Kristin Reporting!
Today may have been the BEST day of the entire trip! Of course, this is because we had the wonderful unplanned meet-up with our little brother Jona!
However, Hong Kong is also a nice place to visit. I don't think we could have done a better job seeing as much as possible in a one day visit. Like all places you really need at least a week to see everything of interest but we did our best with the day we had!
The first thing we noticed was that the weather today was not good. It was overcast, foggy, and drizzling intermittently. This did not bode well for getting spectacular views of the Hong Kong skyline, but it was a welcome change from the hot, humid weather we've experienced the past month. (Not that I'm complaining that we only had sunny weather on the trip so far! Especially since February is part of Sydney's raining season, and they had a record dry month when we were there! That’s some good luck we had!) Walking around in the nice cool weather today was great, and the drizzle was never enough to prevent us from walking around in the open.
There was a bit of a delay getting off the ship due to the number of people disembarking and the requirement that they go through immigration first. We got off around 10AM, and we were happy to find Jona waiting right where we got off!
<3 Yay for Jona! <3
Jona has been in Hong Kong since last Saturday, so he knew how to get around. He led us to the subway station where we could buy an Octopus card, and D and I bought our tap-on/tap-off cards.
The plan was to head to the Wang Tai Sin temple first. My friend Natalie Leung had recommended it as being both very nice, but also of a different style from Mon Mo Temple, which we planned to visit later in the day.
The subway system is very good, and it didn't take long to reach Wang Tai Sin temple. It is very beautiful. It was restored/improved very recently in 1973 and it's wonderful. They had large humanized monk-like representations of the 12 zodiac animals, and we had fun getting a photo of ourselves with our zodiac animal.
[Davin Interjection: I was very impressed by this temple. It turns out this was actually a Taoist temple, rather than a Buddhist temple. So there were offerings to a number of different gods. Also the amount of smoke being generated by all of the incense was also impressive. I also liked that this seemed to be an actual working temple, rather than one that is mostly for show and visited by tourists. I actually don’t even recall seeing any other obvious tourists there.]
We were then going to head to the Hong Kong Museum of History, but Jona suggested going to the 10,000 Buddha's monastery. It was a bit further north, out of our way, but we checked out photos using our phone's data connection and it looked cool, so we decided to check it out.
Another convenient train ride brought us to the area of 10,000 Buddhas monastery. This was a truly magnificent temple to visit! We had to climb a steep hill to reach the temple at the top, and all along the path were 100s of life-size golden Buddha statues. No two were alike. We took pictures of some of our favorite "characters".
Everything we saw at the top– the temple, pagoda, and waterfall with more golden Buddhas– was equally amazing. The hall containing the 10,000 Buddhas was impressive but unfortunately pictures weren't allowed. There are some online though.
[Davin Interjection: I thought the approach to the temple was actually the best. It was crazy seeing so many nearly life sized Buddhas lining the path. And the path up to the temple just kept going and going. It was actually a pretty decent hike up there! We even followed the path up higher than the temple entrance and came to a “tortoise” pond, and a hillside with a waterfall and even more standing Buddhas. Overall I was really impressed by this place, and was glad that we decided to visit it!]
We found a different path back down the hill on the other side of the temple complex. There were a few golden Buddhas at the top of this path including some particularly demon-like ones! However, they were only along the very top of the path near the temple so the other route up the hill is more impressive overall. As we passed them, we noticed movement in a nearby tree– there were monkeys! I got a really good picture of one of the cute monkeys!
Just past the monkey tree, Jona and I passed what appeared to be a monk. D was bringing up the rear, and the monk gently took his hand as he was walking by and began to give a blessing! It was funny, the "monk" stroked his hand, placed a bracelet on his wrist, kissed the bracelet, patted his head, stroked his beard, placed a Buddha necklace on his head, rubbed his belly, and whacked him on the head with a golden tassel. He then brought out a bronze cup, hit it with a metal rod to make it chime, and began mumbling "blessings" in Chinese while waiting for D to place a donation in the cup.
D didn't have any small bills, so I handed D two $100 HKD. I meant to give D the option to choose how much to give him, but D just handed him the full amount. He seemed very pleased, so he came over to me and whacked me on the head with the tassel and placed a pretty white bracelet on my wrist.
The monk then approached Jonathan and began the process. We thought the monk was including Jonathan, the way he had included me, but then he asked for more money. Unfortunately, Jona didn't have money to spare, so he gave him only $15.00HKD. The monk didn't seem pleased, so Jona offered to give the necklace back, but the monk signaled, "No, no, no". So I offered the monk an additional $5.00 USD. The monk said, "$25", and I replied, "Sorry, I have no more money!" He then just smiled and accepted what he had gained, and went on his way.
It was a funny "cultural" experience. We realize this monk could have been a charlatan but it was fun either way, and hopefully he was affiliated with an actual temple. He had a very kind face, and gave off a good feeling from his "blessing process", so, either way, I think he earned the generous amount of money we paid for the experience!
