Po Tat

I haven't done too much in the past week...quite honestly the weather's been a bit sketchy, and with the exception of a few things I want to see in the western side of Hong Kong, I've pretty much done everything. Although, that doesn't mean I don't have stories to tell.

Wednesday was spent wandering about looking for places that don't exist. It's really hard trying to find one particular store in a concrete jungle and as good as Google Map is, it's only so accurate to a point. Thursday I didn't really do too much, I watched some hockey and helped out with the housework. V took me out to dinner, sort of a date night. We went to this Thai place in Kowloon City. Except for a few dishes, it wasn't discernibly Thai...but that doesn't mean the food wasn't good. With the possible exception of the pho that we ordered. V ordered the pho to show me why when Hongkongers come back to Vancouver, they crave Vietnamese food. Quite simply put, it's terrible here, especially if you bear in mind that the bowl we had at the Thai place was probably one of the best V has had here in HK...that's just sad. There's no real explanation for bad Vietnamese food here either. They're proximity to Vietnam would suggest that they would have some of the best Vietnamese food outside of Vietnam. But, this is simply not the case. So be proud of your culinary diversity and authenticity Vancouver, we are truly lucky.

There was a couple sitting beside us in the restaurant, they were there when we got there. They were eating the restaurant specialty, which is a prawn ball with a soupy pork centre. It's really quite good (one of the things that was discernibly Thai :P). We ordered the same along with a few more dishes. Part way through our meal, V commented to me that the other couple had made said something to the effect that we had ordered a lot of food. In all honesty, we ordered the prawn ball thing, a veggie dish, a seafood veggie dish (which was primarily veggies), the terrible pho and a small plate of charred pork neck (it might sound unpleasant, but it is super good). She was telling me this, as the other couples order of curry crab arrived. It was two whole crabs smothered in curry sauce. It looked super good mind you, but that by itself is probably like more than half of our meal. Then they proceeded to order more food. I said to V that was kind of rude and that while they could continue to order more food, there was one thing they didn't need to order, cause as we all know, punches are free. But cooler heads prevailed, and in the end they ended up eating way more than us. WTH!?

Oh yeah, on Thursday afternoon I received a frantic phone call from V. Turns out there was some kind of school competition thing happening on Saturday and she needed costume pieces for the kids. That's where I came in. She told me that she needed me to go to Toys R Us (TRU) and find 'Harry Potter' like glasses for a owl costume and wings for a bug costume and that that's what I would be doing on Friday. Then she stopped and asked me "What are you doing right now?" to which I replied, "I was planning what I was going to do on Friday, but it seems as though it's already been planned for me."

So I woke up on Friday morning and headed out to TRU to find some costumes. My adventure took me to Tsim Sha Tsui (TST) and Harbour City where the closest TRU is. Let me first tell you that I had actually been to this TRU on Wednesday whilst looking for the places that didn't exist. The TRU is housed in at the cruise ship terminal at the edge of TST and mostly frequented by mainlanders and other vacation goers. At the front of the store is a greeter. The greeter was a gangly sort of fellow with big thick-ish glasses. As I look Chinese, he greeted me in Mandarin. As I didn't notice him right away, his loud greeting in Mandarin freaked the crap out of me. So, this time when I went to the TRU prepared to combat my gangly nemesis equipped with headphones and mp3. But, he used a tactic that I was not prepared for...this time shouting at me in Mandarin, drowning out the music and once again scaring the crap out of me. You win this round gangly TRU Mandarin yelling guy.

(Oh, I did finally find one of the places that didn't exist. Turns out it does exist. That being said, it was kinda disappointing when I did find it.)

Once inside the TRU, I was able to find a pair of bug wings. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find a pair of 'Harry Potter' style glasses. So trying not to look super gay, I paid for my butterfly wings and left. In the TRU I had a lengthy discussion with V about the bug wings and where I should go to look for a pair of glasses. She suggested the Tung Choi Street Market, more commonly referred to as the Ladies' market. So I embarked on my journey from the TST waterfront to the Ladies' Market in Mong Kok. Now for those of you who don't know HK, Mong Kok is a bargain hunters paradise. Everything from shoes and electronics to clothing and beauty products can be found in all of the street markets and tiny shops riddled along the bustling streets. It's sort of a sketchy area, but I've never had a problem there. Just part of the area's charm I think.

