 minutes to see the aquarium. No line up for the underwater shark tunnel, but the tunnel was like a 1 minute viewing thing. Oh – and every time we went to the washroom, it was at least a 20 minute lineup. We ate at odd times so we could avoid the food lineups (p.s. – do not eat hot dogs in HK, they are gross!)
So ok, the lineups and rain were really annoying, but they were not the worst part. The Chinese people were. The exhibits themselves were awesome, and I would totally go again to see them (the aquarium in particular, which took the longest, was amazing! Such a huge variety of fish, and tons of them! There were 3 stories worth of fish, and I saw just about all of the ones from Finding Nemo!) But even after all the lineups, once you got inside, it was ridiculous. Frankly, Ocean Park should not have let in all those people, because they could not handle the capacity. It was wall to wall Chinese people, and (I’m stereotyping here, but I get it from my aunts) the Mainlanders have the worst line up manners. My dad says it’s not really bad manners, but the result of scarcity of resources. Whatever – there’s no such thing as lining up when it comes to Mainlanders – it’s constant pushing. Pushing forwarding, pushing backward, pushing sideways – pushing you into the person in front of you even when there’s nowhere to go. And butting! If there’s the smallest open space between you and the person in front of you, they will slide right in there. And they have no concept of personal space. Not only are they pushing, but when they’re just standing still, they have to be standing so close to you that they’re touching you. Why can’t they leave some space? Oh yeah – because if they do, some other Mainlander will go there! Argh!!!! So even after the hours of lineups, once you get into the exhibits, you can’t get close to the display windows, and it’s really hot and full of pushy people. I felt really bad for my aunts because they basically only went because I was going, and I chose that day because I didn’t really have any other days left. I bought them dinner afterwards though. J
The good news is, out of the hundreds of pics I shot, I got a few decent ones – especially of the jellyfish, which I didn’t think was going to be a great exhibit but it was. They’re posted on my Flickr site (linked here), as are the Finding Nemo fish I saw. The clown fish were the coolest – they really did swim in & around the anemones, just like Nemo did! J
Next day we went to Ching Bik Chuen, via Cheung Chau. Cheung Chau is small island (one of the many off of Hong Kong), which you get to by ferry (takes about 1 hour). Cheung Chau is really cool, it’s essentially an island composed of a fishing village, but it’s also becoming quite the tourist spot with many B&B’s, some beaches and big hotels. It also seems to be catering to Western tourists – I saw a few white people there, and I thought it would be all Chinese. The nice thing about it is that it’s still relatively unknown, so it was quiet – and, there are no cars on the island at all, except for an ambulance and a few tractors! Everyone bicycles there to get around (unless you walk, of course). So there are a ton of bicycles for rent, including these 3-seaters that looked like rickshaws, with one person pedalling and 2 people behind them sitting in a comfy seat with a buggy cover. We didn’t rent any, but it was fun to watch all the other cyclists. And the streets are filled with the sound of bicycle bells, as all the locals warn the silly tourists walking obliviously around to watch out! J My uncle, who loves to cook and is a great chef, spent the morning at the local markets (there are many) buying fresh seafood, then brought it to this restaurant he’s really familiar with and got them to cook it for us! How cool is that! If you didn’t know the place, it just looks like any other ratty dai pai dong but it was actually one of the best restaurants on the island. The food was delicious, and afterwards we all trekked up the hill and into this cave which, legend has it, belonged to this pirate – can’t remember his exact name, something like Cheung Bo Tsai. Cheung Bo Tsai was one of the most powerful & notorious pirates of his day, and he found this cave on Cheung Chau island and hid all his treasure there. Now tourists and crawl through the cave themselves and see the great view from the other side. Thing is, the cave is pitch black (no lights at all), and it’s quite steep and narrow at points – so you have to bring your own flashlight, and go in a group of people, very carefully and slowly. If we weren’t with my aunt, who’d been through it once, I have no idea how we’d have done it!
