Three more days and the love affair continues

Hong Kong continues to please me. I’m not sure if it’s just because this is the first time I’ve been at liberty in a proper city in a while, but I don’t think that’s all of it. It’s probably because it’s got all the amenities you could want – an efficient public transit system, fantastic museums and galleries, theatre, music, more shopping I will ever need, great restaurants of every possible cuisine, hilly parks, stunning views, a harbour, Guinness on tap, and at least three different Hashes. I think I could probably live here quite happily for a while.

Hong Kong is also remarkably clean for a big city, almost obsessively so. There are always people sweeping up public spaces, and I constantly see signs that say things like “This door handle is sanitized every two hours” or “This handrail covered with anti-bacterial coating.” There are scrolling LED signs imploring you to cover your nose and mouth when you sneeze, and stickers in the metro cars request that you contact station staff if you are feeling unwell. Sometimes I’m a bit worried that if I cough in the wrong place I’ll get carted of to some kind of reeducation program. I suspect it’s a SARS / H1N1 thing, but it’s still a bit Big Brother.

Woman sweeping the pristine square outside the Hong Kong History Museum

On Monday I parceled up yet another package home and sent it off via the friendly, efficient and reasonably priced Hong Kong postal system (another reason why I think of this as a separate country – not just the border controls and the different currency – they also have their own postal system.) This made it much easier to put everything that was left back in the Aeronaut and make my way to yet another hotel room and to bed number 135 (for those who are keeping score). As I mentioned, my new room has a window and wifi, so it’s been quite nice. It’s not the Ritz (as evidenced by the cockroach found belly-up and twitching outside the elevator) but for $40 CDN a night it suits my needs.

After the big move I decided to explore my new neighbourhood a bit, hoping to find a good spot to go for a run later that day. The new hotel is very close to Hong Kong Harbour and Victoria Park, so it seemed reasonable to think there’d be some good waterfront running, and maybe some more verdant park-like business as well. Humph. Not exactly. Victoria Park is pleasant enough, but exceedingly small. And the waterfront started out promisingly but soon deteriorated into a maze of dead ends, six lane highways, overpasses, tunnels, closed docks and construction zones. It is emphatically NOT a pedestrian-friendly zone, and is one of the few things I’ve ended up not liking about Hong Kong. Eventually I found my way to the Hong Convention and Exhibition Centre, which the LP claimed had a nice harbour view. I did find the view, but was tired and footsore and fed up with being a pedestrian on the Causeway Bay waterfront, so it’s hard to wax rhapsodic about it.

Here's the view from the the Convention Centre. The LP says I was looking through the “world’s largest ‘glass curtain’ – a window seven stories high”. I think that’s Victoria Peak in the background.

By the time I was back at the hotel I mostly just wanted a nap, so of course I dug out my running shoes and headed out to attempt a run of some kind. I ended up having to do laps around Victoria Park, due to the aforementioned shocking lack of waterfront access. I later learned that of all the spots in Hong Kong in which to base myself, Causeway Bay is perhaps the least runner-friendly of all. Great. Nonetheless I did manage a respectable 6 km and felt better for it, as usual.

That evening I ate supper in my room. There’s a big grocery store right across the street, so I went over and picked up a takeaway box of sushi and some beer and supplies for breakfast. I thought it would be a quick errand, but ended up spending half a lifetime in line behind a woman with a giant cartload of stuff who needed to have such a long discussion with the cashier about the price of every item that eventually paperwork needed to be filled out and supervisors consulted. People in the other lines breezed through like they were on fast-forward; in my line children were born, grew to old age, and died all while this woman argued about the price of a packet of instant noodles. Civilization rose and fell. Tectonic plates shifted. Stars went supernova. And more importantly, my beer got warm. Humph.

On Tuesday I planned to get back to some serious tourist stuff and visit a few sights on the mainland in the Kowloon peninsula. First though, I needed to get some laundry done, so I stopped in at reception to find out about that. That’s how I ended up meeting Frank, an American traveler in Hong Kong who befriended me, showed me where the cheap laundry was, bought me a latté, and talked my ear off for a pleasant hour that morning. Frank is a retired US Navy man and has that super-friendly, talkative, instant best-buddies manner of many of his countrymen. He also has a Brompton folding bicycle. Bromptons are one of my Favourite Things (check out the video on this page to see why) so I was keen to have a look at one up close and let Frank talk to me about it. Frank was off to Macau later that day, which is where I’m headed next. So you never know, I may get the chance to buy him a coffee there, and hear more about his travels with the Brompton. If not, it was still lovely to meet him and have some friendly conversation with a fellow traveler.