Anyways, Mong Kok isn't exactly close to TST, but since I had the whole day in front of me, I decided to walk there. The nice thing about malls in Hong Kong is that they are sprawling and air conditioned so the first part of my trip was spent weaving my way through the Harbour City mall almost 1/3 of my way there. Upon exiting the mall back outside into the slightly humid afternoon daylight, I wandered down and made my way down towards Jordan. There I found the Kowloon Central Post Office and bought a couple of stamps from the vending machine outside and mailed off my postcards. I continued to walk through Jordan down Nathan Road, past shops and restaurants winding my way through people in the crowded streets.

Now more than 1/2 way there, I had reached Yau Ma Tei (like Jordan or Mong Kok, it's a region of the city). After about an hour or so of walking I made it to the MTR station in Mong Kok. Unfortunately, all of the streets start to look the same and I couldn't remember where the market was. So, after trying to get help from V and her coworkers as to it's location, I ducked into the station to find a map and get my bearings. Now topside, I walked a few blocks and found the market with ease. And so began my hunt to find some 'Harry Potter' style glasses. The Ladies' Market is a treasure trove of toys, clothing, handbags, watches, sunglasses, electronics accessories, and Chinese cultural knick knacks. They have everything there...except the one thing I was actually looking for. After wandering through the market for about an hour, I was about to give up and head back to Jordan and the Temple Street Market to see if I could find something there, when all of a sudden I found a costume shop on the edge of the Ladies' Market. Huzzah! 'Harry Potter' style glasses! Mission accomplished.

After finishing the costume search for V, I started wandering around Mong Kok. It's where I first stayed in HK the very first time I came to HK. So, feeling nostalgic, I went on a trek to find my old hotel and my old stomping ground. Not too long after I started out, I found my old hotel and the area where I had first stayed. It was nice to see where all of my HK adventures began. So, in that spirit, I began another adventure and began to wander around unfamiliar places. As it would happen, I got sorta lost. I tend to wander around now without the use of my guidebook/map. I have a pretty good sense of direction I think and if worse came to worse I could just call V and try to figure out where I was and how to get un-lost. It was neat to wander through the streets and see where the real Hongkongers are and how they go about their daily lives. Fortunately, I didn't stay lost too long and I found my way back to more familiar territory in Mong Kok.

I was getting a bit tired and the afternoon day sun was beginning to take it's toll, so I sought refuge at Langham Place, a large mall in Mong Kok. It was a nice place to get out of the sun and cool off for a bit. Plus, there's a nice bathroom there in the lobby of the attached hotel. V and I joke that if I were to ever right a book on travel to Hong Kong, I could tell people where all of the nice washrooms are throughout TST and parts of Kowloon. Anyways, I did some window shopping at Langham and cooled off, while waiting for V to finish work. I was running out of things to do and getting a little bored. Turns out she wouldn't be done work for quite some time. After briefly considering heading home, I instead headed back to TST and a little bakery I had seen. After getting my snack and a tasty beverage, I retreated into Harbour City once again, making sure to steer clear of the TRU.

V was finally off work and making her way towards me. We were suppose to head to Jordan to pick up some stuff at her Aunt's house and then head out for dinner. Or so I thought. So, I headed out to meet V at the corner of Austin and Nathan Road and then head out to her Aunt's house. Unfortunately, V was caught in traffic. She called a head and told me that I could go to her Aunt's house and she would meet up with me there. I felt a bit awkward about that and instead decided to do some more window shopping. While I was waiting for her this Australian woman came up to me, she looked rather lost and somewhat frazzled. She asked me if I knew where the Kowloon Cricket Club was. Interestingly enough, I did. I pointed her towards the KCC and continued on my way.

Anyways, I eventually caught up with V and we headed to her Aunt's place. I thought we were just there to pick up stuff, turns out we were there for dinner...would have been nice to know that before I was standing outside her Aunt's house. It's not that I didn't want to have dinner there, it was more that I had been out all day and that I was dressed kinda shabbily and kinda grungy from my walkabout. Not exactly the best impression I wanted to leave with her family. Thankfully no one cared and I got a super sweet home cooked Chinese dinner. Stewed ox tongue and root veggies is ridiculously good. I almost ate the whole bowl of it myself...but I thought that would be kinda rude. After dinner we hung out for a bit before heading back home to watch Canada and Belarus. Woot 6-1 Canada!