[Davin Interjection: Some more background on my encounter with this monk. I actually encountered him before everyone else, because I was going down the stairs first. It was kind of an odd experience, because when I went down, he came up, but when I stopped, then he also stopped. So, I was thinking to myself, “What the hell?” and decided to wait for Kristin and Jona to catch up. I think maybe he wasn’t allowed to approach me, but I had to approach him? (Not that I had a choice since it was a narrow staircase.) When I finally made it past him, after letting Kristin and Jona pass), that was when he grabbed me and gave me his blessing.
As far as the money goes, 200 HKD is only $25 so it’s not as much as it sounds. Maybe it was too generous, I don’t know. I thought it was a fair amount for the experience. Unfortunately, it seems like he expected the same from Jona. I jokingly told Jona that his karma was low, since the monk wasn’t happy with his contribution, whereas my blessing was fully in effect (in fairness, I feel like I can use all the help I can get).]
We were now ready for some lunch, so we headed to the museum area to find some food. As we browsed the restaurants, I called Scott and had a nice chat with him right before he went to bed. I had Jona say “Hi!” to Scott over the phone. My brothers (at least D) were annoyed that they had to wait for my call to end.
After I hung-up, the three of us picked a cheap lunch place at random. It was pretty mediocre, but it was edible and filled our bellies! (D had a Hawaiian Pizza, Jona had Spaghetti Bolognese, and I had BBQ chicken strips with rice. Jona said his Bolognese actually wasn’t too bad, and I think my meal was probably the most delicious. I let D have some of mine in addition to his very mediocre pizza.)
It was a short walk to the Hong Kong Museum of History. We didn't have time to read everything as we normally like to do, so we had to skip parts of the exhibit. It was a very nice museum. It covered the history of Hong Kong from geologic formation to the 1997 reunification with China after the 100 year lease of the area by Great Britain expired.
We had just enough time to take the train down to the Soho area to see the Man Mo temple before it closed. At first it seemed less impressive than the other temples we saw today, especially because it was filled with smoke from burning incense! It was certainly the least comfortable to visit because of all the smoke! But we were intrigued to discover that what at first looked like upside down baskets hanging from the ceiling was actually giant spirals of incense, and all of them were lit and burning! This explained all the smoke, and the effect was pretty cool.
It was nice that all three temples we saw today were very different from one another!
We had one hour until dinner at Luk Yu Tea House with Vincci and Petrina– two of Natalie's bridesmaids that live in Hong Kong. So we decided to find and ride the famous Soho escalator all the way to the top! It turned out to be made up of 23 escalator sections. At first it seemed very unimpressive– it was just an escalator after all!– but it just kept going, and going, and going! We began to feel like it would never end! Davin humorously asked, "What if it just keeps on going all the way to outer space?" By the time we reached the top of the escalator we could fully understand why the escalator system was built. Anyone living at the top of the hill would certainly not want to walk up and down that hill to go to work each day!
Unfortunately, the escalator only runs one way at a time. It goes down from 6AM to 10AM, and then reverses direction and runs up from 10AM to Midnight. That meant we had to use our feet to walk the 13 minutes back down the hill to the restaurant.
We found Luk Yu Restaurant and found Vincci waiting for us. Soon after we were joined by our Australian friends Andy and Nikola, and Petrina. Vincci and Petrina offered advice and we all worked together to order some very delicious Cantonese food. All of us really enjoyed the Prawn Toast, the Spicy Beef, the Sweet and Sour Pork, and the Beef Fried Rice. We also got to try Pig Lung Soup and the consensus was that it was too bland, but it was still fun to be adventurous and give it a try. We also tried a dessert soup and decided that it was also too bland, too bitter, and needed more sugar. We got more sugar so we could eat it because leaving it behind would have been rude.
[Davin Interjection: I think I was the main proponent of ordering the Pig Lung Soup. It wasn’t as bad as you might expect, but it also wasn’t very good. It wasn’t disgusting, by any means, just pretty bland and flavorless. The food at this restaurant was pretty good, but I was struck by how similar it was to the Chinese food we can get back in San Diego. It seems our Chinese food is pretty authentic, at least using Hong Kong as a reference point.]
Vincci and Petrina then walked us through the bar area which is popular with tourists. Around 10:00pm, we parted ways. Petrina was kind enough to show us the way to the Star Ferry dock.
Jona, D, and I took the ferry back from Hong Kong island to the Kowloon side where the Queen Elizabeth was docked. At the ship, I left the guys at the gangway entrance to retrieve Erich so he could get a picture with Jona. We took some Erich photos, and then it was time to part ways.
We had a wonderful day together, but it was time to say goodbye to my Jona. Always a sad moment for me! I think I gave him four different goodbye hugs! I look forward to visiting with him more in the summer of 2017 on the east coast of the United States.
Back aboard the ship, D and I popped in to watch the last 10 minutes of the Chinese acrobatic show. We saw a lady who was very talented with hula hoops! D then relaxed with a long shower, and I watched a couple Babylon 5 episodes before bed. I finished Season 1! Yay! I’m finally on to the better seasons!
[Davin Interjection: It was nice meeting up with Jonathan here in Hong Kong. It was especially cool because it was so unexpected. It just happened that his trip happened to coincide with us being there! So, I’m glad it happened and look forward to seeing him again hopefully next year in the U.S.!]
Next Stop: Shanghai, China (March 13, 2016)
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