Black and White

I didn’t do too much during the day today, just hung around the house doing homework. Alex was at her friend’s house the majority of the day and Catherine was off playing by herself. Catherine really wanted to make cookies though so I offered to make them with her. She wanted to make black and white cookies just like the ones she had in New York City. We looked up the recipe and had a lot of fun making them together. Mistakenly, we added the chocolate to all of the frosting mix instead of half, and I had the idea to die half of the frosting black. Catherine wasn’t too excited about it, but since we didn’t really have a choice. When we decorated the cookies the black sort of turned out a weird greenish color and were pretty ugly.

Just when Catherine and I were finishing up the cookies Alex got home and we all went to dinner in Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon. Frank ordered exceptionally weird food this time and so I just stuck to rice and soup. He ordered these eggs that had been aged for ten years in salt and looked disgusting. But supposedly they are amazing. Also there was pigeon that I would have tried if it wasn’t whole. Literally it was a cooked pigeon just cut up with its head facing me. Skin and all! Well without the insides but everything else. There was also raw, I think, squid and a fourth of a pig with part of its face. The waiters said we were VIP guests and were very nice. If we were going to serve something for someone like rice they would take the bowl and do it for us.

After we were finished with dinner we went to the Temple Street Market which is a market that is only at night and named after Tin Hau Temple on Temple Street. It was huge with lots and lots of people. Every stand that had any little animals Catherine went to and played with them, much to the owners’ annoyance. There was a whole street of fortune tellers and everything you could imagine at the market. At the end there were all of these little plastic pieces of bread and buns. For the longest time we could not figure out what they were for. Finally someone told us that you used them beneath your hand when you were typing. I loved playing with them because they felt so real! We walked back through to the beginning again, all at our own pace. When Carrie and I got to the beginning there was this painting that I had seen and really liked when we first got there. Carrie suggested that we should go get Frank and see if he could get the price down. But the guy wouldn’t budge at all. After we walked away I still wanted it and so we went back and I bought it!

China

Frank doesn’t enjoy shopping as much as Carrie, the girls, and I we went to China without him. We took the KCR train into Shen Zhen and after getting through customs and immigration went straight to a jeans shop. I found two pairs that I really liked, but didn’t get them. I felt horrible for not buying the jeans because their whole store was messy with jeans laying everywhere when we left. We went straight to the forth floor of the mall to Carries seamstress after that, but she was very busy. Catherine and Alex were hungry so we decided to go get lunch and come back later. We took the train and it was only about 10 cents for each of us! At the restaurant we got tons of food! Probably enough for eight people and it cost us about eleven dollars U.S.! The food was really good and we got a variety or different things to try.

Alex and Catherine really wanted to go to this huge book store afterwards. The streets of china, even in a newer city, were packed and the air polluted! There were tons of traffic and crazy drivers honking horns. In the book store, the elevators would speed up when you stepped on them! When everyone was finished at the book store, we went back to the seamstress and hung out there until seven or eight o’clock. The sisters working there were IN LOVE with Alex and Catherine! I ordered to dresses but they overcharged me and so I changed my mind. The girls and Carrie got measured and picked out materials for the things they wanted. After we finished at the seamstress Alex spotted a place that sold calligraphy materials and begged Carrie to get them for her. She was soo excited and said she had been looking for them for a really long time.

The day had me pretty worn out and I think we were all just about ready to leave. But we spotted a place selling tea and so we stopped for a little while to try some different kinds. I got a bunch for my mom and Carrie got some, after discovering that the girls loved it. By the end of the day all I wanted to do was scream at all of the people trying to sell me things. At the same time I wanted to buy everything they offered me because I felt so bad for ignoring them! When you walk buy a shop everyone woring shouts the exact same thing “hey missy you want to buy a hand bag? What you want? Dvds? Come with me pretty ladies.” They will just not give up so you have to ignore all of them or they will just follow you. I would hate it if I had to do that all day and people just walked by like I didn’t exists.

Walls

Because our Junk Trip fell through we decided to go to some walled cities and temples. After, missing the exit we drove around for about an hour because there is no place on the highways to really turn around and go back. The first one we went to, and my personal favorite, was Ping Shan. Later was to Kan Tin. Because there were so many pirates back in the day they would build these walls around the cities to protect themselves. They would have lookout towers and everything they needed was inside the walls. All of the streets are very narrow and so that if attacked they could shoot at invaders from above windows or pour hot oil on them. Ping Shan was one of the “Five Great Clans” in the New Territories have been here since the twelfth century. The first village had much less tourism then the second; you could tell it was just a place that people lived their lives.