Saturday was a bit of a lazy day for me. With V at work and me pretty tired from all of my trekking from Friday, I just took it easy and hung around at home for the day. Dinner on Saturday was out at Tai Koo with some of her aunts, uncle and cousins. Tai Koo is on the north eastern side of Hong Kong Island. A bit of a rainy night, we ended up at a nice Thai restaurant. The area where we had dinner was pretty cool. It reminded me a lot of Kits. Dinner was like usual, really good. The dinner was suppose to be a farewell dinner for me cause they all thought I was leaving that weekend. Surprise! I'm here till next Saturday. :) Oh yeah, on the way to the restaurant, when her Uncle found out I was here in HK till the 2nd of May, he invited me to a party on May 1st, which was super funny cause V didn't know about it and hadn't been invited yet. So, I invited her to go with me. :P We did some shopping after dinner at the !Cityplaza before heading home. I'm not sure how the '!' works there in the name.

Sunday was a bit of a late start after sleeping in late and watching some hockey, we headed out to do a bit of shopping. I'm looking to maybe buy one of those induction cooktops. Anyways, we headed out into the rain and down to TST for a look around. Nothing on the induction cooktop front, but we did manage to buy a bunch of shoes. After a nice cup of tea and a sandwich (V had some soup), we headed back home to meet up with the same family we had dinner with the night before for some hotpot.

While we were waiting for the bus there was a chubby middle aged woman standing there with her children. Now, I'm of the mind that if you're standing under a bus shelter, you probably don't need an umbrella to keep you dry. Unfortunately, she did not share my view and in the course of waiting for the bus, she smacked her umbrella into me a few time and had the nerve to glare at me like it was my fault. You know what, if you're having a bad day or you don't like that it's raining or you're ashamed of your retarded children or something, that's no reason to be a douche and take it out on me with your umbrella. Anyways, the woman's bus eventually showed up and she took her umbrella with her. I voiced my opinion about the lady to V at this point and as she doesn't appreciate me swearing, I called the woman a 'Po Tat' which was the name of the destination on the bus. For some reason it sounded like a swear in head and I just substituted it in. Since then I've adopted it into my repertoire as an all purpose noun/verb. So, feel free to use it if you like.

Anyways, hotpot. After stuffing our faces for about an hour and a half, V and I headed out to catch a late movie. If you haven't seen Monsters vs Aliens yet, you should, it's pretty funny. The movie theatre we saw it at had it in 3D. Considerably entertained, we headed back home, but not before I freaked out some guy in the elevator as the doors were opening, when I made a sound from the movie. It was priceless.

4W

I wish I was back home right now to help celebrate the win. That's not to say that I'm not happy to be here in HK. It's just the win doesn't mean so much to the people here. I think I might have scared some people on this floor of the apartment building when I cheered super loud when Burrows scored. 12W to go.

Hong Kong Update

Ugh...it's really hot here right now. It's super humid too. I call it 'The Moist'. Everything is just sort of damp all the time. All I can really say is that it's just really moist.

Got back from Japan last Sunday. I'll try to post a few stories from our trip soon. Didn't really do much this past week. V started back at work this past week. Her school is being rebuilt so they've had to change locations to a new school for the rest of the year. I went with her on Tuesday to see where the school is. It's out about as far east as you can go in Hong Kong near Po Lam.

So, yeah I haven't really done too much this past week. I watched a bunch of playoff hockey and I've been domestic. That is to say, I've been helping out with much of the housework and cooking. I cooked dinner for V a couple of times last week. Tried a new recipe or two and tried my hand at deep frying. Not too bad, if I do say so myself.

It doesn't help that I got sick late last week. So, I didn't really feel like doing much. Got another stomach bug. What sucks is that I had just got over a small head cold I picked up in Osaka. Oh well. I saw a doctor and he gave me drugs so I'm feeling pretty good now. Probably venture out into the city a bit more this week. That is if The Moist doesn't get me first.

3W, 13 to go. Laters.

Blogging...better late than never: Part Two

Here's part two of my trip summary thus far that you should have got a couple of weeks back:

As I was saying, we arrived at Ngong Ping Village. A tourist trap for sure, but a nice place to relax and grab a bite. Amongst all of the cafes and gelato places, we found a really good Chinese restaurant serving very traditional foods. We took some pics around the village and then headed up towards the Buddha. At the top are six, what I can only describe as 'believers', making offerings to the Buddha and of course the Buddha itself. It's a pretty awe inspiring site, and I can only imagine a much more spiritual one for those who are Buddhist. Inside the statue is a sprawling mural that tells the story of the Buddha. Also at the top where the Buddha sits, it was super windy. So much so that V was being pushed around by it.

