Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a fun and exciting city. It has a little of everything - a beautiful view, high end shopping, cheap markets, great food, a giant Buddha, a unique mix of culture, a really convenient public transportation system, and an amazing amount of nature/wildlife in the heart of the city. Fortunately it didn't rain while we were there despite the 90% chance that was predicted. It was cloudy the whole time though. I traveled with my friend Justin, who is also a JET in Tokushima Prefecture (his blog is now linked over there on the right). We went by brother and sister whenever someone asked, and that's pretty much how we interacted anyhow.

FOOD
It was Thanksgiving weekend, so we ate quite a bit. We had Thai, Peking dim sum, Szechuan, Mexican, Mrs. Field cookies, Hong Kong style fried rice, some seafood (squid and baby oysters), and Japanese ramen (which we're pretty sure was made with spaghetti noodles). We almost forgot that it was Thanksgiving, but this was my actual Thanksgiving meal - congee, sesame rice balls, and soy milk:


MONEY
My least favorite thought process is dividing by 8. We had a confusing couple hours our first night because we had yen that needed to be exchanged for the Hong Kong dollar. We're both accustomed to calculating yen into US$ because it is roughly 100yen to $1 plus a little. And we know there's about 8 HK$ to a $1. But the actual exchange we had to act on was 1HK$=16yen, or 1yen=0.0659HK$. So we kept trying to reconvert everything back to dollars, all in our head of course. We finally found a place with a good exchange rate and then left yen out of our calculations when looking at prices in HK$.

TRANSPORTATION
I was really amazed by the city's public transportation system. There were trains, buses, trams, walkways above streets, outdoor escalator, and a subway. All were super clean and ran frequently. All signs and maps were in Cantonese and English. The subway was so easy to use because all you had to do was put your finger on the destination you wanted on the screen map and it told you how much money to put in. It was a relief after Japanese timetables and price maps. Here we are on a city bus that took us straight from the airport to our hostel. Note the nicely cushioned seats.


HOSTEL
We stayed in a hostel in Causeway Bay, a shopping district on the East side of the city. It was about $16 per night per person and we had our own bathroom, air conditioning, and wireless internet. We used the wireless internet to communicate with family and friends in the US. Justin used his pda and skype to call people. I used my webcam and aolim. The first room they took us didn't have everything we wanted in a room so we switched rooms. It was kind of an ordeal because no one in the office spoke English, but I managed to figured everything out through an English speaking woman over the phone. They took us to one building three blocks away, but there was some problem with the security guys on the first floor, so after a verbal fight took place in front of us in Cantonese, we left and they took us to a different building. We paid the difference for a better room on the street, which felt a little shady, but once we got settled we realized the room was actually quite safe and convenient after all.

THE SITES
Parks - HK has a ton of free, well-kept, clean, gorgeous parks. We went to the Honk Kong Park, Kowloon Park, HK Botanical Garden and Zoo, and Victoria Park. Some of the parks have swimming pools, ponds, greenhouses, sculptures, waterfalls, museums, restaurants, wild animals, aviaries, sport courts, and well manicured plants. Here are some pictures from the parks.
Where park meets city-

Orchids-






Victoria Peak - We took the steep Peak Tram up to the top of Victoria Peak, south of the city. There was a mall and restaurants on the top. This was the clearest it was all weekend. Here is the view-



The Promenade - Across from Hong Kong Island is Kowloon Peninsula. There's a street on the edge of this peninsula and it has the best view of the city from the north. Here is the view during the day, East to West. My pictures at night didn't turn out.





Here's the clocktower near the promenade.


The Ngong Ping Skyrail and Buddha - West of HK Island is Lantau Island. The largest outdoor Buddha in the world sits on top of a mountain on Lantau. There's a brand new skyrail that takes you right to the Buddha. We had to wait about two hours to get on it though. It's about a 20 minute ride over a bay and a couple of mountains. I took a video of the end of the rail because I was worried that I pictures would turn out due to the dirt on the glass in our cabin. Here are some of those pictures, but the video is linked on the right.
Look for the skyrail cabins that fit 10 people there at the top of this picture-

The skyrail begins down near that building in the center of this picture-


It was pretty cloudy up there, but here are the good pictures of the Buddha and the surroundings.