We went to lunch at this very local place, the most local place any of use have ever been to. We prayed that our dishes would be what we ordered. It was a little hectic with the language barrier and all the noise in the restaurant. All the dishes were huge and about three dollars U.S. I got chicken, vegetables, and rice. All I ate was some rice because the chicken had skin and bones in each piece and it really grossed me out. We went to the Old Ping Shan Police Station that is now the Ping Shan Tang Clan Gallery and Heritage Trails Visitors Center. On the walk up there was a funeral happening and the people were burning paper money, suits, and sports cars for the deceased to use in heaven. The station was made in 1899 and is one of the few remaining pre-war police stations in the New Territories. It was replaced by the Yuen Long Station in the 1960’s and was used as the training center and headquarters of the Police Dog Unit. The museum had a main gallery and outside of it were long buildings with little rooms, each with a different display. They were probably cells, and then later on dog kennels.

Once we looked through the museum we went to Hung Shing Temple. Built in 1767 during the Qing Dynasty, it has two hall buildings with a courtyard in between. They are so beautiful and well preserved. My favorite thing to see was the study halls. It was just magnificent, the detail of these things and the sheer beauty of them. They stand out surrounded by tiny little dirty houses and huge buildings. The Ting Study Hall in Hang Mei Tsuen was built in the 1870’s for both studying and worship. Many study halls were built in this area to prepare kids for the Imperial Service Examinations to improve the social status of the Tang Clan.

My absolute favorite though is Ching Shu Hin. It is the guest house for the visitors and scholars of the study hall. It looks to me kind of like a little castle. The guest quarters have carved panels, murals, patterned grilles, and carved brackets and plaster moldings. I am not describing it very well, but it is truly amazing. Thankfully Frank is a photographer and took some photos of the buildings also, so I can steel them. Mine don’t really capture how amazing it was. After we looked at all of that we went to the Tsui Sing Lau Pagoda.

Once we looked there Frank wanted to take a quick look at Kan Tin. There were old ladies everywhere in traditional clothes asking for money in exchange for pictures of them. This one had many tourists looking through it so it wasn’t as fun. The old ladies even charged you to go in, not that it was very expensive but still. When we went inside the lady in front of us was going to take a picture of these old ladies playing cards and the ladies yelled at her. It was so funny but kind of put me off to city. The wall was more interesting here in Kan Tin. There were watch towers in each corner, and some were crumbling while others still stood. The streets were much narrower in this one too and the city seemed a little bigger.

Buddhas, Deals, and Lasers Galore

Today just us girls went to see the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery in Sha Tin. On the metro there, we were all skeptical of how many Buddha’s were really there. Surely not 10,000 we thought. We walked through Pai Tau Tsuen and then up, up, up the 400 something steps leading to the grounds. The monastery has five temples, two pavilions, and a nine-storey pagoda. At first there were gold Buddha’s lining the walk up. Every one was different, but they all had bright red lips. The majorities were skinny, and did not look that much like what I usually picture Buddha’s looking like. After the long hot hike up we finally get to the main part. There are Buddha’s on elephants and tigers, colorful Buddha’s, Buddha’s everywhere! We then went into the temple, and to our amazement the walls had tiny little Buddha’s covering them with little lights on each. Every column even had Buddha’s on them it seemed like there were more than 10,000 just in there. We then left in search of more Buddha’s.

Walking up another hill there were more Buddha’s lining it. About three fourths of the way up there stared to be female Buddha’s. At the next level place you could see huge buildings in the background and peaceful looking female Buddha’s right in front of you. There was also a huge, old house that was very pretty. We kept walking and found more Buddha’s on the hillside. Each one was with a different animal. There was another very colorful temple with a couple big Buddha’s in it. We walked back down to the main temple, got some sodas, and then decided to descend going a different route. This was had even more gold Buddha’s.

