lots of noodle soup...

thursday 29 october - monday 2 november

seriously, all i did in hong kong... was spend money on food. most of it, on noodle soup.


hong kong is definitely much different from singapore... dirtier, grittier, and more lively i would say. it makes me cherish my clean, green, orderly suburbs even more...

the first amusing bit of hong kong came when we landed in the airport. while gathering booklets and brochures for our trip around hong kong, i came across this lovely brochure of hong kong in korean! unfortunately, someone didn't double check their translations...

my first thought was "... what kind of season is that?" aiya~

anyways, my friends & i, being poor & in college, decided to stay at this hostel called the chungking mansions in kowloon -- a part of hong kong on the mainland side. seriously... never ever go there. ever. we were switched from room to room, and while the second room we were in was actually really clean, the sheets had suspicious stains ... the first room we were in... oh my goodness. lets just say, i didn't use the blankets in that room, the walls were repaired with duct tape, and there was a little baby cockroach...

the view outside our window

somewhere around our hostel...

anyhow, the first night we got there, it was too late to do anything (we didn't get our room situation sorted out until past 11pm because the hostel gave away our booked room...), so pretty much we just ate and walked around the city.

blair & eero ordered baby pigeon, but i was too freaked out by the head to go anywhere near it.

apparently though, it was very tasty & the eyes were nice and chewy. good.

the next day, we met this british girl named jen & together the four of us traveled to lantau island to meet the giant buddha! we took the ferry across the harbour and then another ferry to the island... then a bus to our final destination!

the giant buddha i have to say, was rather giant.

me as the fobby tourist & the giant buddha

mr. buddha's friends

the view from atop the giant buddha

afterwards, we went to the po lin buddhist monastery right next door for some additional sight seeing and tasty treats!

on our way down from the giant buddha, we decided to take the cable car against the advice of blair's cousin... apparently there were a few accidents in the history of said cable car, but hey... we're still alive :)

view of the sunset from the cable car

once we were back on mainland, we had dinner & then headed to the famous temple street night market. vendors in hong kong cut prices VERY fast... it makes you a bit suspicious about the quality of the material and how much you're getting ripped off... but oh well. i suppose that's what you get for being a tourist.

on our way to temple street -- hong kong by night

a stall at the temple street night market

a doggie advertising for little doggie clothes

later on in our trip, we also visited the jade market where i bought a little jade dragon, a necklace, and earrings! i'm quite proud of my earring buying skills... originally the lady wanted to sell them to me for 180 HKD, but i got them for 40 HKD instead! yay!

anyways, the next day, blair, eero & i went to the hong kong history museum during the day. i suppose i liked the museum... but i can't say history museums are my favorite things in the world & the place just had to have creepy wax figures of chairman mao... there were however, gaping pieces of information missing from the 100 years of china exhibit... "and chariman mao was excellent & joined north korea in the war to solidify their status as a nation!" uh... right.

my favorite part of the history museum were the cultural exhibits & the exhibit on the time of hong kong around the time of the japanese occupation.

me & eero with some happy village gods or what not

an old-fashioned grocery store

the amount of rice given to one family for one day during the japanese occupation - 240 grams

rebuilding hong kong -- the typical apartment set up that a family would be given to live in

old fashioned classroom

oh, how the times have changed....

anyways, after our visit to the hong kong history museum, we took the ferry across to hong kong island and then took a tram ride around town before participating in some halloween activities at lan kwai fong.

the view of the harbour at sunset was really pretty, so we decided to take some pictures before traversing across the water

public transportation in hong kong is ridiculously cheap. the ferry ride across the harbour cost 2.30HKD, so roughly equivalent to like 30 cents US, and the tram ride on the island only costs 2HKD from any location. the subway is a bit more expensive --- i think it may actually be cheaper in singapore, but still really easy to get around.

look at all these trams! they take up the entire middle section of the road and its actually pretty cool. this is a view from the back of the tram that i was riding... i have to say though, being in the very front or very back of any form of public transportation in asia is kind of scary. the buses and trams dont stop until RIGHT before they're about to crash...