Frank, and the partially folded Brompton, both fun discoveries

Once I left Frank and put my official tourist hat back on it was a quick trip to Mong Kok to check out the famous Flower Market. It was pleasant, but not the big open market I’d been expecting. Instead it was a long block of individual shops, each selling cut flowers, plants, bamboo, bonsai and other flower-related stuff. It was diverting for a few minutes, but it wasn’t long before I turned my steps to the other sight in the area, a small spot called the Bird Garden. This purported be a park where people brought their songbirds in cages to “air” the birds and chat with each other. Once again, expectations were defied. The Bird Garden was more an outdoor mall of stalls selling birds, bird cages, bird accessories and live bugs to be used as bird food. I didn’t see any old Chinese men airing their birds, smoking, playing ma johng and feeding crickets to their charges, which is definitely what the guidebooks implied would be found.

Mong Kok’s last chance was the Goldfish Market, a street full of shops selling fish and aquarium supplies. This was mildly diverting too, and at least yielded an interesting enough photo to warrant putting here.

A few of the fish on offer

The rest of the afternoon was taken up with a nice lunch and a visit to a travel agent to buy a two-week Japan Rail pass. (They must be bought before arriving in Japan, and I reasoned that doing this in Hong Kong would be the simplest thing). All this was just killing time though, because that night I was going to hash! The Ladies Hong Kong Hash House Harriers were the usual fun and friendly bunch and I made it to the start point of the run thanks to their help, the number 72 bus, and Google Maps on the iPhone.

Rob H-mandated shot of me for this post, on the top deck of bus number 72 (which also had the best bus sign ever, reading “Please do not obstruct the periscope”)

Despite their name, the Ladies Hash is a co-ed bunch, though they have an unwritten rule that a woman must always lead the pack while on the run. Because the run started at 6:45pm everyone arrived equipped with flashlights and headlamps. Everyone, that is, except the visitor from Canada who didn’t have the wit to realize that the sun would set that day, and that running in the dark in an unfamiliar city might be tricky. Never fear though, I was able to stick with other more prepared hashers and had a good run.

Unlike a Winnipeg hash, there was a very very big hill in the area. Other than in Causeway Bay, there is always a big hill in the area in Hong Kong. So naturally we went straight up about 600 steps all the way to the top. This was a bit tedious, but the view at the top was rewarding.

The view from the top

After the run we decamped to a local Thai restaurant and had beer and good food and down-downs. Once again I was confirmed in my belief that hashers are good people, and even made plans to hash with a different local group the very next night, in the very same place. (It seemed that since I’d already figured out the bus system there wasn’t much reason not to come back.) Eventually I made my way back to the hotel that night sweaty, tired, tipsy and content.

Wednesday was free museum day in Hong Kong and I took full advantage by visiting the History Museum before lunch and the Art Museum after. Both were excellent, even if they were filled with bargain-hunting crowds and school kids. At least because it was free I didn’t feel compelled to linger over every display case, however dusty, so as to extract maximum possible value from my admission fee. Instead I skipped happily through several thousand years of history until I got to the first really juicy bit – the Opium Wars. I’d heard of this event before but really knew nothing about it, so I was glad to learn anything. For those who are similarly uniformed, here’s my incredibly simplified Opium-Wars-for-dummies:

Britain had a huge trade imbalance with China due in part to much importation of Chinese tea to please British palates, and much lack of interest in European products among the Chinese. Britain then discovered that opium from its Indian colonies was a huge hit with the Chinese population and the trade imbalance tipped in their favour. China slapped restrictions on opium trade, and trade in general, but smugglers ignored them and eventually it all came to blows. Despite their smaller numbers the British won because they had superior machinery of war, and they imposed the harsh Treaty of Nanking on China in 1842. Among other things, the treaty ceded Hong Kong to Britain.

Simple. And all laid out in easy-to-understand fashion at the Hong Kong History Museum. I also really enjoyed the section of the museum devoted to the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during WWII – another bit of history about which I was woefully uninformed.