We went to central Hong Kong to go to the ladies market after that. It is comprised of three streets: Fa Yuen Street, Tung Choi Street, and Sa Yeung Choi Street. I am going to get home never want to buy anything! Everything is so cheap here! You can get designer jeans for about thirty dollars U.S. And soso much more! They really have everything at these markets, and most of it is really cute. I am going to need to buy another suitcase, good thing they are cheap too. By now I realized that you can in fact haggle prices down. I had no idea before and would by things for the first price they said. Now I can usually get things to about half of the original price.

After doing some shopping there we met up with Frank for dinner. We went to Japanese cuisine, because the restaurant they originally wanted to go to had closed. It was really good! The only thing I didn’t like that I tried was a soft shell crab hand roll. I though it would be really good, but when I took a bite it was gross, and the texture was very gritty. When I told Carrie and Frank this they said it was probably the brain, but then changed their minds. They told me the brain is usually mushy so it was probably the organs. YUCK. I am not sure if they were joking or not but still it really freaked me out.

After dinner we got ice cream to eat during the light show. I tried durian ice cream just to see what it would taste like. Frank always jokes saying that the guy who first ate the fruit must have been the hungriest man in the world. It is covered in spikes, and once you get past that the smell hits you. It really smells disgusting and then you have to get through the icky gooey part to the fruit. It smells soo bad! Anyways I didn’t like it because I could taste the smell. Instead of going to The Peak to watch the light show we watched it from the top level of the parking garage. It was a great view, even though the light show isn’t all the great. The cool thing about it is that it is so unique. What other city would collaborate with all the big buildings to put on a light show every night at eight o’clock for 20 minutes? They have a cheesy introduction to it and music. The girls loved it though!

Museum Day

While Carrie did her paddling and studying today Frank, Catherine, Alex, and me went to TST. We walked through Chun King Mansion which is basically a hotel for people who cannot afford more than about $20 Hong Kong dollars a night. This is about $2.58 U.S. for a bed and bathroom. It is typically for people form 3rd world countries. The first floor has some amazing ethnic food and some grocery stores too. The majority downstairs are people trying to sell you things in stands. Frank had me try some food from a stand and it was very fried, greasy, and tasty.

After we left there the girls were starving so we went to try and find some place to eat. They wanted sushi at this place called sushi one which didn’t open until 12:30. So we had to go find something to do for 45 minutes. While walking over to the history museum to buy are tickets we spotted the science museum and a poster advertising a dinosaur display. Alex loves dinosaurs so we decided to go look around there for a while. There was only one dinosaur right when you walked in and it wasn’t the best, but the rest of the museum was really interesting.

There was this whole thing about how cars work, something my dad has tried to explain to me multiple times, and the visual model helped me to understand much better. There were also tons of things about your weight, calculating how long it would take you to burn off what you eat, and how much you are over eating. They had this thing showing how much you eat in a year and the scale of what your weight should be. This surprised me since no one in Hong Kong needs this; all of them are tiny.

On the next story of the museum they had a huge section of how to use energy efficiently, green house gasses, ect. This surprised me even more considering china puts out so much pollution! They do not recycle at all, and there is trash thrown everywhere on hillsides and places like that. Also most of their fruit and vegetables are wrapped separately in plastic. The air is thick with pollution and none of them seem to care one bit. It was good that they have the display in the museum though; hopefully it will inspire people to live more greenly. They also had a hall full of mirrors that were really fun, and scientific games. We then went to sushi and then went to the history museum. It was pretty interesting also.

Easter Sunday

Today I decided to make breakfast for the family. After all, it is Easter and they never have sit down breakfasts here. Most Saturday or Sunday mornings my dad makes a big breakfast and I thought it would be a fun thing to do. So I made a huge fruit salad and prepared everything for pan fried potatoes and omelets. Since I am not the best at making potatoes and omelets I had Frank do that part while I watched. It ended up being really good.

Later on we went on a walk with the dogs. Along the way there were tons of brides and grooms having photo shoots. They would be in the ugliest places with cow pies all around them, or underneath a concrete bridge in gravel. The brides would be wearing flick flops or tennis shoes. It wasn’t even their wedding days! The whole thing seems pretty ridiculous to me, but it was sure fun watching. All of the city dwellers who go out to hike and spent the weekend in the country are terrified of dogs. While walking by them with our two big dogs they would step off the path and pick up their children. It was pretty funny.