we took the tram from central to somewhere around time square piazza, a fancy upscale shopping center where we could afford not even a coffee from one the cafes.

the funny thing about hong kong though, is that the contrast between the really new, fancy nice things and the really old, dirty ugly tihngs are everywhere and really easy to see. like, right next to this fancy marble shopping center with bright lights, we see these decrepit old buildings...

i'm pretty sure we ate somewhere around here... but i can't be so sure. anyhow, after looking around time square piazza, we headed to lan kwai fong where apparently all the big halloween celebrations are...

hehe, playing with a funhouse mirror in time square piazza

let me just say, that halloween in hong kong... is very weird. where are the cute kids and candy and trick or treating and people trying to scare you?! pretty much, theres just a big crowd of people forced to walk in a set line by the police for like 2km... then you reach the bar district where you're promptly told to leave because of traffic issues. oy. who does that? apparently all of hong kong...

cute little kids that wanted their picture taken

mob of people & pretty useless policeman -- this picture actually does no justice to the 100s of thousands of people that were parading the street...

the bar district all decked out for halloween

i thought it would be fun to drag the new zealander & the fin to halloween celebrations because neither of them have halloween at home... but it was a complete fail. oh well... i guess as the saying goes, when in rome, do as the romans do...

on sunday, blair was super excited about this cricket tournament that he had tickets for, so the three of us split up. blair to cricket , me & eero to a heritage trail in hong kong island.

weirdest heritage trail ever. it starts out in the middle of a bus parking lot, takes you through some ghetto neighborhoods, and then ends at a police station. not kidding.

it was an interesting view of the true hong kong lifestyle though, and we encountered some interesting sites along the way!

first, we came across this fresh market where they sold everything from buddhist things to chicken feet.

live fish

cut up chicken feet

tasty pork&cabbage bun i bought at one of the food stalls! yummy!

i also bought like 10 clementines for less than 1USD and it made my life happy.

anyways, i'm slightly too lazy to put up all of the heritage trail pictures... plus, they aren't really worth seeing... sadly. BUT, some highlights were :

around the start of the heritage trail... the buildings were all pretty run down

on the bright side, there was this nice old grandpa selling these freshly made sesame & peanut snacks! yummy! i convinced eero that they were the most delicious things in the world and that he had to try them. and then he got addicted.

the happy little lion on top of one of the roofs of a ... village... meeting hall... or something

the doors leading into a deserted courtyard

yup... the heritage trail led us through multiple neighborhoods...

all of which had signs warning us about the dangers of rat poison

not very comforting.... anyhow, the end of the heritage trail was actually pretty nicely done, and the view from the top of the hill was pretty ~

upon our completion of the trail though, it was back to kowloon to meet up with blair in time to go the harbourside light show & victoria's peak!

the lightshow wasn't spectacular, but it was still really pretty, and still very free, so that is all that mattered, hehe.

we asked a passerby to take a picture for us, and he wasn't the best photographer in the world... but oh well. it would have been nice to have more of the background, but i guess you can't be picky...

blair, eero, & me !

as soon as the lightshow ended, the three of us got on another ferry to go to the top of victoria's peak! you can pretty much see all of hong kong from there (at least... in theory), as long as the pollution isn't too bad. the bus ride up to the mountain was so, so pretty & the tram ride back was exciting too because the hills were ridiculously steep.

it was pretty cold up there though... singapore is always so humid that its never cold anywhere, but hong kong lacked the humidity, plus the breezy wind actually made me wish i had pants and a sweatshirt... BUT, the view was totally worth freezing for a few short minutes.

i didn't take any pictures on monday really, except for this group of old men playing chinese chess in the park! i would have liked to take a picture of the chess board, but i think that would have been weird...

anyways, thats all for hong kong! i only have a few more weeks left here in singapore... i'll be sure to add more pictures from my end of the month trip to kuala lumpur & jakarta with aeri imo!

see everyone back home in a month! :)