The Art museum was also a hit. I was lucky enough to arrive just in time for a guided tour of one of the galleries of antiquities. (Aside: Let me take a moment here to clarify the difference between what I call a guided tour and what I call a group tour. A guided tour is a short-duration visit to a single sight or area, conducted by a knowledgeable, usually local person. A group tour is a seemingly never-ending series of early morning wakeup calls, overnight trains and one night stands, done in the company of 6-12 people among whom the only common denominator is that they all surrendered their credit card details to the same company.) (Ok, perhaps that’s harsh. Let’s just chalk it up to my group tour hangover and move on with the Art Museum.)

The tour I took was of a collection of antique Chinese accessories – hair pins, belt buckles, snuff bottles and the like. It is, potentially, a dry subject, but the woman conducting the tour was very knowledgeable and make it all quite interesting. She knew about all the layers and layers of symbolism on every embroidered knot and amber bead. Talking about the hats and fans and things was really just a way in to a discussion of Chinese life, thought and culture, and well worth an hour of my time.

Then it was time for another hash and another trip up the same hill, though this time we took the jungle route up. It was a hands-and-knees job for much of the way. The Little Sai Wan Hash is clearly a much more energetic bunch than the Ladies of Hong Kong. At least this time I remembered to bring my headlamp, though it turned out to be only slightly brighter than a glow-in-the-dark Halloween mask. Here’s word of advice: Do not attempt the Little Sai Wan “Double Rambo” trail with a dodgey headlamp and tired legs. A little blood and a lot of cursing is the inevitable result. However, the LSW has were kind enough to give me a key chain and a badge, and I left as tipsy and content that night as I’d been the night before.

Finally, it's been nice to have the leisure time and resources to sit down and plan the next leg of the trip. I’m off for a quick stop in Macau then I’ve got flights and hotels pre-booked for Vietnam and Laos, which is a relief. It also looks like my standard of living is going to be pretty decent in southeast Asia. Private bathrooms and wifi seem to be pretty standard in the $20-$40/night range, and I’m determined not to cheap out unnecessarily. I’ve stayed in enough 8-bed dorms, shared enough skanky bathrooms and endured enough long distance bus rides in the last nine months. From now on it’s flights, decent hotels and prearranged airport pickups. I’ve been out here long enough to know what keeps me happy, so now I’m actually going to try to put that knowledge to use. Damn the bank account, I want fluffy towels!

Steve's Weird Food for Hong Kong: Pass the noseplugs.

As much as Hong Kong is very very different from mainland China, there are still some things that are the same. True, there are so many 7-11s, McDonald’s and Starbucks that you can usually stand in the doorway of one and toss a half-caf double mocha frappuccino into the next. But there are also noodle shops and little butcher stalls with barbequed ducks hanging in the window and those places selling desiccated sea creatures.

Along with newspapers, cans of Coke and bags of chips, 7-11s here sell things with TENTACLES. We are not in Kansas anymore.

Finding weird food here is not a challenge. Not in the slightest. When the supermarket sells lychee flavoured gum and vaccuum-packed chicken feet and durian, digging up an appropriate weird food is not an issue.

Yes, I said durian. For those of you not familiar with this fruit, durian is one of those foods with a really bad reputation, sort of like tripe or worms or pig ears or… well you get the idea. Clearly, this was something I had to try. A durian fruit is large – up to twelve inches long and six inches in diameter, and is covered with a hard, thorny husk. Inside the flesh is pale yellow and divided into sections that in turn have large seeds.

A picture of durian, from Wikipedia

Not so weird, you say? Well it’s not the durian’s looks that give it its bad reputation, it’s the smell. The smell of durian has variously been described as “dirty diapers left out in a dumpster at midday, with a top note of sweaty gym socks” or my favourite, “rotting flesh”. And it’s not just that it smells bad, it’s that it smells a lot. The smell of durian is so strong that the very presence of even the unopened fruit is banned in some hotels and public transit in Southeast Asia. Having just spent a few minutes intentionally inhaling great snootfuls of durian’s unique aroma, I’d say it most reminds me of raw onion. This is a fine quality in an onion, but not perhaps a good one in a fruit.

For another perspective on durian’s unique qualities, here’s an oft-quoted bit from the 1856 writings of British naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace, whose love affair with durian is evident from this description:

“The five cells are silky-white within, and are filled with a mass of firm, cream-coloured pulp, containing about three seeds each. This pulp is the edible part, and its consistence and flavour are indescribable. A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acid nor sweet nor juicy; yet it wants neither of these qualities, for it is in itself perfect. It produces no nausea or other bad effect, and the more you eat of it the less you feel inclined to stop. In fact, to eat Durians is a new sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience. ... as producing a food of the most exquisite flavour it is unsurpassed.”