After Cheung Bo Tsai’s cave, we took a small ferry over to Ching Bik Chuen – a tiny bay on one part of Lantau Island, which is huge (it’s the island where the big Buddha statue is). It’s purely a resort area, and my aunt and uncle (same one who likes to cook) bought an apartment in one of the resort condos. (Pictures on Flickr.) The condos don’t look like much on the outside, but they renovated it really nicely on the inside. Just think – it’s like their weekend cottage. While people in Toronto fight traffic for 2.5 hours to get to some overcrowded cottage in Muskoka in the summer, they can take a ferry for just over an hour and get to a private island resort with no one else there but them and other condo owners! The really cool thing about Ching Bik Chuen is that literally, you can’t get off the ferry boat unless you own a place/live there. The people who work on the dock know everyone who owns property there, and they greeted my aunt and uncle by name when they arrived. My aunt said that if she hadn’t called ahead and told them she was having visitors over, we wouldn’t have been allowed to land! Talk about great security – and the feeling that you’re worth a million bucks!
After visiting Ching Bik Chuen we took the small ferry back to Cheung Chau where we had some of their famous fish balls and noodle soup, then called it a night and took the ferry home.
On the weekend (Sat & Sun) before I went to Taiwan, I also managed to:
-tour around Central, a part of Hong Kong with cool shops and businesses, with my Dad as tour guide. (Pictures on Flickr.) The neat part was, we kept running into these professional tour guides who were taking their tour groups to the same spots my dad was taking me!
-Go up to the Peak – the top of Hong Kong island – and get some photos. I didn’t have my polarizing filter with me, when I really needed it – and Hong Kong is naturally smoggy and misty – so although the view (and the weather) was amazing, the photos didn’t turn out great.
-Go to the AIA Hong Kong World Carnival – HK’s version of the CNE which comes between Xmas and CNY. Although it’s very like the CNE, with its cheesy midway games that you don’t ever win, and the midway rides that are scary cause they look like they’re going to fall apart – it was way cooler than the CNE, because of its location. It was almost right on the waterfront, in Central, so surrounding the fair grounds were all these downtown skyscrapers. It was like being at the CNE in the middle of Bay Street! We had awesome weather for it too so it was really fun. AND – we managed to actually win a game! Included in the retardedly expensive entrance fee were 30 coins to play games. It took me 15 tries at the ring toss, but I actually got one! And the prizes were really good – for getting just 1 ring, I won a quite decent sized Pooh bear! My cousin actually won 2 rings, which would have gotten a big Pooh bear – but she wanted the smaller one. All 3 of us won Poohs, which was really cute for photos later that night at our family dinner.
I almost forgot – I went over to TST (Tsim Sha Tsui) at night with my Dad to take pics of the CNY lights (see Flickr). HK is probably the only place in the world where you can do what they do with lights on the skyscrapers – not because of technology, but because they have such a dense population of skyscrapers, and a shore on the opposite side close enough that you can appreciate all the lights. Also at TST is something called “Festival Walk”, which is their version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. A bunch of famous HK movie stars/producers have their Star on a square in the sidewalk, as well as their hand prints. We saw Jackie Chan’s, Bruce Lee’s (couldn’t find Andy Lau’s, although I looked) – and – THIS ONE! Haha – he’s no one really famous but I had to take a picture of it for Ray & Sandra. The funny part is, while I was taking pictures of it, people started to crowd around and take pictures of it too because they thought it was someone really good since I was taking pics. They must have been so disappointed! The highlight of the Festival Walk was definitely this statue of Bruce Lee, which they did as some commemorative piece in the last 3 years or so. Set against the backdrop of the HK night skyline, it’s really quite impressive.
OK, see why I haven’t been blogging at all? I’ve been surprisingly busy for a trip with nothing planned. Next blog is about my trip to visit Ray & Sandra in Taipei, which is also shown as a “guest entry” on their blog.
