Saturday, September 21, 2013

Mid Autumn Moon Festival

Every year in Hong Kong around the beginning of fall there is what is called the "Mid Autumn Moon Festival".  The city explodes in an abundance of colorful hanging lanterns and there are lights and flags hung in preparation. Honestly, I can't say for certain what the story behind Mid Autumn Moon festival is. There are a few legends floating about as to why it's celebrated, but in reality it is the changing of seasons from summer to fall.  The moon is at its largest and fullest in appearance so A) we get a day off to go moon gazing, therefore B) have a reason to spend time with friends and family.  

My blood relatives all reside across the ocean on the continent of North America, but my stand in family here in Hong Kong, HJ and Dan (authors of waterfalls and caribous), were nice enough to let me tag along with them to a BBQ in the hills of Causeway Bay where we had the opportunity to observe and take part in a real family affair.  Our hosts were Mike and Ro.  Mike is a native Californian where he met and married Ro, a first generation American with her ancestry originating in Hong Kong.  There is a pretty big boom of population that immigrated to the US from Hong Kong, whose children are now immigrating from the US back to Hong Kong to take advantage of more profitable business opportunities.  Mike and Ro were both incredibly warm and welcoming.  By the end of the night the room was filled with family from Hong Kong, friends from California, New Zealand, and of course, the Texan who didn't stray far from the ribs that were so tender the bones fell out and one could eat the meat with chopsticks.

After demolishing our Romanesque like spread of ribs, baked beans, salad, sushi, fried fish, jalapeno chips, homemade ice cream and champagne we all wobbled down to Victoria Park to sleepily observe the events taking place.  HJ and I ran into co workers of ours who were merrily partaking in the festival in their own ways.  The mood was jovial and light.  The city was buzzing with life and celebration.  Fire dragons were dancing around the basketball courts and into the night.  It was a great time to be out and about.

Eventually I succumbed to the Tryptophan and said my goodbyes.  I plopped myself onto the tram and allowed the honks and blaring sounds of traffic weave in and out of my waking dreams as I made my way home.  Due to the traffic I probably could have walked faster than the speed the tram carried my plump carcass, but I had no where to be other than la la land.  Kicking my feet up onto the seat in front of me, I leaned back and enjoyed the ride. 


Victoria Park

Ap Lei Chau

Victoria Park

Victoria Park entrance

Rooftop view of the moon
Structures like these were set up everywhere all over the city
View from Mike and Ro's rooftop 
Mike in the background, family on the couch, Dan stretched out (not the furry one)
The quality on this one isn't phenomenal, but if you look, you can see the remnants of a burnt dragon

Thursday, September 19, 2013

A Sunday in the City of Dreams


"LADY! YOU SEE THIS?? YOU CANNO BE HERE! YOU CANNO BE HERE THIS NO VALID!!"

Oh shit.  It's 9:30 on a Sunday.  I was on my way to Macau to activate my visa, which unbeknownst to me expired in July.  It's mid September.  This little slip up makes the immigration officer in front of me very angry. I've heard of various horror stories of people messing up their visas and being deported. I immediately get anxious.  Images of me being handcuffed and thrown on a plane without out any of my belongings pops into my head.  Another officer walks towards me and motions for me to follow him to a stark white room.  I'm pretty sure like in Homeland  I'm about to get water boarded for information on US secrets.  

The officer smiles warmly at me, confusing me thoroughly. (This is obviously the good cop in the good cop/bad cop duet)  He calmly asks what went wrong and I plead ignorance and flash him a pearly white smile.  He slaps me with fine, a visa extension, another warm smile and sends me on my way to Macau.  (I'm kind of disappointed that wasn't more of a challenge.)

Macau is a hop skip and a  jump away from Hong Kong where the majority of foreigners run off to to activate their visa since in order to do so, one has to leave the country.  It's really well known for it's lap of luxury casinos, high end retail shopping, and density of mainland Chinese population.

Along with being home to a ridiculous amount of casinos, Macau also smells like shit.  The water looks like society took a huge dump in it and there was a super monster fog of pollution hanging over the city.  I'm kind of always joking about China giving me cancer, but in all seriousness, I'm pretty sure staying in Macau past a day would cause the cells in my body to start rapidly malfunctioning.  It wreaks of suckers with money to burn aka-tourists.  I'm starving and I walk a few miles in the hot sun before I come upon the first quality establishments of the day: KFC and McDonalds.  Taking the nutritional high road is difficult, but I walk past them.  My stomach growls at me.
water in Macau

The outskirts of the city have an eerie lack of people walking and bumping into each other on the street, but soon enough I come to realize that everyone is either ballin in a casino, or ballin on a tour bus with fixed empty gazes.  I have no idea where I am going, but according to my map, everything is a tourist destination so I pick a direction and start walking.

