Quick update on my last two weekends..

Clear water bay.

Well the main thing is work has been absolutely crazy so I have had to be in the office at least one day a weekend for the last two, so my weekend adventures have been fairly limited. A week ago I did get to go on a junk boat cruise though. It was just what I needed. You get on one of these old junks like you have seen in the movies, pack it with like 50 people and bunch of booze and drive off for some remote island or secluded beach. Unfotunately it was pretty rough outside of the harbor. Cory you would have been proud of me, I was egging the driver on trying to hold for the remote island while the girls were puking and we were taking water over the bow. But instead they diverted to a closer cove, that ended up being packed because everyone had the same issue we did. It is called clearwater bay. We got to do some wakeboarding over here and I met a chinese guy from canada who has his own wakeboarding boat over here, he's going to take me out again, or at least that's what he said while we were drinking and floating around. Anyhow, lots of floating swimming, jumping off of boats and I finally got a bit of a tan going. Oh yeah.. and on the way home I was pretty tipsy and I had been bugging the boat driver all day to let me see maps of where we were going and trying to comunicate even though he didn't speak a lick of english and he finally let me drive the boat on the way in! So Cory I have officially piloted a vessel in chinese waters!!

This weekend was another filled mostly with work. My big highlight was a trip to a part of the island called Aberdeen, to go to this restraunt called the JUMBO. It is a giant boat some rich guy built back in the 70's that is a huge dim sum restraunt. You have to take a ferry to get to it, and Aberdeen is where all the really rich people live. My tour guide was Michelle (an old friend from LA's sister, she has been taking me to all the off the beaten path spots, and making sure I don't get sick from the food!).

 It was an awesome early dinner then we sat up on the upper deck and had a few drinks, and got to watch all of these multi million dollar yachts pull in from a weekend out. These boats are insane! The Aberdeen yacht club is right across the marina from the restraunt so it was like a red carpet show for huge yachts. They light the whole thing up at night and it's pretty cool. Any how I have a big deadline this week, and then I am supposed to go camping with some people from the planning group upstairs so hopefully more pictures and cooler adventures next week.

what saved my weekend!

Dude Check out these Vessels! Dude Cory my Skiff would be
the best boat in this town!

I decided to go down to this small fishing village on the far end of Lantau called Tai O to try and get the bad taste out of my mouth from the Buddha. And man did it work. This place was awesome! the whole town is built on stilts over the mud flats! with canals running everywhere it is called the Venice of Asia! It looks nothing like venice. It looks like a scene out of Slum Dog Millionare. Anyway we hung out at this restraunt on stilts. I was trying to get the guys to take me out on one of their little boats. This place was way cool! I could totally hang out in one of these little houses for a while! I tryed these dryed out and flattened squids that the street vendors cook. They were actually delicious. I had a bit of reservation to try them as I had just recently gotten over my second bout of the Asian version of Montezumas! But I was glad I did. Tryed a few other things. Crysanthamum juice! Not good. Looked great! all pink and frosty and cold! Tasted like sweat!

Mom, said I had to put up a picture with me in it!

Anyhow after a couple hours at this place we needed to head home and had worked our selves out far enough into the rural parts of Hong Kong that we litterally need to take a bus a ferry and a train to get home! But Tai O saved my sight seeing weekend. I'm not going to anything in the tour book again for a while. Stay off the beaten path right Cory??

More Mixed sight seeing results

This sunday I went to do some sight seeing. First on the list was the largest outdoor, seated, bronze buddha. Interesting that so much pride is taken in something that has to be so qualified. This isn't the largest buddha, it isn't the largest outdoor buddha, it isn't even the largest outdoor bronze buddha, its the largest outdoor, bronze seated buddha. I took the gondola up to the top and the only thing that made this worth the 1 1/2 hour wait. Was the view of the airport, desgined by Sir Norman Foster. If anyone has ever wondered why I like working on airports, search youtube for a 5 part discovery channel piece on the Hong Kong Airport seen here and you'll know why I think it's cool.