Along the trails there are all of these abandoned houses from the 70’s. When Hong Kong was run by communists many people who lived there were Christian, They would just pick up and leave their home and belongings. I think that’s why they left but I don’t exactly remember… All of the houses are falling down, because they need constant repair with all of the rain here. But they are really beautiful with all of the trees and vines taking over. We walked to a secluded bay and let the dogs play before we walked home. On the way we walked through this museum. It was huge house with all of the things that they used to have in them. It was really cool and would be a great house to remodel and live in.

For Easter dinner we had the best asparagus, lamb, potatoes, squash, and cake. Oh and we had creaser salad with anchovies, that only Frank ate. While we made dinner we had a very long argument about how disgusting anchovies are. I told him that I would never eat meat form a can. Catherine would back me up repeating everything I said with much enthusiasm. It was hilarious. After dinner frank and I sat at the table and had a very long conversation about life before we all walked up to watch a movie. We only got through about half of it before everyone was falling asleep. I forget the name of the movie. It was Italian and about a guy named Alfredo, his movie theater, and this boy.

Explorations and Navigations

While Frank did his routine sixteen mile walk and Carrie and the girls went to dragon boating I went to town. Instead of walking the four miles which was my original plan, I took the minibus. It was busy in Sai Kung today, and I didn’t really know what to do with myself. So I just waked around looking in all of the stores until I found a Starbucks. I took my homework with me, so I sat down outside and went to work. One of me assignments was to sit and write what is around you for a half hour. It was so funny, Chinese people have no problem staring at you and talking about you while you are right there. It makes me very uncomfortable! I would be writing and old ladies and men would walk by very slowly and look at what I was writing and look at me. I would glare back but it didn’t faze them one bit.

While I was there I say the French man. I can never remember his name, but his accent was so think I asked him to repeat himself ever time he spoke. A while later this couple sat down at the table next to me with the tiniest dog I have ever seen. A couple people who worked at Starbucks cleared the table off so that the little dog could sit on it and just stood watching the tiny dog. Everyone who walked by would coo and ask if it was real. Kind of weird to me, but I have to admit the dog was pretty cute.

After that I just walked around some more. I would be walking and all of a sudden realized I had been in the exact same place minutes before. The places I wanted to go back to I could not find. By that time I had to pee really badly, for my venti tea. So I waited in this huge line for the public bathroom and then realized that all of the toilets were the traditional Chinese style ones. I practically ran out while everyone in line looked at me like I was crazy. I am just not the squatting type.

I then stumbled into Alex, she said that she had been searching for her mom and couldn’t find her anywhere. I told her that her best bet was to stay just where she was and wait, or go to the park where I remembered Carrie telling the girls to meet a couple days earlier. She wouldn’t listen to me of course and just biked off. I tried to follow her but she disappeared. So I called her mom on my 2 something a minute phone and told her I had just seen Alex. Carrie was so frustrated and had been looking for her for an hour and a half. She thought that Alex would come back to the 7 eleven so Catherine, Carrie and me waited around there for a while. When that didn’t work, I waited with the car while they went looking for Alex. Finally, all three of them came back, and Alex walks past me and says “See I found her.” This made me laugh since if she had only waited for 3 more minutes at the 7 eleven like I had said she would have found Carrie 45 minutes earlier.

Later that night we met Carrie’s paddle boating friends and their husbands at a Gaisi. There is a wet market on the first floor with fish, meat, and vegetables. They have exercise places, shopping and things like that on the other floors. On the top floor is a food court of sorts. It isn’t pretty, but the food is amazing. They used to be on the streets with cock roaches and rats running around your feet every once and a while. Yuck... but now the health and sanitary codes are so strict that they have moved or shut down almost all of them off the streets. We had Thai food there and I had a mango smoothie. They were amazing!

Gary, one of there close friends, who is native to Hong Kong, told me the manners of the table. He said “Stop worrying about making a mess! The bigger a mess you make means the more you enjoyed it here!” This is so different from our culture it was sort of hard for me to get used to, but it makes eating a whole lot more fun. You just through stuff on the table and don’t worry about anything! Mandy, Gary’s girlfriend sat on one side of me and had me try a coconut. It was great too, definitely the best I have ever had. Everyone there was really nice and they had the people working bring me out forks, but I didn’t even use one once. The chop sticks here are rounded and so hard for me to use! We took a taxi home and everyone was wiped.