I didn’t buy a whole durian. Instead I got one section of the flesh, packed in a styrofoam tray and barcoded, from my local grocery store ($16.00 HK, about $2.10). Even sealed behind clingfilm the smell was evident, and I was a bit worried about putting it in the communal fridge at my hotel. But I know what you’re really wondering… what’s it like to eat? First, I opened the window in the room, and then I sliced open the clingfilm, with some trepidation. Then I dug in - with a spoon - I didn’t want to get any on my fingers and have the lingering smell of durian follow me to the end of my days. The texture of the flesh is smooth and creamy, with a few stringy bits. As for the flavour – it does have a bit of onion about it. It’s also like custard, and very strong cheese, and a bit like mango. Definitely unique.

This is what durian flesh looks like when it’s been reluctantly prodded with a spoon and then dug around in to find bits of the creamy custardy part. One large pit is showing.

Russell claimed that more you eat, the more you want to eat. I can’t say that was my experience, though I did notice that the second and third and fourth morsels I tried seemed more custardy and less Roquefort than the first. I didn’t finish it off though, and quickly wrapped the remainder in seventeen layers of plastic bag, to be smuggled out of the room and disposed of in a back alley somewhere. Once the experiment was over, but before the offending bundle was removed from the room, my nose had a weird tingly feeling, almost as if it was simply over stimulated and didn’t quite know what to do about it. Poor thing.

And just to prove how easy it is to find weird food here, I’m going to include two bonus weird food items. These were both procured from a small kiosk in the Tsim Sha Tsui metro station, in between a cookie shop and (of course) a 7-11. So it’s not like I had to make a special trip to a Weird Food Store in a dim alley to get them. And what are we talking about? Well, how about a little loquat, lotus seed and white fungus dessert? It’s not just tasty, it’s also medicinal! To quote the side of the tub, it’s “Suitable for: dry skin, dry mouth with thirsty feeling, discomfort in the respiratory system, gets coughing easily, suffers from insomnia frequently, dreamy.”

There’s nothing like a little white fungus to clear up that persistent cough

The contents of the tub were a pale creamy-coloured soup with a mild coconut-like flavour. It was reasonably pleasant except for the large, rubbery bits of fungus floating in the mixture. I’m sitting here with the tub open and my spoon poised and I just cannot think of a way to describe those fungus bits. They really have no flavour, but the texture is… words fail me. A bit like frilly, very firm gelatin. Yup, that’s about as close as I can come. Imagine very strong, clear Jell-O in the shape of tiny curly lettuce leaves. Sort of rubbery, sort of toothsome, and certainly not exactly at home in a cup of dessert.

So perhaps Loquat, lotus seed and white fungus is not your cup of tea. Well surely then you wouldn’t object to trying some Kidney-strengthening five bean dessert? Especially if you are “experiencing deficiency in the function of the spleen and stomach, poor digestion, gets tiredness easily and excessive depletion of energy or have poor immunity and suffer from influenza easily”. Just pop open the tub and dig in!

Five, count ‘em FIVE kinds of beans in every dessert.

This one was more agreeable, maybe simply because the texture and flavour of beans was familiar. The juice, or broth, or whatever was a bit sweet, but mostly the beans just tasted like beans. I don’t think it will replace cheesecake or chocolate on my list of top desserts, but I finished it off.

So there you have it, lots and lots of weird food, and more to come as I move into Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia. Until then I’ll just add that I’m doing fine, and my kidneys have never felt better.

Hong Kong, a love affair

Where to start?  I've been here for five days now and I love it.  As I said before, Hong Kong is a big relief after three weeks in mainland China.  It's a proper, big, first-world city.  There's lots of English everywhere, and it's fast and exciting and vibrant and it all just works.  Take the metro system for example. Most people in Hong Kong use an "Octopus Card" which is a rechargeable card you can use to get on the metro and all buses.  But it doesn't stop there. You can use the Octopus card for tourist sites like the tram that goes up Victoria Peak.  In fact, it's not just a transport card, it's a "smart card payment system".  Use it at the grocery store.  Use it at the 7-11.  Use it at McDonalds, at malls, cinemas, even pet stores. It's the all-purpose Hong Kong card.  Brilliant. (And what is it with naming metro cards after see creatures?  The equivalent in London is the Oyster Card…)