My first challenge is the crosswalk itself.  There is one... but it's not controlled by lights and there is steady stream of traffic.  I'm guessing I just have to Thailand that mess and weave in and out of cars??  An old man approaches and scoffs at my timidness.  He steps onto the pavement and like magic, all the cars come to a halt.  I scamper after him.

I'm also getting REAL hot so I duck into the first hotel I see- Encore.  The AC is blasting and it smells like elegance, cigars and money.  I should find a way to bottle that. There is a soft Cuban samba playing over head and a wall of jelly fish behind the reception.  To the right of the reception desk is a Cartier store where women in Gucci are meandering over the treasures. My converse and general attire are starting to make me feel a little under dressed. Images of me in a swank floor length red D&G seducing some sucker for his millions are swirling in my head when I leave the hotel.  A mainlander hawks a loogie on the sidewalk in front of me snapping me back to reality.  Disgusting.

Jelly Fish wall.  I've got to get one of these. 
I follow far behind a huge group of Asian tourists into a non descript building and it pays off.  The casino has these crazy ornate gold depictions of the Chinese Zodiac signs splattered on the ceiling.



After exploring around a bit I realize fancy ceilings are a thing around here.  I probably have a thing or two to learn about casino culture.

The lotus interior
The Galaxy interior
Lion Royalty interior


I see casino after casino after casino blah blah blah, and then I get to a huge building that looks like a lotus. So obviously I go in. Entering this building felt equatable to entering the mother ship.

The mother ship

This time around I went to the tables to take a gander.  It was cool to observe the old men just getting tanked and smoking cigars while carefully calculating their risks.  I didn't even lay any money on the table and I felt like I lost it all and then won it back.   It was exhilarating, I see why people get addicted to playing the game.

Technically I was not supposed to be taking pics, sorry for the shakiness, it was my first spy mission


Coincidentally enough, just as I was giving up hope that Macau was going to produce anything interesting, I ran into an incredible part of town that was an Asian/Portuguese fusion. Not your typical marriage of cultures, but makes sense since it was once a Portuguese colony.  Small windy, tiled roads, wrought iron lining the windows, with dim sum street food, pork buns, and Taiwan tea shops.




 I ate two of the best beef buns I've ever had in my life and it wasn't because I was starving.  It was because they were made of pure awesome.  Perfectly spiced beef in just the right amount of sauce, a few green onions wrapped in a flaky doughy crust.

Street food.  Oh so good.
Somehow I ended up in a garden and on a gondola that cost me roughly 20 cents to take round trip.  The ride wasn't spectacular: the inside of the gondola was like a sauna and the pollution haze was too thick to actually see anything.  But still...it was 20 cents.  Who wouldn't take a gondola ride for 20 cents?

Basically around 3PM I hit a wall and Macau wasn't impressive enough for me to swoon over any longer than I already had.  I hopped back on the ferry and drooled in my sleep on some poor poor tiny Asian with spiky hair and hip hop pants that was too polite to do anything about it.  OH the perks of being a leggy blonde.







  

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

The Lymph Node Ache

Good girls never make history fools.  I'm breaking ALL the rules today and throwing it back on a Tuesday. 

I was hanging out in the shower today, where I spend a good portion of my day thanks to what we call "summer" in Hong Kong.  Summer is it's scientific name,  season of flaming fire and stifling humidity and sweat is far more accurate. It's a bit of mouthful.

Anyhoo, as I was desalinating my body I started to reflect back on the past few years of post graduate life and the events that brought me to Asia. I came to the realization I have not spent a consecutive year on one continent since 2009.  Asia will be the first year for me to stay on one continent, although I feel like I am kind of cheating since I have already lived in two different countries in Asia.  This is also assuming I manage to stay put until November 22.