We shared a cab back with a couple Spanish wine sellers because the line was too ridiculous to take the skyrail back. I don't think little amusement park skyrails are going to do anything for me anymore. And this means that in three weeks, I've seen the biggest indoor (at Todai-ji in Nara) and outdoor Buddhas in the world!

SHOPPING
There are malls and markets everywhere you turn in HK. We walked through most of the malls that connected all the big buildings together. You can stride through half the city and avoid the hot, busy street by doing so. The markets were a lot more hectic and fun. We got to Ladies Market, the Jade Market, Night Market near Jordan Rd, and Stanley Market on the south side of the HK Island. We bartered for everything we wanted, and sometimes we unintentionally bartered by walking away when we actually weren't interested in items. We didn't get around to the goldfish and flower markets.






NIGHTLIFE
We went out on the town one night in the SoHo and Lan Kwai Fong districts. We took the public outdoor escalator to get there. I'm pretty sure there are other places to party because only foreigners and ex-pats were there. We still had fun though. No cover charges.

PERCUSSION
We got tickets to see a Taiwanese Ju Percussion Group perform at the HK Cultural Center alone and with the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. It was a spectacular show and parts of it reminded me of Blue Man Group minus the blue and the humor. So I guess it was just the sound and lighting. Anyways, I was really impressed. The orchestra sounded a lot like western orchestras but all the instruments were completely different. It was definitely a highlight of the trip. We also saw the last round of a middle and high school drumming competition. Here's a picture of the Cultural Center. It has three theaters inside it.


JAL
Japan Airlines is right up there with Midwest Express. I got to sit in the upper deck exit row on the way back. All seating enjoyed many movies, games, music, and more on personal screens. They had cameras on the bottom and front of the plane that you could watch. The meal came with silverware, chopsticks, and free unlimited drinks (I didn't take advantage of it Mom and Dad!). No warm gooey cookies though.

I definitely want to go back someday! It would be fun to have a condo there. Hmm, new goal in life.

tap dancing and Thanksgiving

Well last weekend I caught a cold and stayed home for two days. Luckily I got better just in time for the technical high school's cultural festival. Two of my friends and my supervisor come to the festival with me. We enjoyed the food, kareoke singers, and bazaar. Unfortunately it was raining, so not many non-school people came. They covered the stage though, so I did a little tap dancing number for everyone. They put microphones near the floor so that everyone huddled under tents and inside buildings could here my feet. It was the first time for everyone there to see tap dancing.... which took a little pressure off of me. I didn't use any music or costumes, but I did many typical tap steps. I didn't mess up, so I was happy. The look on the faces of my students was priceless. These photos are courtesy of Erin. Students were wearing their school uniforms.


I also did some calligraphy to display at the cultural festival. This is the calligraphy teacher who helped me practice, before I made my own.


Uh, I think I just ate an acorn. I'm at school and a teacher handed me a snack. It really looks like an acorn, but I don't think any humans eat acorns..... hmm, maybe it's a chestnut. Okay, a teacher just told me it was indeed a chestnut. Okay, that's settled.

Tonight Justin and I are headed to Osaka to catch a flight to Hong Kong, where we will spend Thanksgiving eating Chinese food. We're returning late on Monday, so I probably won't get pictures or stories up until Wednesday. Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers!!!!!!!!!!!! Eat lots of mashed potatoes for me!!!!!!!!!

Takamatsu, pizza, and Bolivian food

Last Friday I had a few friends over to watch a movie. I successfully ordered three pizzas over the phone in Japanese all by myself!!! And there was no mistake, I really meant to order these....

This is a teriyaki chicken pizza. It has some sort of salad dressing, teriyaki sauce, chicken, seaweed shavings, and cabbage. I ordered it without mayonnaise like it usually comes.

This is the Pizza RoyalHat's special pizza. It comes with tuna, ham, tomato, corn, cheese, and sauce.


On Saturday I traveled to Nishi-iya to enjoy some Bolivian food with Justin and a couple other Jets. Justin has some Japanese/Bolivian friends who invited us over for dinner. It was my first time in an actual Japanese house. The house was really cute with three really big tatami rooms, kitchen, entranceway, playroom, and bathroom. We sat on the floor with our legs under the blanket that lays between the tabletop and small table heater. We had all kinds of sushi, a Bolivian appetizer, and chicken/potato dish that tasted just like my favorite meal in Honduras. I always crave that dish, so it was a satisfying surprise to eat it out in the middle of Japan's hidden valley.