But back to me and Hong Kong.  I left the group on Saturday, which was not hard at all.  Of all the groups I've traveled with this is the once I felt the least connection with so on Saturday morning when I turned my face to the Hong Kong Metro, I was not filled with grief at our parting.  I was off to my own hotel, and I while I had no plans for the day, that was, frankly, just how I liked it.  It was only later that I realized it was the weekend of Palm Sunday, and the beginning of Lent.  I've since decided I to give up group tours for Lent, so now I sleep the untroubled sleep of one who is no longer required to present herself in the lobby of the hotel at 6:45 am for a guided visit to the local chopstick factory.  It is bliss.

A typical street in Hong Kong near our first hotel.  And I didn't TRY to get a McDonald's in the shot, they're just everywhere.  Outnumbered only by 7-11s, which are more numerous than Starbucks in Vancouver. 

The hotel I'd booked, sort of by mistake, turned out to be in an enormous tower called Chungking Mansions.  I thought I was booking a place recommended by the LP, but it turned out that it's very easy to get mixed up about hotels in Hong Kong, since each place seems to have several names.  Chungking Mansions, though, turns out to be somewhat notorious.  As the LP says:

"Chungking Mansions has been synonymous with budget accommodations in Hong Kong for decades.  The crumbling block rising out of the prime real estate of Nathan Road is stacked with dirt-cheap hostels, guest houses, curry houses, immigrants and all manner of merchants.  Rooms are usually miniscule and service is as rudimentary as you'd expect in the cheapest accommodation in town.  And while it can seem pretty bleak, you can take comfort in knowing it used to be much worse."

Not exactly glowing praise.  The place I ended up reserving was… ok.  I thought I'd reserved a "Single Deluxe" room, but the guy ended up putting me in what purported to be a triple.  In fact there was, technically, space for three people to lie down – a double bed and a single bed, with about 14" of space between the two.  There was also a tiny private bathroom, and a tv, and a wired internet connection.  All in all, though there was not room enough to swing even  the vague notion of a cat, it was acceptable.  Except for one thing – there was no window. I thought I could handle this, but one morning waking up in the same total darkness that I'd gone to sleep in convinced me that I deserved an upgrade. 

A bit too gulag for my tastes these days… 

I stayed the two nights I'd paid for, but at the first chance I went to check out the LP-recommended place I'd always intended to find, and it was much better.  For the same price – a mere three hundred Hong Kong dollars (about $40 CDN) – I got the window I wanted, and wifi.  It's a place where I'm happy to unpack in for a few days.

But back to that first Saturday.  I had no real plan once I'd unpacked back in my cell at Chungking Mansions, except that I wanted to wander around to check out the neighbourhood.  It turned out that my location in south Kowloon – that's on the mainland, not on the actual island of Hong Kong - was very close to the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Hong Kong Museum of Art, and Hong Kong Space Museum.  Wandering around my eye caught on a big banner advertising a production of "The Turn of the Screw" and I realized that I was completely at liberty to go to that show if I wanted.  There was no one else to consult, no group consensus to be reached, and nothing to do but turn my footsteps towards the sign and ask a few questions.  It was brilliant, and invigorating, and reminded me of why traveling alone can be so much fun.

Well I didn't go to "The Turn of the Screw" – it was sold out.  But I did go to a show that night – a production of Mozart's opera "Cosi Fan Tutti" at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts.  The show was good, and it was especially fun because it was all students – the full orchestra, the singers, the technicians – it reminded me of my own teaching experiences, and put a whole different spin on the evening.  I even had dinner before the show in the student canteen, which was cheap and filling.  And when those kids took their final bows that night (it was their last performance) you could just see the pride and relief and happiness in all of them.  Much more heartfelt and heartwarming than a professional production. It was great.

My mood in Hong Kong is also helped along a lot because I've got a new local SIM card for my phone and though I can't seem to send text messages, it will connect me with all the fancy data services that make the iPhone so sexy.  And let me tell you, traveling with a fully connected iPhone is totally brilliant.  Now that I'm on my own again, my natural ability to proceed unerringly in exactly the wrong direction has reared its head again.  I am completely unable to tell south from north in Hong Kong, and this is a significant obstacle to successfully navigating around the city.  With the iPhone and Google Maps I always know where I am, and even what direction I'm facing.  Even the simple compass function has saved my butt several times. If there was ever any doubt in my mind about whether the outrageous sum I paid for that phone in Dubai was worth it, it has long since vanished.