A year ago this time I was getting into the NYC groove.  That is: I was working hard, playing hard, and barely scraping by.  When I wasn't managing a boutique gourmet popcorn shop in Greenwich village, I was hustling interviews with temp agencies. I was waking up before 8 and actually exercising before anything else (ate a bit too much baguette in Paris).  On my chill days I'd head to the park or do the most crazy bohemian things possible like biking from borough to borough or posting up at a swank restaurant in the village and drinking for free until four in the morning (thank you Andrew Golden) and crashing people's pads.  A curious venture into a French restaurant once went from a conversation in French, to a delicious goat cheese appetizer with caramelized onions and toasted bread, to a coup de champagne, to five coups de champagne, to a personally escorted ride home by the owner himself. Yes, he literally just took me home and dropped me at my doorstep. I became great friends with that restaurant and it ended up feeling a lot like home because...

The year before that around this time I was winding down the most hectic season of work/play I have ever experienced in my life in Paris.  Working in tourism in Paris, in the summer, in the company that I did, demanded every ounce of energy in my body, mind, and soul. The personal growth I experienced during this time period is something that has shaped my life forever.  September brought about a ton of adventure in Paris and by this time fall had already crept up like a bandit.  I was working less, laughing more, and doing such cliche things as: biking around on a beach cruiser with a bottle of wine, a baguette, and a wheel of cheese in my purse.  I was pic-nicking under the stars and under the twinkle of the Eiffel Tower.  Fall for me brought a trip to see my grandparents, a trip to Germany to see a college friend, a trip to Switzerland to go hangliding, and a local trip to Chartres which blew my mind.  I went back to the states for the wedding of two of my best friends in college (who coincidentally are now divorced).  I met a man who showed me what real love felt like.  I shot him down for three months until I decided to date him for a year and half.  We both wandered ourselves out of a relationship and into a relationshit.  That year and half, good and bad, will forever me emblazoned in my brain and heart.  I lived with another man who sadly preferred his own sex to mine, but colored my world with warm love and happiness.  Correction, not just my world, every world he came in contact with was infected with his character.  I let go of a lot of ideals that the world I grew up in told me I had to hold onto and exchanged them for something I felt was a little more rational.

You know when something makes you so sad that the back of your lymph nodes start to ache and that ached just spreads into your nose and then tears just kind of naturally well up in your face?  That's the kind of pain I get when I start to miss Paris. But the Paris I miss will never exist again and that's why there is an ache in my lymph nodes right now. After little success in trying to recreate the type of life, love and friendships I had in Paris in Houston, Austin, and NYC, I came to the realization before I left for Asia that I no longer wanted to be a nomad.  I've always heard about this stage in life, but never really thought it'd happen to me like it is now.  I want to stay in one place, have a bed to crawl into at night, make money in a cool city that doesn't consume my soul, and live a balanced, healthy life full of happiness and adventure.  I am happy now.  It's not the euphoric high I experienced in Paris, but it is a good, steady kind of happy.  A very healthy happy.

Merry Go Round that is my life
(And I'll always have Paris)                          

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Dragon's got Back

My head is pounding and the whiskey from last nights house party is already oozing out of my pores as I pound the pavement to the MTR.  The sun is burning bright and my knock off ray bans are going to be my saving grace for the next six hours.  Why do I do this to myself again? Not only the roller coaster of the late nights and whiskey, but then waking up and torturing myself on six hour hikes?  My bed is still warm, my body having just left it because any attempt to fall back asleep would prove fruitless.  Sleep is lousy match for my inner incessant unquenchable thirst for adventure.

Today's conquest: Dragon's Back trail in Shek O.  




Generally, Dragon's Back is a 6-8 km hike that slightly resembles the scaly back of a dragon with stunning views of Shek O (amazing beach), Tai Long Wan (Big Wave Beach), Stanley (another great beach), and the South China sea. The latest issue of the local magazine in my neighborhood had a "Greatest Hikes in Hong Kong" which praised the hike highly and solidified my Sunday funday adventure plans.  After grabbing a few handmade dumplings from the Shau Kei Wan Sunday market I thanked the weather gods for the beautiful sun, cool breeze and the 29 degree temp.

The trail head was littered with a smattering of nationalities of people, but mostly, French.  I purposely stuck wedged myself behind a mother and her baby daughter to eavesdrop on the conversation: "Oui maman, je toujours regards le film avec les papillons,""Oui? De Quel?""Le film avec le papillons!  Tu sais?"

