| Michael and Jen...'s profileextra bucksmithPhotosBlogLists |  Tools  Help |
|
August 22 a few days in humidityi can't be the first person to have been to hong kong and noticed all the buildings. in fact, if dubai is known for its architecture then hong kong must know for its buildings. like ants on a bench they look more horrendous in clusters. like when you drive from the airport on both your left and your right you will see clumps of dozens of identical apartmnet blocks, let's say, 40 storeys high. i wondered where all the people would go when they left home in the morning, but i found out when i went for a wander the next morning to find a bakery for breakfast. we didn't have a bakery for breakfast but the fruits of. little creamy cake thing with names like butter flakey and blueberry cake. we took ben for a push and there was no doubt that hongkong would be a fascinating place to pound the pavements of. as well as jostling through markets ignoring the usual buffet of diesel and von dutch t-shirts, copy watches and ladies purses and bags, we headed to hong kong island. the schmog and humid air made hk island difficult to see from kowloon on our first day but following a 10 minute ferry trip we were on the island itself and ready to lug our sweaty selves and a buggy onto the 206 to ocean park. apart from the usual bubble blowing pirate ships and swingy rides we saw two real pandas. they were lovely and we took a photo or two of ben with them in the background in case he won't know what they were when he is our age. an awesome gondola ride took us over the hill to the shark aquarium and yet another opportunity to wish we had an umbrella. it was one of those place where you get to walk under a glass tunnel and see hammerheads and heaps of sharks looking back. there was also a beautiful floppy ray in there too. i lied about the walking under bit. there was a flat escalator to take us through. that place was one of my highlights of hong kong. we also had a great day out with old ras al khaimah friends who know live and work in, what she referred to as, hongers. we all took off to an island and took photos of a large statue of buddha as well as chinese looking buildings and eat vegetarian food which seemed to include lots of mushrooms and other stuff i could call foam, but tasted a little better. unusually it took a day or so for hk to grow on me but it did. i miss the friendliness of the friendliest people i might have ever met. everybody treated us so well and went out of there way to help us with ben. the food was a little plain but the atmosphere and bustle was unlike i'd enjoyed before. my first impression was that it was a nice mixture of melbourne and colombo. the big buildings, the masses of people, the restaurants, the taxis, the expensive shops, the parks. on our first night we went and sat at an outdoor restaurant and had a meal. we went for pork. the seafood was crawling off the plates next to us. it was cool to sit in the centre of a busy street surrinded by chinese people eating pork. on the way back to our hotel, we saw an octopus escaping from its tank, tentacling its way up a window being chased by butterfly net weilded by a short man who probably hoped to serve her with noodle and msg. |
|
|