On Sunday I had a full day checking out some of the tourist sites on the island of Hong Kong.  I started out by taking a double-decker tram all the way out to Sheung Wan, in the west end of the island.  Hong Kong has the world's only double decker tram system, and it's fun and cheap, only $2.00 HK (about 30 cents) for a ride.  I was lucky enough to snag a seat on the top deck, and had a great time watching Hong Kong roll by.

The view of the top deck

Out in Sheung Wan I did a little walking tour of the neighbourhood and had a really nice lunch.  I actually ended up using a knife and fork for all three meals that day, which is the first time that's happened since I arrived in Beijing.  Sheung Wan has a few touristy Western style spots like the place I had lunch, but a lot of it is still quite traditional, and the area I started in was packed with shops selling dried seafood and other critters.  These are all over the place, not just in Sheung Wan, but also in most commercial areas.  Some are obviously small Mom and Pop places, but some are very posh, with fancy decor and mirrors and elegant display cases.  It's almost like a jewelry store, except instead of diamonds and precious metals, the bins are full of unidentifiable shriveled brown things.

Critters like these guys.  I don't know if they're food, or medicine, or offerings or home decor…

There were a few nice street market areas too, including one that had antiques and bric-a-brac.  (Nice photo of interesting watches and clocks with magnifying crystals is posted over at Flickr, just for you, Ian.) After wandering Sheung Wan I made my way to the world's longest escalator!  In fact, it's not a single escalator, but the longest escalator system. According to Wikipedia: "In Hong Kong, tens of thousands of commuters travel each work day between Central, the central business district, and the Mid-levels, a residential district hundreds of feet uphill, using this long distance system of escalators and moving walkways. It is the world's longest outdoor escalator system (not a single escalator span), at a total length of 2,600 feet (790 m)."  It was pretty cool, though I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't one enormously long escalator (like on The Simpsons!).

Here's me, at the bottom.

The escalator goes right through the SoHo district, and you could look out over the streets as you rode by and check out the many many many restaurants and shops.  Eventually I split off from the escalator system and headed for the station to catch the aforementioned tram to Victoria Peak (know locally simply as "The Peak").  The tram has been in operation since 1888, and was built as a means of opening Victoria Peak up to residential development.  It's mostly used by tourists now, though still available for residents.  There are even intermediate stops on the way to the Peak, for people who live part way up.  It was a bit of a madhouse when I was there, since it was a sunny Sunday afternoon and the tourists were out in force.  I had a fairly long wait to get on the tram because it's quite small and the crowd was quite large.

When I finally got on the ride was nothing special, except for the somewhat nervous-making bits where the grade was about 48%.  At the top I'd been expecting a sort of verdant park-like area with a nice lookout and perhaps a small and pleasant café.  Instead, the tower at the top was more like a big mall with a Madame Tussaud's and tons of restaurants and weird shops selling things like remote control cars that would drive on the wall and micro-sized video projectors built into sunglasses and crap like that.  Very odd.  There was a nice lookout, but you had to pay extra to access it (Thank you, Octopus card). 

At least the view was good

I wandered about, took lots of photos, and then left the weirdly commercial area to seek out that verdant park-like business that I'd come for.  I found it a little way further up the hill where there was a small park filled with local people and kids and dogs.  I sat and read my book for a while, rested my feet, and contemplated doing a 3.5 km walk that looped through even more verdant hilliness.  My brain was vaguely in favour of the notion but my feet were strongly opposed and carried the vote 2-1.  So I made my way back down on the tram and to the metro and returned to my temporary 'hood.  There I hastened to the Irish pub down the street from my prison cell where Happy Hour had already started.  I enjoyed a nice pint of Guinness on tap and an all-day full Irish breakfast, and watched the last few matches in the Hong Kong Sevens rugby tournament.  (Canada won the Bowl. Or the Spoon. Or maybe it was the Spatula.  Something, anyways. They award a lot of prizes named after dishes and such in this tournament.  But yay Canada!)

It was a great first few days in Hong Kong.  I felt reinvigorated and happier to contemplate the remaining two months of my trip than I've been in a long long time.  And there's more to tell about Hong Kong too, so as usual you'll have to wait for me to stop doing things long enough to write about them.  But don't hold your breath because there's a lot of doing still to do.