Hong Kong
Day 1: Snack time
K80 and I got into Hong Kong last Friday after staying overnight in a hostel in Taipei. After taking care of our Chinese visa and settling into our hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui (尖沙嘴, or TST in English) in Kowloon (九龍), K80 and I walked around the neighborhood, first snacking at a cha chaan teng (茶餐廳), a kind of Chinese diner, where they serve an interesting mix of Chinese and western food. I got a hot milk tea (熱奶茶), Hong Kong style, which entails some strong, way-overbrewed tea with condensed milk, as well as a roast pork sandwich, and K80 got some noodles, both of which were advertised as part of their “afternoon tea” menu. They were all delicious, though the tea did need some extra sugar… but maybe I’m just too used to Taiwanese drinks. They also had prices written using Suzhou numerals, an interesting form of writing numbers which I’ve never seen before in Taiwan, though I recognized them as it was described in McCawley’s Eater’s Guide to Chinese Characters.
Museum time
We spent a little time walking to the nearby Hong Kong Museum of History (香港歷史博物館). The main exhibit is a walk through of the history of Hong Kong, starting with a geology primer and the land that Hong Kong sits on, through the four ethnic groups of Hong Kong, then the British, Japanese, and finally the return to the Chinese. It was a great museum with many life-size buildings and cultural relics, making it much more engaging than just some artifacts behind glass cases.
Dinner and stand-up
We met up with Michael/Kikai, who’s going to school in Hong Kong now, and his friends. We took the world’s largest system of interconnected escalators up from Central to Taco Loco. It was probably the first time I’d had Mexican food since I’ve been in Taiwan, so that was great. We then went out to see Paul Ogata and a couple openers at TakeOut Comedy’s first anniversary show. TakeOut Comedy is Asia’s first full-time stand-up venue, and they also recently started stand-up in Cantonese. Paul Ogata is a Japanese-American comedian from Hawaii, who recently won the San Francisco International Comedy Competition and also an avid Mac fan. The show was fantastic!
Afterwards we went out to a bar nearby, where I randomly met a guy I who was in my Computational Complexity class at Chicago. It’s a small world. K80 and I also got to know Kikai’s friends, including two students from France and Magi from Germany. K80 and I mention we’re going to China, and Magi (below with me and my duck) says maybe she’ll join us…
Day 2: Dim sum brunch
I cajoled K80 into having Dim Sum (點心) for breakfast. We went to a restaurant that Magi recommended in TST and had some fantastic dishes… our favorites were the fried shrimp wontons and pork buns.
10,000 Buddhas Temple
In the afternoon we visited the 10,000 Buddhas temple on 寶福山. After some introductory guard animals and shrubbery, you take the escalators up to the temple, which is made up of a sanctuary with 10,000 Buddhas, and then probably 50 or 60 rooms, each of which house hundreds of graves. K80 happened to see a family bringing in an urn. I was amazed by the number of plates in these rooms which had Christian crosses on them.
Ladies’ market
The Hong Kong Ladies’ Market, as it is called, is like a huge day market, much like Taiwan’s night markets, but with much taller stalls. Kikai took us around the market and then to one of his favorite snacks: a hot waffle layered with peanut butter, butter, condensed milk, and then sugar. It was both delicious and deadly. K80 then saw a Krispy Kreme (nonexistant in Taiwan) and went over for a donut (after the deadly waffle).
Symphony of Lights
At night we walked around and saw the Symphony of Lights on Victoria Harbour
Hong Kong Miscellanea
K80 and I both got saw Hong Kong as a stereotypical yet fascinating mix of east and west. It’s also a very cute city: the emergency man runs even faster than in Taiwan, some trains have a quiet car, a “do not trespass” sign has a cute enter (入) man, and Oracle is 甲骨文, literally oracle bone script. We had some great food, met great friends, and I’ll be sure to go back again—now much more of a possibility as I’ll most likely be back in June for the Association for Language Awareness conference.
Related posts:
- Going to China just got more expensive
- ETA-ROC and Another Weekend in Taipei
- Family in Taiwan
- Midyear conference in Hualian and Taroko
- 新年明けまして御めでとうございます！
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Tags: Buddhism, conference, food, history, Hong Kong, museum, night market, tea, temple, visa
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February 18th, 2008 at 6:21 am
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the temple you visited in Sha Tin in HK, was NOT the 10,000 buddha temple.
The actually visited the ancestral worship cemetary further down the hill called “Bo Fu Shan Kwat Fui Ham” - Ashes Shrine of the Treasure Mountain. It has escalators to get up and an angled lift to get back down (or steps of course). Yes, I know it has a pagoda and a temple with some buddhas in, but it isn’t the famous 10,000 buddha temple.
To do that you need to take the many steps (lined with the 500 golden arhans) which can be found further along to the right past the urn cemetary you visited.
Maybe next time you are in HK you can revisit the place and you will see. Sorry to disappoint.