On Sunday I met up with two Jets from Michigan in Takamatsu, part of Kagawa Prefecture just north of Tokushima Prefecture. We explored Takamatsu's Ritsuren Park, the largest garden in Japan (750,000sq m).


The kikugetsutei teahouse inside the garden was serving tea properly by the Japanese tea ceremony.


We sat (on the floor) in a waiting room for a while and then shuffled (in our socks) into the tea room. We sat on the ground while some guy in a kimono asked a few people from the group to participate in the running of the tea ceremony. Then they made the three of us move to the front because it was apparently obvious that it was our first time. We got a great view and were served just after the women in kimonos. Some of the other women there were in kimonos, and all of the men and women conducting the ceremony were in traditional kimonos. First we ate a tea ceremony sweet, and then drank some tea from some expensive cups. There was a proper way to hold your cup and rotate your cup and bow to the person serving you. We just followed everyone else and hoped we weren't insulting anyone. The woman in charge of making conversation during the ceremony asked us where we were from and a couple other things I couldn't understand. Overall, it was pretty exciting!

Then we headed over to Yashima, just east of Takamatsu, where there is a neighborhood (called Shikokumura) of historical houses/structures from all over Shikoku. First we ate an entire vat of Takamatsu's famous sanuki udon at a locate restaurant.




This is an old soy sauce warehouse.

This is a lighthouse and house of the lighthouse's keeper was nearby, but difficult to capture in a photo.

Weather update

It finally got cold here. The first day of winter was last Monday and the temperature dropped. At night it's down to about 50F and 60F in my apartment. My space heater brings it up to about 65F. I guess this probably still sounds warm to everyone who has already experienced snow. It feels a lot colder to me now that I can't stay warm without wearing a hat and gloves. I can't go barefoot in my apartment either. Everyone is catching a cold now. I fought off a cold with nine hours of sleep, three liters of water and one liter of orange juice all in one day.

As for the earthquake and possible tsunami, I'm at no risk. I didn't feel it and the two largest islands of Japan are blocking me from a tsunami. From what I can tell from the tv news, the epicenter wasn't technically in Japan and most people couldn't feel it. They are predicting a tsunami hitting Hokkaido to as far south as Tokyo.

Osaka and Nara

I had a wonderful weekend last week in Osaka and Nara. I went with Jill and we met up with one of my friends from Wellesley and her friends. We did touristy things in Nara, but not in Osaka. We were really just checking out Osaka for the first time, shopping, and hanging out with some delightful new friends and their pet cat and kitten. I bought an amazing electronic dictionary (Canon G90 complete with a kanji write-in feature!) in the Nipponbashi district of Osaka, which might as well be called THE electronic capital of the world. Picture several Target stores all on one street, but only selling electronics and accessories. Each store had entire floors devoted to just cameras or just computer accessories. Here's a view of the street:

These are the adorable cats cricket and velcro. I took this picture with my cell phone!


NARA
Nara is the birthplace of imperial power in Japan. During the 8th century, Emperor Shomu wanted to demonstrate his power by building a gigantic temple with a gigantic Buddha inside. Nara was nearly bankrupt by the time the temple was finished 15 years later, but it showed the area who was boss. Many sub-temples were built later on, so the entire area is filled with many temples, shrines, and ancient burial grounds. Every January, the grass-burning festival called yamayaki is celebrated nearby the temple. The fire got out of hand a few times and the temple and Buddha were nearly destroyed. That and an earthquake have required the temple and Buddha to be rebuilt a few times. The most recent rebuilding took place in 1709. The temple is called Todai-ji and this is the outside. The entire building is made of wood.

This is the biggest Buddha in the world. More specifically, it depicts Rushana (Dainichi Nyorai), the Cosmic Buddha presiding over all levels of the universe. It's two-thirds its original size.


pic c/o jill:




One of the supporting pillars of the temple has a small tunnel through its base. If you can pass through the tunnel, you're supposedly guaranteed a spot in paradise. As you can see, only kids can really fit through it.