We walked back down the stairs, counting them as we went (250 by our count), and found our way over to the Po Lin Monastery. The monastery has a grandeur and elegance to it that I have not seen in many temples throughout my travels in Asia. All in all, my experience at the Tian Tin Buddha was a good one. It's wonder and mysticism gave me a sense of peace and calm. Although I can't help but think that some of it's majesty might be lost on this non-Buddhist.

We took a bus trip from the village near the Buddha to a fishing community about 30mins away called Tai O. Tai O was very reminiscent of my solo trip to Lie Yue Mun on my last trip. The main area is lined by food stalls, restaurants and other shops selling local preserves and delicacies. Tai O is famous for it's tofu pudding. Those of you who don't like tofu, won't find this terribly appealing, but if V, an adherent hater of tofu will eat it and profess to even enjoy eating it, it's probably pretty good. A funny story happened here too, other than V eating tofu. There was this cat at the tofu stall where we stopped, it seemed to take a liking to us and meowed and sat around with us while we ate. At some point though, the cat disappeared. All of a sudden, there was a wicked racket. It turns out the the owners cats were fighting. When the dust settled, the cat that had befriended us was victorious. I told V that it was like my spirit animal protecting me from evil...she didn't buy into it. Just down from the tofu pudding place was a food cart where a husband and wife team grilled dried fish meat. It was from them that V and I tried spicy grilled mantis prawn jerky. If you've never had it, and I'm almost positive that you haven't, you have to try it.

We headed from Tai O to Tung Chung and the outlet mall there. I made my first purchase here at the outlet mall. A nice score I think. Anyways, as always, there's too many stores at the outlet mall to see everything and we run out of time before the mall closes. So, the only thing left to do is have dinner. We settled into a buffet at the hotel there. It's no Mr. Steak Buffet, but for the price it was pretty damn good. Back home from a long day's trip, it was sleepy time.

Friday was a pretty relaxed day before BBQ at with V's family. BBQ with V's family is a a lot of fun. It's a grand social occasion marked by the consumption of ridiculous amounts of meat. Although, this time I was found to be toasting bread brushed with honey.

Saturday was spent cleaning the apartment and packing in preparation for our trip to Japan. I'm one of those people who like to pack early and plan for the worst. V on the other hand is more of a last minute packer and packs for minimalism so as to maximize the amount of foreign booty that can be crammed into a partially empty suit case. Some how we were able to come to a compromise and we got all of our stuff packed up and were ready for our trip on Monday. We had some leftovers from the BBQ the night before for dinner. Wait...that's not quite right. On our way home from BBQ the following night we walked back from the BBQ place to the Causeway Bay MTR station. We were accompanied by V's cousin Ken and his wife Irene and her cousin Ben and his wife Joanna. While in conversation with her cousin Ken, it turns out that they had scored some leftovers from the BBQ. Somehow V got a hold of the bag of leftovers and began to investigate its contents. At this point, she turned to me and asked, "Do you want to steal their leftovers?" To which I kindly replied, "No, that's kind of a dick thing to do." In any event, we acquired some of the leftovers. So, Saturday night V cooked me dinner which consisted of veggies with preserved tofu (which I thought I had never had before, but it turns out that I have had it) and what I pleasantly refer to as hot dog fried rice. Quite tasty although a bit strange in terms of my culinary stereotype of what fried rice is.

Sunday was a national holiday in Hong Kong. I'm not entirely sure what it's called, but it was a day to honour your ancestors. We met up with one of V's aunt and uncle in an older area of the city (Mei Foo) as they were going to show us the way to the cemetery. Let me just say that that Sunday was super hot and I'm glad to finally see some of the locals, and not just me, suffering from the heat. We met up with the rest of the family and headed off to visit the first ancestor. I'm not sure how the rituals actually work, so I just sort of followed along with everyone. Looking around the cemetery, it seems that each family seemed to honour their ancestors in slightly different ways, but all of them seemed to have the same theme. There was the cleaning of the grave stone, a presentation of some food and flowers to the their ancestors, and then a short prayer. After a visit to the last of their ancestors, her family broke out a little feast of fruits and roasted meats and had a graveside picnic in memory of their ancestors. I saw other with even more elaborate ceremonies and grander feasts than ours, but all-in-all it was the same; families coming together to celebrate and remember their loved ones.