Steps up making the scales of the Dragon's back.
The initial bit up the mountain was a challenge, but a good one.  It burned for a bit and I definitely broke a sweat, but let's be honest, when are we not sweating here?  The climb was completely worth it when eventually the trail leveled off and was heaven for the next couple of kilometers.  The wind was strong, the sun kissed my shoulders and the scenery was bright vivid green mountain and electric blue ocean.  The wind danced in the trees making patterns in the leaves.

 Shek O


The descent of the trail was actually the only part I found difficult as I was trying not to pound my knees into oblivion and simultaneously attempting control of my out of shape shakes.  Tough balance. Not to be spoiled or anything, but the scenery on the way down was nothing to write home about.  I might have been coming down from a sunshine high.  Eventually the trail winded into the town of Tai Long Wan and I immediately got hunger pangs from the various smells of food wafting through the air.  I saw three men hustling chicken wings and grilled corn on a barbecue pit.  It wasn't a question of "will I?" but "how many?" (No chicken wing has ever tasted better).  I took my wings, my bag, and my weary weary body to plop down on the beach.

Big Wave Beach and it's neighbor, Shek O Beach, are very well know in Hong Kong and there were throngs of families posted up.  Not surprisingly, I once again, heard a symphony of French coming from all directions.  Large populations of French to me gives a place mad street cred.  The French know a thing or two about making the most out of life so this place has to be a good time. Exhausted, I threw everything off including my clothes and dove right in to the refreshing water.  The waves rolled in, laughter and chatter floated all around me, as did an Asian main in a thong on an inflatable flip flop.  The hike left me drained, but the water and the sun are re energizing my spirit.  Nap time on the beach: sleeping in public never came so easily as it did then.

   





Sunday, September 1, 2013

Geology Rocks - High Island Reservoir

I decided this past Thursday to do some adventuring. I had recently made a new list of places to see in Hong Kong and had plenty of destinations to chose from.  The furthest and most reclusive location was High Island Reservoir, which I chose to conquer first.

High Island Reservoir is a hike jam packed full of geological goodies and only 1-2 km in length.  The walk around the geo trial itself is not strenuous in the least, it's the 10km trek to actually get to the reservoir that takes a bit of stamina.  It is well off the beaten tourist destination path and Google maps does not provide a route to get there so it took a bit of research to plan it all out.  Since I had all day I took the longest way possible, but there are definitely alterations that can be made to shorten things up a bit.  

In total, from my front door back to my front door took almost ten hours down to the minute.  Getting there I took the 101 to Diamond Hill where I hopped off at Ping Shek Estates.  To get to Sai Kung you have to catch the outer city bus 1A, which is across the street and right next to an outdoor market(holler morning dumplin snack!).  The 1A will dump you out onto the Sai Kung Pier that is a hustlin' and bustlin' with life.  You can also either A) catch one of the geo trail tours being offered by boat for 88HKD per person or B) grab a taxi that will take you there and back for about 200HKD.  I'm cheap, and I need to lose my tub.  So I hopped on bus 94 and exited just after the Pak Tam Chung stop.  From there, I just followed the yellow brick road (the signs) that pointed me in the direction of High Island Reservoir.    

It's a long, quiet 10KM to get to the reservoir if you're by yourself, but well worth it.  Along the way you get to witness really great views of orange cliff sides contrasted against an electric blue sea and every one hundred feet the geology changes drastically.  Nature is truly at its finest on the geo trail, I even had an impromptu meeting of several cows along the way.  Periodically, there are taxis that wizz by and other solo travelers walking as well. If an emergency were to arise, you wouldn't be completely alone out there. There is no cell reception, as to be expected.  Hong Kong was also pretty prepared and had clean portable bathrooms every couple hundreds of feet.  

The geo trail itself is incredibly breath taking.  It is truly awesome to see the remnants of eons of geological history in the making.  Literally, it evokes awe.  You start at the top of the reservoir and walk the entire length of dam where you can get a bird's eye view of the structure and make your way down where you get to see solid walls of layers of rocks that were once horizontal and have slowly straightened themselves upright over the centuries.  Words don't really do it much justice, so take a peek at the photos below:      

Sai Kung 

 Sai Kung

Follow the signs






These rocks were horizontal at one point

A view from the bottom corner

Barriers along the sea wall



keeping myself entertained

Rocks scratching through concrete

Orange and electric blue












it's probably better to go on a clearer day, I happened to have a bit of a pollution haze hanging about