Day 9 - Hong Kong

This is the view from the apartment
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So this is Hong Kong. Well when people said that this city was dirty I was expecting “back alley in Vancouver’s China town” kind of dirty. I didn’t for one second think that it meant that even the buildings were dirty. This is a dirty dirty city.

We woke up at a modest 11 AM. I felt great, but several times through the night had been woken up by the heat right before the AC kicked in.

Broken concrete jungle

Amy and I both showered. The shower at the apartment is just a showerhead in the bathroom. Have you ever stayed in a camper or motorhome that has a showerhead above the toilet? You can sit on the toilet and shower at the same time. Those are two birds that I never even planned throwing the same stone at.

Fighting for a TV signal
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You have to wipe down the floors and toilet etc when you are done. “Try not to get the toilet paper” I was told. There is a drain at one wall. At least the bathroom is always clean.

So Grandma, Uncle, Amy and I all went down the street to a café for “brunch”. Noodle soup with two fried eggs, bread with butter. The coffee here is thick milk with coffee flavour in it, it doesn’t quite have the kick that I am accustomed to.

After brunch we headed back to the apartment. Everyone chit chatted for a while, so I just sat and read my book. Not even sure what they were talking about. Uncle and Aunt speak pretty good English, but they don’t use it much unless they are talking directly to me. They are both really cool and funny.

Uncle took us on a walk about to see a few sites. We walked through a flower and plant market that is extremely busy in preparation for Chinese new year next week.. Then up “Bird Street” where vendors are selling thousands of beautiful pet birds (all of which belong in the sky, not in cages).

It is extremely interesting to see old men that come to this area with their pet birds in very fancy cages with fancy dishes in them and fancy pooh paper. They hang the cages in a line on a horizontal pole, sit on a bench together, then admire and compare birds. Fascinating. I didn’t have my camera unfortunately. Amy got a few good shots though. I will try to go back and get a few photos of the men with their birds displayed.

From there we carried on to see Amy’s kindergarten. We walked up past the neighbourhood to a huge indoor electronics market. It was impossible to move in the place, so I only lasted about 15 minutes.

From here we went home for a few minutes and then left again to meet Auntie Amy in the shoe shopping district. We looked at shoes for hours. I found another pair but haven’t bought them yet.

We ate at a Vietnamese place and then went shopping some more! Bought a DVD and came home. Amy’s parents have now arrived. There is a huge controversy about us even staying in the same building together here.

Now I am here writing. The wireless hijacking around here is difficult and unreliable. Time to watch the DVD.

Hong Kong smells like glass, meat, and curtains.

All of todays photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/babyblues6/Asia2007Day9