The gondola lead to some cool views of this Buddha, and lots of the surrounding island. I have to come back and check out more of this island (Lantau). This is where most of the good hiking is. This is where all the beaches are, and some are really remote, and you have to hike to them. Which will be nice because all of the others I have seen have really been polluted by the thousands of people that go to them every weekend.

So more of the Buddha, well it's pretty cool looking but it is very comercialized. I guess there has been a Buddist monestary here for a long time but this thing is baisically Buddist Disney land, there are charactures of Monkey (a famous Chinese folk hero) walking around. There is a Subway and a 7-11 up there. I felt like it was kind of shame that this buddha was being so commercialized. There were a lot of people praying all around the site which was kind of humbling. But the last straw for me was at the very end of walking around I was reading some info about the tale of this specific Buddha what his story was, and I read that the statue was built in 1993! I don't know why but this fact ruined the whole thing for me.

I also toured the monestary, it was nice. I bought some incense and lit it for my family as is traditional. I have some pics of that but I have to get them from the girls from work I went with. I bought some for them to burn and thought I was doing a good deed. But as I was taking a picture for the girls of them lighting the incense I bought for them I backed into some other incense burning and melted a hole in my boardies and burnt my leg I think Buddha bite me for my negative thoughts.

Asians love Malls

They really do, check out this one it has a 12 story atrium. This where they hang out, and they totally take local pride in them. They are massive and filled with all high end stores, that are way more expensive because they are american or itallian brands. Any way this was a pretty gnarly one.

Pak Tai Temple

Like I said I did a few very touristy things this weekend and one of them was going to the temple on sunday. It was pretty cool, this Temple is just in the middle of neighborhood, it's not even in a park or anything.

 These are the only two pictures I got inside before getting told there was no picture taking inside, it was pretty cool though, the guy was nice, he told me everyone had just left, that it was packed earlier with people lighting incense and praying.

Apparently it is, dead spirits month over here right now, and the gates of hell are open so the temples are even buisier! Anyway it was pretty cool.

The Wet Market!!

This is probably one of my favorite things about Hong Kong. They have these wet markets everyday. I only really get to check them out on the weekends cause they don't open until like 11 AM and they close pretty early in the evening. But man they sell everything! It's pretty crazy but I have gotten to be a regular with one little old lady who saves me a couple bannanas an apple and a pear, for 10HKD (about a buck and a half!) every saturday on my way home from the gym.

You can see why they call it the wet market, I was told apparently that the chinese think fish and animals taste better if they die long deaths, so they have these styrofoam tanks filled with live fish and they take them out and just let them suffocate then gut them and sell them right there! It was a bit shocking at first, but not as bad as the first time I saw the guy in this butcher shop dispatch a chicken then dice it up for the little old lady that apparently wanted hers real fresh!

The number one sales strategy for the fish is to throw the halibut out on the table when there are a lot of people around because it flaps around the most and slap its tail against the metal tray and makes a sound like a fire cracker

One interesting thing is that all the cash here is paper except the $10 bills, which are plastic, apparently this is because the fish mongers only deal in $10 bills and to keep them from getting all nasty with fish guts they made them out of plastic so they can be washed off!

One for Dad!

Here you go Dad! This is what passes for an automotive repair shop in Hong Kong, one guy on a busy street with a tool box and a jack on the curb!!

Some Quick Toorist Traps!

I went and saw the Golden Bauhinia Statue out on the waterfront and the chinese flag raising ceremony! Eh I guess I need to do some of these touristy type things eventually so I tried to get a few out of the way! This was actually the only one I got done today! Barber Shop took a long time! I hoping to go to a few old temples tomorrow! Enjoy

Barber Shop Adventure!!

