Hong Kong
Hong Kong is interesting. I really like the three dimensionality of it. The city is nestled along the coast in front of a small mountain appropriately named,The Peak. As the city starts to climb up the edge of the hill, the streets become steeper and steeper. To aid in the walkable attractiveness of this city, they have built an outdoor escalator that must go for a mile or more up the hill and through all of the windy streets filled with restaurants and shops. It stops and starts again at each intersecting street so that you can jump on and off wherever you need to...brilliant really. And the city is incredibly multicultural, with tons of business people and expats from all over the world.
Wooloomooloo is a neighborhood in Sidney! The first picture is from Hong Kong, the second from Oz...
I loved the skinny and tall trollies...
Hee hee hee...sorry, I couldn't help it. These two places were right next to each other...
Shots for sale at 7 Eleven!
You can also, if you're slightly crazy, walk all the way up through the city, then continue walking up to the peak and skip the escalator and tram, like Charles and I did. It would have been a good walk (oh, my poor calves) even without the heat, but with the heat...oh my. I was bright red...and it was a pretty cool day compared to our previous few weeks. But it was really great to get a bit of exercise. We were excited to see the view of the city and port from the top, and were disappointed in this endeavor in two ways. First, the pollution was so thick that we could barely make out the outline of the buildings, and second, they have built a mall at the top! So it was incredibly touristy feeling and overrun by people. oh well...still a good walk.
Eww..
"Dog Latrine" - awesome!
I have no idea what this sign means...
Our classy, brand new Best Western...
The food was a bit disappointing. We were curious to see how the intersection of east meets west would play out in the local cuisine. Of course, because of the number of expats and business-types, there were a million restaurants catering to whatever type of food you may crave. But we wanted to know what the "local" food was. So our friend, Mongkut, who lives here, took us to a "traditional restaurant." Funny enough, we had passed one by unknowingly earlier in the day and had passed it up because it had everything from Chinese food to Borscht to Italian pastas, and as a general rule, we pass on the places trying to do way too much. It turns out that these diner-like places have become the local food. We barely saw any non-natives here and ate interesting things like dumplings covered in tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese! Because of the country's history as a major port, and because the island wasn't even populated until the British declared it, it's traditional fare is a multicultural mishmash that doesn't sound particularly good, but frequently turns out to be a tasty treat...like my dumplings.
In the most densely populated place on the planet, where many people can't afford their own places and actually live in cages...seriously, they're like bunk beds enclosed with wire caging.
Macau
We took the ferry over to Macau and spent one afternoon walking around. We were curious about this former Portuguese colony that has a gambling revenue two times that of Las Vegas...what
does that look like. Well, not quite as interesting as you might think. Yes, it's interesting to see Portuguese colonial architecture mixed in with the traditional temples and the sardine-style apartments, but it wasn't all that. Mostly it just felt kind of grungy...though I did enjoy the tiny, snaking streets.
Some of the nicer, more touristy spots...
More doggy latrines...but here called Water Closets...
A tree taking back..."Go tree!"
Charles, of course, was interested in what the food would be like...for example, the national dish is called "African chicken!" what?! I guess it makes sense that there would be a mix between the various colonies of Portugal, as well as from the general global trading that went on here. Unfortunately, all the dishes we tried were not incredibly exciting. Not bad, but not that great either.
The casinos were similar to Las Vegas casinos, though perhaps a little less over the top. Strangely enough, barely anyone was drinking! And there were tea carts going around. So strange. Las Vegas seems to rely on people gambling more because they're drinking...but not here. No one is just standing around and gawking and just enjoying the party atmosphere. Here, it is all business...and the minimum bets all seemed to be higher. So perhaps that's how they manage to have such a high revenue...gamblers are there to gamble, not to party. It's a much more serious business, and they get right down to it.
Of course, there was still shiny stuff to look at....
South Korea
Such an awesome place. It's perky, polite and best of all, chilly! Yay! I was finally out of the tropics, and even wearing a long-sleeve shirt! such a welcome change.
Unfortunately, we had only 20 hours to soak up the culture and, more importantly, the food...So, we booked one night at The Bong House (run by Mr. Bong himself), where you have no choice but to look like this...
While there we met up with a former student of Charles's, whom we had never met in person, and ate pizza with sweet potato mash stuffed in the crust....holey yum batman! I know, funny to go to Korea for the food and eat pizza first, but hey, what can I say, pizza is good. Charles had had it before when he worked in Korea and we decided it was a must-do (don't worry, we had some street noodles later that night and got Bibimbap the next morning). After that we spent the evening walking around the city. I really love the perky atmosphere here. Every area we walked around had the perky vibe of a college town, mixed with narrow streets and several levels of shops. It is similar in that way to Hong Kong, but at the same time, has a completely different feel - it is all shiny clean, everyone is really nice and noticeably much more sensitive to personal space. I loved it and would love to come back some day.
The ever-growing obsession with K-pop is evident everywhere you go...
Largest Dunkin' ever!
