I had no idea what to expect when leaving for Hong Kong. Yes, for the first twelve years of my life, I would spend one month of each summer there, and that one year of summers collectively formed a jumbled tangle of vague memories. Hot, humidity. Biking during a typhoon. Steamed BBQ pork buns. Ocean Park. Buses. Cousins. Trying to recall Hong Kong, though, was like grasping at a recurring dream. I knew the details, more or less, but did I really remember?Upon entering the gate for the plane, I thought we were in trouble. We handed in our tickets, and the attendant stopped us. It turned out though, that we were upgraded to first class!
In first class, we had much more leg room than we've ever had before, but everything else was pretty much the same. No fancy meals, no champagne or extra movies. Oh well, the flight was only a couple hours anyway.
Hong Kong was as remembered, hotter than Shanghai (a balmy mid 70s) and hazy. Hearing people speak Cantonese was jarring too. It's a language that's so associated with family for me, that hearing it from the mouths of strangers took awhile for me to get used to. Still, I was surprised by how much I understood, and during the whole trip, almost no one could tell that I wasn't a local; a nice change from being yelled and/or laughed at in China.
Oh, and the diet coke? Really good.
Our hotel was facing the habour. This is behind the building. Hong Kong seems to have gotten a bit smoggier since the early 90s. Still beautiful though.
This vacation also doubled as a family reunion, since my brother and mother were coming over from the US to visit. We were surprised when we found out that my uncle and aunt were going to be there too.
Dinner from our first night. This is roasted pork belly. The meat was much springier and chewier than your average roast pork. Kinda crunchy like cartilage, but tasty.
My Aunt Fanny and Uncle Kenny from Queens, NY.
Shenme?
A bit odd-looking, this is actually a grapefruit salad. Salty, sour, and sweet.
An omelet containing fried rice. Also good.
After the meal. Note the completely picked-clean fish. It never had a chance....
Cole and I had expressed some interest in going to the Peak, and once my uncle heard, he was on it. With him leading, all of us treked over at around 9:00pm (pretty late for us, no?).Above is me and my brother, going for the asian pose.
At the entrance to the trolley ride up to the Peak (which is basically a mall/viewing point of Hong Kong), there was a wax figure of Jackie Chan, hence cole's karate chop. Jackie is up and to the left of her head.
Close up.
Ben sitting in the (New Years?) train.
The view from the Peak
At night, Hong Kong is rather pretty.
The next day we visited my grandmother (my mom's mom). I hadn't seen her in probably eight years, when she came to Flushing, NY. Above, a picture from the last time I went to Hong Kong, circa 1992. See if you can spot me, or maybe it's best if you don't.
Ben eating a New Years egg. Thousand year old egg? Not sure, I didn't have one.
Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon area. An overactive, neon-lit, shopping frenzy of a neighborhood.
My breakfast for the second day: fish congee, glutunous rice in lotus leaf
and turnip cakes! one of my favorites.
My mom, noshing on egg.
A partial family gathering. Mom, cole, Ben, Gran, me, Aunt Fanny.
We also paid our respects to my great-grandparents on my father's side, since we so rarely get to Hong Kong, and it was nearing the New Year.
Later that day, cole, Ben, and I decided to visit tourist site #2, aka, the Big Buddha, which was built in the long ago bygone year of nineteen-ninety. Amazing that it has lasted all this time.
We took the cable car up the mountain to the Buddha. The other option was to walk (which people do), but that would have taken at least 2-3 hours minimum.
The further up we rose, the clearer the sky became, until we actually were lifted above the pollution.
At the top, the clarity of the sky was unbelievable. The weather: absolutely perfect. Sunny, breezy. I would throw in more adverbs, but you get the idea.
Part theme-park, part monestary. Welcome to Buddhaland! (it was mostly monestary to be honest, but with many shops, restuarants, and two Buddhism-related rides/shows).
Does it mean something that I chose to be on the woman side?
The Buddha was pretty impressive.
Oops, back down into the smog. This taken while crossing the habour on the star ferry.
On board the ferry.
The first couple days confirmed Hong Kong was everything I thought it would be and more. It was like...ok, let's say that you have played Super Mario many times, and you thought that you have caught every last hidden tunnel and bonus screen. Well, coming to Hong Kong was like discovering a secret level you missed the first time around, maybe one of those levels that consists completely of coins, no goombas or flying bullets, just one turtle or two. Finding that level made that part of the game complete, and you could finally move on to another part of the map (oh no, I think I'm mixing Mario 1 with Mario 3 or Yoshi's Island). Um...well, that's the precise version of describing Hong Kong.
Still much more HK to come, with a stop over in Taipei (where we will not be living in next year).
