Hong Kong pt III

So I've been having some fun over the past few days. I met up with some people at Lan Kwai Fong, the local night scene, for a few drinks and had some fun. I was privy to witnessing a man fall over like a tree and smack his head on the pavement only to get up immediately and go back in for more drinks. I also had a riveting conversation with a woman. It went a little something like this:

On stage is a woman, laughing to her self. A man, noticeably drunk, stands near her swaying. A bar is in the background. From stage left enter James, W, and R. Swaying man falls like a tree. The three guys rush over. Woman doesn't even notice.

W: Are you alright man?

No response.

James: Dude, are you OK?

Man suddenly gets up and exits via the bar. The three men look at each other dumbfounded, then laugh. Woman turns and smiles.

Woman: Hi! Where are you all from?

W: Kansas City.

Woman: (sarcastically) Oh wow!

R: France.

Woman: France! Really? I love a french accent, they're just so sexy.

R blushes.

Woman: What about you?

James: Originally south of Chicago. Now, I live in India.

Woman: (again, sarcastically) South side of Chicago? Interesting! What is it you do?

W: I teach English in mainland China.

Woman: (to James; again, sarcastically) Teach English?! How interesting!

James: And what is it you do?

Woman: I teach violin... in Connecticut!

James and R look at each other and snicker. Three guys exit stage right. Woman realizes she is alone and falls to her knees, sobbing.

I swear it happened that way.

So, last night I had a very surreal dining experience. If you've ever seen the movie Demolition Man, you might be able to guess where I am going with this. Camber and I decided that some pizza would be nice so we headed down to the neighborhood Pizza Hut. There we were met by the hostess and led to a table. The restaurant was well lit and lacked any hint of arcade games. Glasses of lemon water were on the table and our waitress handed us the menus. The menu itself was about 16 pages long, only 2 of which had anything to do with pizza. The rest were filled up with pastas, breadsticks, desserts, and various other things. The pizzas came in three styles: 1) tomato sauce, 2) curry sauce, and 3) thousand island dressing. The 'American Adventure' had corn, beef and pepperoni on it. We went with the classic 'Meat Lovers.' It was a good pizza but the experience was something else.

Today was something entirely different. Food really wasn't involved for once. We headed to the island of Lantau for the day. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

We took the sky hook over to Lantau. It was about 20 minutes in the cable car. Camber and I made our first friend, Kristin, a man from Milan, during the ride.

First sighting of the Big Buddha from the cable cars.

At the base of the stairs to the Buddha. You can sort of begin to see how large it really is. And sorry Maggie, there was no belly rubbing. I could've faced deportation had I attempted.

Statues surrounding the Buddha.

The enlightened one himself.

Even Buddha can't outrun commercialism and 7-11.

Reminds me of Dutchland. Cindy, I'm still not forgiving you for that.

I'm not sure what it is exactly.

The Splendid Bronze Cauldron for the Return of Sovereignty.

You may remember that a few years ago the Japanese began selling cubic watermelons. Well, the Chinese Buddhists have them beat. They have oranges that grow with the package netting already on them. Take that Japan!

Gigantic incense sticks.

These trees were everywhere. I have no idea what they are but I really like them.

Camber and I then headed to the local monastery to see how the monks live their daily lives. I only saw one monk and a lot of tourists. We had lunch at a lackluster vegetarian place which Camber swore by. I'll forgive her this one time.

We then took a walk down the Wisdom Path. It led us to this neat little area. A series of pillars set up in a figure eight pattern to represent infinity.

On each pillar where inscriptions from the Buddhist Heart Sutra. I'm not really sure what it's about since I can't read Chinese but I'm told it's about emptiness.

Engrish.

Just as we got on our bus to take us to the fishing village of Tai O I noticed that Camber had a little Buddha sitting on her head. This is where we met our second friend, some Scottish man who was lost and whose wife wouldn't talk to him.

Tai O, being a fishing village has plenty of boats... fishing.


There's also lots of little shrines.

And there's lots of little shops selling all sorts of dried seafood items. I could identify some fish and rays and what I think where oysters. Camber thinks she saw some pig penis. I didn't test any out though.

We were lucky enough to see them making shrimp paste. It's basically shrimp ground up with spices and left out in the sun to ferment. I'm not sure how you eat it. The smell is enough to make you not want to find out.

Tai O is billed as the Venice of the east. The stilted houses and lots of boats can give the impression. However, I'm not sure if the atmosphere is quite the same. This is where we met our two other sets of friends. One was a local man and his baby who would not leave us alone until his kid said, "Hi" to us. It was cute. The other was an older couple we came to know as the Isle of Wight People (or as I preferred to call them: the I Love White People). We kept running into them all over the village. It was more than a little creepy actually.

More Engrish.

Me showing off my powers of divination to find water. Water found. Damn I'm good at what I do.

We took a ferry back to the main island and after riding the world's largest escalator (billed as a 'travelator') we got some dinner. My favourite part of the day, though, comes from dessert. We stopped at a place that serves traditional Chinese desserts and wanted to get some custard. The only thing was that the place was packed. Luckily a nice old man offered to share his table albeit reluctantly. Shortly after a large group left and when Camber said we were fine and didn't want to move the man abruptly got up and went to a new table. Camber and I finished out egg custard while giggling as two more large groups came in and the old man had to keep moving to new spots. For all the friends we made today, I think we made one enemy.