So after 3 weeks in country, I was starting to look a little ragged! My electric shaver got nuked by these crazy jury rigged oulets over here, and I didn't bring my hair clippers! So on a recomendation from one of the guys in the office, I made an appointment at the mandarin barber in the Four Seasons! I got down there on Saturday, and it was a Very Classy place, then the lady told me a buzz and a shave would be 600HKD (about $100 US), needless to say I was out of there, you guys have seen my look, and it ain't worth $100 to maintain!!! So I went on my way to do the rest of my planned errands for the day (Sightseeing!) and came across a barber pole mounted on the corner to a dark alley!

And this is what I found!!! Awesome! This place is just a lean to built in an alley that is about arms distance wide! This lady cut my hair and gave me a shave for 25HKD (about $3 US) awesome! I listened to Cantonese opera! I comunicated what I wanted by just setting her clippers up the way I wanted and then showing her I wanted that ALL OVER MY HEAD! The guy next to me got the full treatment which included the barber digging around in his ear with a long skinny knife!!! I was scared shitless she was going to try that on me but luckily I got the Gweilo! (Canotnese for white guy) treatment!

Nice Now I have a barber!!!

My Hike to the Peak

This is the bottom of the trail

Here are some of the other pictures I have been meaning to post. These are of my hike to the top of the peak. They pretty much speak for themselves. This is the beging of the trail. I took the long route starting from the eastern part of the city in a district called Kennedy Town.

Some of the side trails are pretty rugged, it was fun to head down these not knowing where I was going to end up. This park is kept very clean considering what the rest of the city looks like most of the time.

The trail opens up to some pretty amazing views of the city.

This was a pretty amazing night shot I took of the city from the tourist trap at the peak. The city has a light show every night at 8. It is kind of tacky I think. All of the building have tons of lights applied to the facades so they will stand out at night, and one building has green lasers they shoot off the roof. It is a little underwhelming after all the hype, but is something different.

Well that is it for now I guess. Check back in later for more on my trip to Macau this weekend. I didn't take my camera so I am waiting to get pictures from one of the guys I went with. So long from Hong Kong!

Pui O Beach

So friday I went to my first beach in Hong Kong. And alas, not a wave to be found. The beach was called Pui O and is on a neighboring Island accessible by car. I took a bus, there is a kind of camp there run by a bunch of New Zealanders. They were selling boards there, and apparently run a surf camp there, but they said that they only get waves when there is a Typhoon, and then they are only like 3 to 4 feet. But anyhow it was good to be at a beach. Not very clean. And there was shark netting around the swimming area, I think it is just there for peace of mind but I will have to do more research.

Life at 115 Wing Lok Street.

So a quick catch up post. For the Last 2 weeks (it has only been 2 weeks!!! it feels like 2 months) I have been living in a little apartment on Wing Lok Street in a part of Hong Kong called Sheung Wan. Sheung Wan is one of the older districts in Hong Kong, it is way down at the base of the hill right next to the docks.Wing Lok street is known for it's ginseng markets and dried seafood stores. Here is a pick looking down Wing Lok near my place.

It is crazy to be surrounded by stores that I have no idea what they are selling, I can walk into one, and not recognize a single item for sale, can't read any of the labels, can't tell what any of it costs, and there is obviously a huge market for this stuff as 80% of the stores on my street all look exactly the same and are all selling the same stuff!

Here's a shot of what I am talking about. So here is home, it is a crazy place, if it's a sunny day all of these stores put this big trash can lid size trays of all of these goods out to dry right on the side walk. The only thing  have been able to recognize is sea cucumber or sea slug, they aparently love it!

Well here is a picture of home for me for a while. Good ole 115 Wing Lok. My little safe house in big ole Hong Kong. The door with the black and white tile is the front door to the building. I am on the 3rd floor. It is a pretty quiet neighbor hood most of the time. The only real problem is that it is quite a walk from here to the office, which is why I am writing this right now with a sweaty tee shirt on. Oh and the roaches!!! They take over the street at night! haven't found any in my place! But did get woken up the other night by rat the size of a small dog climbing up one of the pipes outside my window! Oh Charming Hong Kong!