After the cemetery, we all started to head down to a little dai pai dong area for a cold drink and short reprieve from the heat of the sun. Of course, as with any family gathering, there was a big dinner planned. V had mention to me earlier in the week that we would be "going to the Gold Coast for dinner on Sunday". She said that it was pretty far away. I replied "Gold Coast? Like Australia?" The conversation sort of ended there and I really gave it no more though. But, there we were Sunday afternoon and headed off to the Gold Coast. Turns out that the Gold Coast is really far away...not Australia far, but it's somewhere where I don't know where I am.

For those of you familiar with Hong Kong and even those of you not familiar with Hong Kong, the Gold Coast is a resort area in the Tuen Mun District in the New Territories. Anyways, there at the Gold Coast Hotel is a super swank buffet. Now I've talked to you about buffets in HK before and there is no comparison to them in Vancouver that I can imagine. The best one I've been to is probably Mr. Steak. The Gold Coast Hotel buffet destroys the Mr. Steak buffet. I can't even begin to describe to you the grandeur of the food presented. Needless to say that any restaurant that has ice cream bars, freshly grilled eel, potato wedges and candy Coke bottles is pretty awesome. After a ridiculous amount of eating, there was of course the requisite family photos, we taxi'd back with V's cousin Ben and his wife Joanna to Lam Tin. One final packing check for our Japan trip the next day and then it was off to bed.

Blogging...better late than never: Part One

So I attempted to write this blog before I went to Japan...epic fail I suppose. So unedited and unfinished here's the post you should have gotten like two weeks ago:

Well, it appears that I've done a fairly poor job with this blogging thing since I've been back in HK. Not enough time really to do any writing. So, I'll give you all a summary of my travels so far.

My flight out of Vancouver took an extra 2 hours. Anyone who's ever taken a 14 hour flight anywhere, an extra two hours is not a fun time. Not too mention that sleeping on the flight was next to impossible cause of the two giggly fools sitting in front of me. I swear, every twenty minutes the one sitting by the window would open the shutter and then I would get slapped in the face with sunlight. After another hour and a half on the bus, I finally reached my HK home. So, all-in-all, I left Vancouver at 3:10pm Monday and arrived here at V's house at 12am Wednesday.

Since I had been travelling for what seemed like forever and since V was still working, I didn't do much the next day. Mostly, I slept, unpacked my stuff and watched hockey. I helped out with some house work too. Thankfully the apartment isn't too big. We went out for dinner that night ending up at a Chinese fusion restaurant called Red Ant. As with most of the food here in HK, it was really good. Didn't do too much after dinner. We wandered around and did some shopping for a bit, then hopped the shuttle back to the apartment and called it an early night.

The next day was the big day. Let me start by saying, that this is my fifth trip to Hong Kong. In all of those trips, I've done a lot of the touristy things and I've also ventured off on my own to explore parts of Hong Kong that many people will never see. Still, one of the things that I still hadn't seen was the famous Big Buddha (more formally known at the Tian Tan Buddha). Although, if you haven't heard of it till now, it might not be that famous. Anyways, Today, meaning Thursday, was the day that I would finally go see the Big Buddha. V's mom told me that I should go with V cause she has only seen it once. The funny part to stress here was that V's mom seemed more interested that V go see the Buddha for a second time than me seeing it for the first time. Not sure why.

So, we headed out early that morning and started out on our way. In terms of geography, V's apartment is at one end of Hong Kong, while the Big Buddha sits at the exact opposite end. Instead of taking the MTR (the HK subway system) we hopped on the good ol' E22 (you might remember that V, her brother and I had a bit of an adventure the last time I was here and we took the E22) and headed out to Tung Chung where the gondolas are. The gondolas travel across fairly mountainous terrain travelling up to Ngong Ping Village, which is like a super small Chinese Whistler Village. Basically, there's a lot of places to eat and tourist shops there.

Just a side note, there are I believe 4 major hiking trails in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong trail, the MacLehose trail, the Wilson Trail and the Lantau trail. As, I was saying before, the gondola travels up and over some fairly mountainous terrain. Below the gondola, is part of the Lantau trail. As, I understand it, if you wanted to you could walk up the mountains to the Buddha if you wanted to. As we soared over the Lantau trail, I looked down to see at my amazement an extremely old man hiking to the peaks of the trail.

End of Part One.

Epic Fail

Sorry I haven't been posting anything so far. I'm working on it as we speak. I'll have something up soon hopefully.